TRAVEL FEATURE - ARABIAN PENINSULA
MARTA ZAJCHOWSKA ( W ) & ŁUKASZ GÓRNIAK ( P )
TRAPPED IN
PARADISE
Poland drew us home , the Coronavirus closed the world putting an end to travel , planning the next stage of an around the world ride seemed rather risky . We ’ d become stuck for a few months awaiting a flight back to Europe .
We ’ d started this third leg of our ride around the world in November 2019 , riding from Poland to Australia and return , Africa and the Americas had already been completed .
Our plan was to travel by land , as far as possible , through southern Asia then on to Australia to ride around that continent before moving on to New Zealand . We ’ d then ride through northern Asia back to Europe and Poland . Without planning it we ended up in Oman , in the Middle East , totally unexpected .
Iran had been closed to bikes larger than 250cc , we ’ d made it there before the close however a few incidents in the region and then Coronavirus put an end to that .
Saudi Arabia , with an opening of their borders was inviting , making the visa process easier than it had been a few years earlier . This had been brought on by a ten-year tourism development plan , inline with the hosting of the Dakar rally . The online process took just one hour . Nothing is impossible .
My dream of being in Saudi was so close . I ’ d convinced Lucas to take the ferry from Iran and explore the Middle East . We were completely bowled over by the area as we crammed the Arabic culture into two months of travel .
The Middle East is closer and easier than you think , it ’ s a great experience travelling like the overland sheiks .
The Arabian Peninsula is so close and the same time such a remote place to reach from any location , especially by two wheels . Until recently it was much harder , on one hand inaccessible from Iraq and
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