I was honored to be interviewed by Virginie Wéverberg, a student in communication at the “Université Libre de Bruxelles”. Here’s the really nice article she wrote on my experience: Dream your life or live your dreams… François de Halleux made his choice – The story of a talented travel photographer by Virginie Wéverberg It is [...]
In 273 days I covered 32938 km crossing 22 countries to finally make it back home without taking a single plane! I’m quite amazed myself that I managed to stick to my only rule without any prior planning. It wasn’t easy though and I had to considerably change the initial itinerary I had naively drawn [...]
Arriving in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, is a surprising experience. People most definitely look very different compared to Central Asia. Certainly a lot more European but not totally either. I was for example immediately identified as a tourist and locals spoke to me in English before I even said a word… Georgians speak very differently too! [...]
After leaving Uzbekistan, I went by train to the town of Aktau in Kazakhstan to catch the infamous cargo ship that would take me over the Caspian sea to Baku in Azerbaijan. This cargo ship is renowned for having no fixed schedule whatsoever. When I arrived in Aktau on the 2nd of June, the last [...]
Many Kyrgyz people were frowning at me when I told them I would visit Uzbekistan afterwards. According to them Uzbeks are arrogant and not friendly at all! The recent events in Osh illustrate this in a very dramatic way unfortunately. At my first stop on the way from Osh to Tashkent, I was rather surprised [...]
During my trip I have seen many environmental disasters. In fact, everywhere I go they seem to have become the norm rather than the exception. There is always a good excuse or reason. In Indonesia, I have driven for two days in Sumatra without seeing the natural rainforest, only endless plantations of palm trees, grown [...]
Crossing the border to Kyrgyzstan reminded me the crossing from Vietnam to China, it had the same magical sensation of entering a totally different world. Of course, there had been earlier signs of this big change in China, as I entered the province of Xinjiang and the wonderful city of Kashgar. It is there that [...]
My first real “culture shock” on the trip occured when I crossed the border from Vietnam to China. Suddenly, all signs became totally unreadable, and communication a whole lot harder. Nobody speaks English at the border town of Hekou, just as in most other parts of China! In all honnesty, I had feared entering this [...]
My initial goal was to cross Tibet from Chengdu to end up in Kashgar. But as I started looking more deeply in the actual details, it soon became clear that it would be impossible: a special permit to visit Tibet, an ‘Alien Travel Permit” and “Military Permit” to visit regions outside Lhasa, being accompanied by [...]
Many travellers had warned me on the way: “be careful in Vietnam, the locals are really unfriendly and dishonnest!”. At some stage I even considered skipping Vietnam alltogether and going straight from Laos to China. But finally, I thought I wouldn’t pay too much attention and give Vietnam a chance. The first surprise came at the [...]