Daniel Sillekens has covered 2,12,200 km on his bike over five years. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

On how it all started
Ironically, I hated bikes till the age of 25. I grew up in a German village of just 900 people and camped and fished with my parents. Suddenly, just after I turned 25 in 2003, I rented my friend’s motorcycle on a whim and never looked back — I travelled through Scandinavia, Iceland, Finland, the Pyrenees, and Spain on a bike, which I later bought. I knew I had found something I wanted to do — frequently — for life.

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In September 2010, I overheard someone at a family wedding, speaking about a guy who had travelled across the world and spent €80,000 on hotels! That night, I Googled how one could go around the world on a motorbike and drew up a path. The next day, I called my father and my employer (I was a customs agent), and told them about my decision. That’s how simple it was.

On shocks, surprise and everything in between
When I started out, I headed toward Syria, the Sinai desert, the rest of Africa and then toward South America and so many things startled me. On my first night at Syria, I was flabbergasted to have to park my bike out on the road because the place I stayed at didn’t have a garage. The same thing happened in Greece. Compare it to what happened when I was in Canada recently — I left it behind at the port under the care of stranger for a week and took a ferry to Alaska.

Within six months, I tore up all the plans and budget lists I had made back home. I have cleaned up computers by installing softwares and got a stay free. I’m open to any surprise now. The first time a guy on a highway in Paraguay offered me free stay for two weeks, I was suspicious, now I would readily go along. The biggest culture shock was being in Peru — that country is poorer than some north African countries and that really puts you in despair. There are dogs in the waiting rooms of every hospital — picture that.

The best time I had was in Central Asia, in Iran. My bike oil compartment broke when I was in Malaysia. Iran was my next destination. At a railway station, a guy saw me dejected, leaning on my bike. He happened to be a member of one of the two biking clubs in the whole country, and he fixed my bike oil compartment for free! I would have had to sell the motorcycle if it hadn’t been for him.

On the idea of home
I will never go back and settle in Germany — I am glad to have gotten away from the myopia that is Western Europe. I am very taken with Argentina and that’s where I will end up when I stop my tour, which is maybe a decade from now. I’ll find a girl whom I want to marry, and travel with her afresh.

On Mumbai
I’ve been to Chennai, Udaipur, Jaipur, Bundi, Agra and Goa, and now Mumbai. But what I am actually here for is the Himalayas. I will then head to Myanmar.

What amuses me most about Mumbai is how, when you ask someone in a local train for your destination, the answer,
unfailingly is, “Next”.