The Great Adventure’s over for Benoît and Alexandre!

Benoît Bringer, 28-yr. old journalist-reporter, and Alexandre Franceschi, 29-yr. old economics teacher, have just wrapped up their world tour. After 9 months of travelling and a dozen countries visited, they’re sharing some of their impressions with us. Meeting with Alexandre.

How did you get the idea of taking such a major trip together?

We’d always wanted to take a long trip, drop everything and hit the road. The idea took shape at a transition period in life. The time had come.

What was the goal of this “Great Adventure”?

We didn’t want to make “just” a personal trip; we wanted to make our adventure part of a real project. Because of each of our jobs…we had to find an angle that combined our areas of expertise, and that choice became obvious fast: reporting on today’s youth.

What was most striking about your trip?

The hospitality, first of all: everywhere we went we were greeted with special attention and some of the encounters were really intense. Secondly, how easygoing the travelling was. Ella Maillart, one of the greatest explorers of the 20th century, told Nicolas Bouvier (who was worried about the condition of the roads between Geneva and Madras) in 1952: “Wherever people live, travellers can live”.

Did you run into any problems filming?

Not really. On the contrary, a movie camera offers a good excuse for approaching others and breaking the ice. Of course, in some regions, it’s better to keep a low profile and keep your guard up. I’m thinking of Iran, for example, where the police are on the lookout and where it’s hard to interview women…

Is there a story you’d like to share with us?

We were in a small Iranian town. It was cold and rainy, and we were waiting for a bus that we thought would never come. All of a sudden, five students came from nowhere and invited us to come and have a tea inside where it was warm while they took care of calling the bus company. We ended up never taking that bus and spent three (magical) days at their house. They didn’t speak English…we didn’t speak Farsi, but we spent whole evenings “talking”. We’ll remember that forever...

What did you get out of this trip?

Have you got all night? No, seriously, there’s really no way we could possibly explain it in just a few lines.

What’s next after this Great Adventure?

The plan is to broadcast our videos and exhibit our pictures. We’re working on that. Another goal is to keep the website http://www.lagrandeaventure.fr alive with updates. We’ve opened an area reserved for videos by other travellers. Benoît has already hit the road again and is currently in Kabul doing more reporting.

Was it easy to update your website on a regular basis?

Pretty easy. Internet’s everywhere now with decent bandwidth. We took off well-equipped (digital reflex camera, movie camera, computer and Pikeo phone) and thanks to the Shozu system on Pikeo, our pictures were posted in real-time on the site!

Alexandre and Benoît visited 12 countries: Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Japan. To learn more about their fantastic trip, rendezvous on their site http://www.lagrandeaventure.fr