Luo Weixiao, a Sichuan native in his sixties, traveled 15,000 kilometers to France alone by bike along the ancient Silk Road routes three years ago.

Three years ago, Luo Weixiao, a cycling fanatic in his sixties from Sichuan province, embarked on a bike trip along the ancient Silk Road from China to France, telling stories about giant pandas to people of different countries on his way.

How did the old man become a bicycling fanatic in the first place?

It all started more than two decades ago when he was diagnosed as seriously ill. Luo went to a hospital to seek treatment for what he had thought was a cold, but the doctor told him gravely that his white blood cells numbered less than 3,000 per cubic millimeter of blood, barely half the average normal level.

“Don’t go to plateau areas for the rest of your life,” he was told.

Luo could not resign himself to such a verdict, and in order to reverse it, he started systematic exercises, including bicycling, doing push-ups, and swimming, among others.

“The reason is plain: I refuse to be a sick man,” Luo said.

Between 2005 and 2012, the retiree from the State Grid Corporation of China’s Ya’an Power Supply Company bicycled to and around all the 31 municipalities, provinces and autonomous regions on the Chinese mainland by himself. The easternmost point of his travels was Shanghai, westernmost Kashi of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, southernmost Sanya of Hainan Province, and northernmost Mohe of Heilongjiang Province. The trip to Tibet was the most memorable for Luo. On Sept. 28, 2008, when he reached Tibet’s Purang County, he had a serious arrhythmia, causing dizziness and a nosebleed. At that moment, he could do nothing but wedge tissues inside his nostrils and gasp for breath.

“Luckily, a kindhearted driver appeared and used the headlights of his truck to light up the road for me, which saved my life,” Luo recalled.

As Luo’s fame grew larger among Chinese cycling enthusiasts, he was given a number of nicknames, such as “Chinese Bicyclist Luo,” “Grateful Cyclist” and “Old-Age Veteran Cyclist.” But the one that made Luo most proud was “Giant Panda Grandpa.”

Three years ago, Luo did something that was considered crazy even for a young person. He started, without much planning, a cycling trip from China to the hometown of French biologist and missionary Armand David, who first discovered giant panda in Sichuan.

In January of 2017, Luo’s book about the trip came out, telling how he had started from Sichuan, left China via Xinjiang and reached France after passing through seven countries on the way.

During the trip, Luo avidly told people of different countries about the giant pandas in Sichuan.

Looking back on the 15,000-kilometer-long journey during an interview with West China Metropolitan Daily this month, Luo still had mixed feelings. For him, all the hardships and dangers he went through along the way, be it the scorching deserts or the ice and snow-covered mountain woods, were wonderful experiences.

A native of Ya’an, Sichuan, Luo had heard a lot about the giant panda since childhood and had even touched the animal. He knew perfectly well that giant pandas had become a calling card for the world to learn about Ya’an and China.

It was at the foot of Jiajin Mountain in Ya’an’s Baoxing County that Armand David discovered giant panda in May 1869. From there, David introduced the rare animal to the rest of the world. After China and France established diplomatic relations in 1964, the giant panda became an envoy for bilateral friendship as China gave France two giant pandas as a national gift in 1973.

The crazy idea of cycling to David’s hometown in France dawned on Luo in 2014, the year marking the 50th anniversary of China-France diplomatic relations. He would set out from Baoxing and pass through seven countries including Kazakhstan, Russia and Germany before arriving in France.

Luo said goodbye to his family and hit the road with a light pack at the beginning of 2014.

In order to finish the journey as scheduled, he made a plan to travel around 100 kilometers a day. Every day, he got up at sunrise and started the day’s trip immediately after washing his face and brushing his teeth. Most often, he had nowhere to buy breakfast, as it was still too early in the morning. Lunch was also unpredictable. He would consider it lucky if he happened to be passing through a town during lunchtime. However, if he was in the middle of nowhere, he could only eat the food he took with him or ride a long way before finding a decent place to eat.

For Luo, the most unforeseeable thing during the journey was the weather.

“I have to continue, rain or shine, in order to stay on schedule,” he said.

However, in practice, by covering almost 150 kilometers a day or more, Luo managed to stay ahead of schedule.

“There were indeed times when I was fearful,” said Luo.

Citing his feelings when crossing the Gobi Desert, he said: “Sometimes I could see no one for dozens of kilometers. This made me feel lonely and I had to stay on high guard against possible dangers.”

Luo’s journey was one of hardships and dangers.

He had a dangerous encounter the moment he stepped out of Chinese territory.

“I was held at gunpoint as soon as I crossed the national border,” Luo said.

On the afternoon of April 30, 2014, after Luo scrambled through the Chinese Customs and crossed the border into Kazakhstan, he was stopped by two Kazakh border guards who ordered him to go back. Scared, Luo could only stand still where he was. At that critical moment, Chinese border guards intervened, telling their Kazakh counterparts to refrain from further action, and at the same time contacted customs to verify Luo’s visa procedures.

A moment later, a message arrived through a walkie-talkie saying, “The Chinese man has gone through all the procedures for entering Kazakhstan.” Upon hearing this, the Kazakh border guards pointed their guns away from Luo and allowed him to go ahead.

Later, when Luo was in Poland, he cycled onto an expressway by mistake, which led local police to take out their handcuffs to arrest him. Luo shouted, “No!” before taking out a map with stamps of different countries along with photos of giant pandas, which helped him persuade the policemen of his purpose.

Despite the exhaustion and even hallucination from time to time as a result of high-intensity cycling, Luo would perk up to tell stories about giant pandas and China whenever someone showed interest.

In July 2014, Luo finally made it to France. His story was covered by media in and beyond France. He was also invited to the French National Museum of Natural History in Paris to share his miraculous and difficult experience. On the occasion, he gave the museum a flag which not only bore images of giant panda and Chinese dragon but also had almost a hundred stamps from eight countries on it. The museum, upon receiving the map, put a final stamp on it and held it for permanent collection.  

In his book about the journey, titled “Xing Wu Guo Jie,” or “Travel Has No Borders,” Luo said: “I wouldn’t say I am successful, but I would say I’ve tried my best — I did something I desired most, traveled the route I wanted to travel most, saw the scenery I wished to see most, and realized the dream I cherished most.”