Cycling the world with a message

Ram Chandra Manandhar, a Nepalese farmer from the Hetauda-6 municipality of Makwanpur, who has embarked on a 14 year cycling world tour to promote the message “World Peace, Free Health and Education for all, and Organic Production,” is in Macau after three years on the road.
With a special focus on organic production, because Manandhar is a farmer back in Nepal, the cycling tour also aims to promote world peace, as well as free health and education for all, in a solo but noble endeavor that will take him through 200 countries and will finish in 2021 on the top of Mt. Everest, with soil, water and flags from the countries he visited.
“I’ve started the tour in Nepal, in an inner country tour, where I’ve travelled to the 14 zones of Nepal and then I went to India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong and now Macau,” Ram Chandra Manandhar told the Macau Daily Times.
“After Macau I’m going to Taiwan, Korea, China, Mongolia, and after that, I will start in the Middle East, then Africa, Europe, North America and South America, and the last country to visit will be Australia,” he added.
With no government or non-government organisation support, Manandhar relies on the Nepalese expat communities living abroad, as well as on anyone else interested in his noble message.
“I rely on Nepalese expat workers in the countries I visit regarding food, lodging and general living things,” Manandhar explained.
But his three-point message doesn’t stand alone regarding building a better world.
“I’m not a professional cyclist, as I only used to cycle when I was a kid, but the idea of doing the tour on a bike is because, in addition to convey my message, I want to promote cycling as a clean transportation – slow but very popular,” he told MDTimes.
In addition to collecting soil, water and flags from the countries and territories he visits, Ram Chandra Manandhar hopes to meet with government officials to spread his message as high as he can.
“I also want to meet with local governments to discuss my message and ideas, and I’m waiting to see if the Macau government is willing to meet with me.” he said.
So far, Manandhar has only met with the Agriculture Minister of India, with whom he had the chance to discuss organic food production as a healthy alternative to ordinary agricultural production, as “organic production doesn’t use poison that can harm people.”
“I’m leaving Macau on January 15 heading to Taiwan but I really hope to meet with the Macau government before I go. It’s an ambition of mine,” Manandhar said.
Manandhar plans to return to his motherland Nepal via China with the mementos and flags collected during the 14 years the tour is planned to take, concluding the trip climbing Mt. Everest, the highest mountain peak in the world.