Lars Bengtsson

1. Do you believe your experiences have had a positive effect on you?

Absolutely. I´m a total different person today. My travels have formed and changed the way to think, act and on how I see the world. Before I started travelling, I guess I was afraid – in the same way many people are afraid today. For example, about fear of unemployment and the economy, from not fitting in with society and fear of thousands other things.

But after so many years on the road I´ve learned that there is really no reason to be afraid. The biggest lesson I got from the road is that our world is a safe place. Really. The world in general doesn’t look like the BBC News. If you run into problem, there will always be someone who will get out of their way to help you. And when you have learned that the world is a safe place – the other problems will solve themselves. Today I am not afraid to become unemployed or not fit in with society. I know it will take so much more to knock me down. After years on the road you really get a much wider perspective than you would from small life in a small town in rural Sweden. I am not afraid any more.

2. Have your experiences changed the way you view other cultures? Humanity in general?

The whole world has, as you know, really gone nuts when it comes to fear of a non-existing threat from Islamic countries for example. Almost ten years has gone by since the 9/11 attacks but the fear is still alive and growing, which is very sad.

Me, on the other hand, have spent a long time in about 15-20 Muslim countries over several years and have never had a bad day. Sometimes I wonder what I would be thinking of Islamic countries and the many other minority cultures within them if I had never travelled in them. Maybe I would be one of the many people who feel an unnecessary fear too. Who knows?

At the same time I wish that ordinary people in Muslim countries had more opportunities, so they too could travel around the world and learn about atheism, the West, Christianity, Mother Earth herself and so on. Metaphorically speaking, the best way to build a bridge between two cultures is to start from both sides of the river, not just one side. Things are never painted in black and white but in every colour imaginable. Islam is misunderstood in the West and the West is equally misunderstood in the Muslim world.

I am afraid that if the bridge over the broad cultural river is built from one side only, the whole thing could turn to neo-colonialism. And we have seen that road before, haven´t we? And we don´t want to walk that path again.

But of course – an average woman in Yemen just can´t go to Canada or Romania or Chile for a couple of months to learn and hopefully got a wider perspective about the world and it´s people – but it would be amazing if she could. Today only people from the West can afford the luxury to do that kind of travel.

3. Would you encourage others to a embark on a similar journey/s to your own?

Yes, definitely. Well, I don´t mean that all of us should cycle around the world, but I see few problems when it´s coming to young people who travel around the world alone or with friends. To travel is simply to learn about life and the world in a way that you never could do in schools.

Sometimes I think that the last months at all colleges should be far away from the classrooms and instead take place in another country other than your own. Of course I understand that´s not possible, but play with the thought for a few seconds… You would learns so much more if you could spend three months abroad than you would do in the same time on the local school bench. In reality this is not possible, but teachers should definitely do their best to convince the pupils to go travelling after exams.

From a more private perspective, with my bicycle trips in mind – yes, you can do the same thing. It´s a very peaceful way to travel and you get away from the towns which can be a little bit tricky as a backpacker. The most friendly people in the world are not those working in the tourist industry, they are ordinary people in ordinary towns and villages – and those people can be hard to meet without your own transport. Besides, if you go in a bus or with a train – you just can´t stop and smell the beautiful roadsides flowers as you can do when you are on a bike!

4. Do you believe if more people would experience extensive travel it would have a positive net effect on a community overall ?

Yes, because people have to see the world with their own eyes. It´s not enough that I or other people say that it´s safe to travel alone in the African bush for example. I spent at least one year of my life there – cycling from village to village. But my word alone is not enough to convince most people – for them Africa is still a dangerous darkness full of child soldiers, corrupt officials, dangerous animals and hostile people. It’s also equally unhelpful to say that Africa in general is a perfectly safe place for a tourist.

Most people just don´t listen or understand what I am talking about. So they should really go there and have a look for themselves! I wish everyone could understand how it is to meet a local Fula herder in the highlands of Guinea just as you light the fire where you later will cook your evening meal or how it is to hear the women’s friendly laugh when you fill up the water bottles in a well in western Tanzania or how it is to get invited for a cup of tea by a shop owner in northern Sudan. These are all small moments from the real Africa and at the same time an unknown Africa for the majority.

5. Do you see a future for adventure and exploration within humanity?

We are living in the time of tourism. We have never travelled so much as we do today – just a few decades ago it was not common at all to travel widely – only the most adventurous set out on journeys on other continents. Today though, it´s completely normal to do that. I can somehow see a change in how we travel – people who would stay at home just a few decades ago set out for extended trips in southeast Asia and South America today– and people who would have done that a few decades ago set out around the world trips on bicycles or motorbikes nowadays. The whole thing goes towards a much more extreme variant of tourism. Things which were extreme yesterday, are normal today and lame tomorrow. Like music or movies – it’s the same thing.

I have been a part of the bicycle-touring world since 2004, when I left Sweden for my first long trip. Even in this short period I have seen an enormous increase in the number of people cycle-touring. In the nineties there was, as far as I know, only one Swede who cycled through Africa. But in the last 10 years I know at least 7-8 fellow countrymen who have done so – including myself twice. This is exactly what I am talking about. And it seems that more and more people do this kind of trip for charity too. That is, as far as I know, a new thing. I never heard that Mungo Park, David Livingstone, Ibn Battuta, Sven Hedin, Wilfred Thesiger, Ernest Shackleton or the rest did their trips for charity? Well, that could be explained by the much higher economic wealth in the West that we have today – maybe the everyday-life in the 19th century was just too hard to do charity for people in other countries.

But this is my answer of your question. Explorers and travelers will do more and more extreme journeys in the name of charity. And I hope it will work in the way they wish – so their charity will find the right way. Charity is not just to give – it how it´s given. You can say that the West has made three enormous mistakes in Africa: slavery, colonization and charity in the wrong kind of way – a charity can sometimes hinder more than it helps the people of Africa.

Lars Bengtsson - February 2010