I started in 1970...

From a town called Jamshedpur in eastern part of India. I was in my twenties and a mechanical student, active in sports and eager to know about people and places but had no money.......
I was member in a youth sports club "Amal Sangha". One day I met a person Banshidhar Mukherjee (an employee at an automobile industry (TELCO)) who also wanted to see people and places. We both started planning to travel around on bicycle. It was not an easy task to fix the things around like passport bicycles and funds, because we both were from middle class families and had no sponsors. eventually we managed to fix the funds with the help of friends and started our journey on 17th February 1970 from my home town Jamshedpur.
A third person Shakti Prasad Potadar (a municipal employee) from Kolkata joined us in our trip, who also was planning this trip but could not get a companion.

On February the 22nd 1970 we started from Fort William gate, Kolkata on our five year long journey "Around the World on Bicycle". When we left India, we had only 45 US dollars each.

 The route
From India by boat (because Pakistan refused to issue visa) to Iran (via Muscat, Doha, Dubai, Bahrain, Kuwait) then by road through Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey via Istanbul to
Europe
Greece, Bulgaria,Yugoslavia (now Serbia), Hungary, Austria, West Germany, East Germany (During 70`s), Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France. England, Scotland, France, Spain, Switzerland ( here stayed Mr Potadar and we continued), Italy then over to Africa via Sicily.
Africa
Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya ( Mr Potader joined us again and followed up to Senegal there he left us again ), Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, Congo Kinshasa, Congo Brazzaville, Nigeria, Togo, Dahomey, Ghana, Ivory Cost, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea (Conacry), Gambia, Senegal here we (B D Mukherjee and myself) left our bicycles and hitchhiked across Sahara
to Algeria.
Algeria (once again) to Europe (because my friend lost his passport and all the money) via France back to England and London where we worked for few months and earn some money for the trip. We came to Nuremberg, West Germany where we worked for a month. From there we flew to Dakar, Senegal picked up our bikes and continued to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil with the same flight. Flight tickets Frankfurt to Dakar were donated by the Mayor of Erlangen (Nuremberg) and Dakar to Rio de Janeiro by Lion´s club Kampala, Uganda.
South America
Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia.
I was traveling alone from Colombia because my friend Banshi M had to go back to India.

Central America
Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala.

Mexico and USA..

I am sincerely greatful to the people who were kind and helpful to me during my whole journey. Without their help this journey would have been impossible.

Beautiful World

My present pic
My present pic
LOVE IS LIFE

Appa R Pentakota
E-mail: apworld1970@gmail.com