Thomas Kellenberger has walked 4,000 kilometers
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 9 March) – Thomas Kellenberger has now covered 4,000 kilometers in 185 days of trying to walk to the Philippines, and now he looks forward to spring.
Thomas and Swiss friend Marijn in a Turkey winter. Photo from Thomas’ islandkidsphilippines Instagram account
I met Thomas in Rüderswil, Bern when he was on an unscheduled two-week break to visit his grandmother and to take care of urgent matters, including attending successive benefit concerts for his “walk-for-a-cause” from Switzerland to the Philippines.
Thomas looked darker and leaner, his body had adjusted to the constant daily walking. “I never felt better,” he told me. With his Swiss friend Marijn, Thomas had walked up to 93 kilometers in a single day, each one pushing and challenging the other to walk longer distances. Together, they had walked more than the 30 to 50 kilometers, the daily goal that Thomas had set at first—pushing on to set 63 or 67 kilometers per day. From Asmara to Sinop in Turkey, they hiked 320 kilometers in only 8 days!
“I have got to know my body very well, I know exactly the amount of food I need to consume and at what time. So, I have not experienced low sugar or don’t have enough energy because I know how to take in the right amount of calories at the right time. So physically it’s going very well,” he said.
Thomas had started on August 25, 2021 his “Kuya Thom Goes Home” trek to raise funds to build a children’s village in Cagayan de Oro for Island Kids Philippines, a foundation that he had co-founded with Filipinos and Swiss in 2006.
In late October when I had caught up with him online while he was in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Thomas had admitted that at the start of each day, he had worried about the weather, and what kinds of people and situations he would meet, or where he would lay down his head for sleep that night.[]
What about when crossing the country borders, would he be allowed in? Would the border be closed because of the pandemic?
But now those days of needless worry were over, he said he had learned to trust in life and not to be afraid of what would happen. “In the months that passed over many countries, I learned to trust that things will go smoothly, that everything will go fine.[]
I don’t feel like a stranger in new places any longer,” Thomas told me.
It also helps a lot that nearly one-third of the fund target has been raised (Swiss Francs 68,184 as of March 2, 2022). Thomas is confident that there is enough time remaining to raise the remaining funds for the children’s village.
And also, having walked nearly a third of the estimated 15,000-kilometer route to the Philippines, he was already feeling confident that he could finish the whole thing even if it meant another winter before he finally reached home in Cagayan de Oro city.
Winter was tough for Thomas. He got sick with flu and had gastric problems in Kosovo and in Serbia and Bulgaria he had spent cold nights because of bad weather. In Istanbul, he and his friend Marijn had encountered a snowstorm and they had to turn back a few times. “We were freezing and it was windy and there was a lot of snow and our feet were cold and wet,” is how Thomas remembers these difficult days.
“I was happy I had Marijn with me,” said Thomas. “Together we could cheer each other up under bad conditions. If I was alone, it would have been much harder.”
In the past month, Thomas said he has learned to enjoy the daily walks (“I found walking is a beautiful way to travel”) and he has learned to trust that everything will go smoothly. “I met so many good people along the way, and I didn’t have bad experiences.”
While walking, he said he reflected on the epic journeys of the famous world travelers like Marco Polo. “The world has really become smaller. I think of the time that Marco Polo was walking, when they left it was really goodbye to their families and they might not see each other again. They were already cut off from what was happening back home. Their life was the journey.”
He is lucky, he says, because with modern technology he can still communicate with others and even join work meetings even while walking.
He says that while walking, he felt his goal became even clearer. “I felt this urge that I really belong there in Cagayan de Oro. I feel that I am moving forward, I know exactly where I want to go. It is a beautiful thing because I know where I belong, it is where my heart is.”
Now Thomas looks forward to resuming his walk in spring when the temperatures will not be so rough. He celebrated his 40th birthday on March 2 with his family and Swiss friends. In Europe, spring officially starts on March 20 and clocks will be set back an hour on March 27 when “spring time” will start.
Warmer temperatures while walking in spring will also mean that Thomas can leave behind heavy winter clothing and equipment with friends and he can travel lighter.
Thomas looks forward to walking with friends in the last two weeks in Turkey, in Kyrgyzstan and in Tajikistan. He plans to take the more direct route if he can get a visa to Iran; if not, his alternate route is via Georgia and then Azerbaijan, then from the capital city of Baku to cross the Caspian Sea to Uzbekistan and so on.
Near the end of my interview, Thomas has loosened up enough to tell me interesting tidbits on his journey. Like how in Istanbul, stray dogs are allowed to enter restaurants and are even allowed to sit in benches and are fed there.
The author with Thomas Kellenberger in Bern last February 2022.
Photo courtesy of Brady Eviota
“I am very impressed with how much the Turkish care for dogs. Even the government takes care of the stray dogs, visiting them in the streets and feeding and vaccinating them.”
He was told the Turkish have a saying that “someone who is good to animals is also good to people; and someone bad to animals will also be bad to people.” That is why the government believes they have to set the example, and the people in the communities follow them.
A lot of stray dogs walked with Thomas and Marijn for long stretches of the way and became their travelling companions. “They are very friendly and excited to see and join hikers in the highways. Some even followed us to the next village.”
And how about Thomas’ interesting discovery about Turkish coffee?
“I thought the Turkish always drink Turkish coffee.[]
The Turkish actually drink tea more, anytime and everywhere. Even in restaurants, after meals they offer chai to you for free as something complementary. In Bulgaria and in Kosovo, I saw people drink coffee all day long and they call it Turkish coffee. But when I got to Turkey where Turkish coffee is supposed to originate, I didn’t see them drinking coffee, I see them drinking tea. And the chai, it is grown locally, it is grown along the coast of the Black sea.”
“The so-called ‘Turkish coffee’ they drink it in the evening before they go to sleep! Which is a strange thing—drinking coffee before you go to bed!”
He says that during his walk he even came upon kindred hearts, like Murat and Olgun, two Turkish engineers and entrepreneurs who are helping the less privileged among their countrymen.
“Murat called us from the veranda of Olgun’s house in Samsun (Turkey) and they invited Marijn and me to tea and toast,” wrote Thomas in his Instagram post. “It marked the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Murat and Olgun had lived in the Netherlands. Now they have projects for people with disabilities, distributing up to a thousand wheelchairs all over the country and also designed and manufactured public loading stations for electric wheelchairs. They also organize holiday trips for poor children from the south.
Murat and Olgun introduced the story of Thomas’ walk for a cause to the Turkish media and also took them to the city mayors.
“Morat and Olgun are two beautiful people with hearts of gold,” says Thomas. “During this journey, I found many like-minded individuals, we attract each other somehow and it is beautiful to learn about the other projects and other charities.”
Thomas will resume his trek in Ordu, Turkey in mid-March. (By Brady Eviota for MindaNews)
You can track Thomas on his trek or keep in touch with him via Instagram accounts (islandkidsphilippines or Kellenberger Thomas), his Facebook account (Kellenberger Thomas) or on the Island Kids Philippines website (www.islandkids.ch)
(Brady Eviota wrote and edited for the now defunct Media Mindanao News Service in Davao and also for SunStar Cagayan de Oro. He is from Surigao City and now lives in Bern, the Swiss capital located near the Bernese Alps.)