Dr Stephen Fabes, 6 years cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries
‘They say that being a good doctor boils down to just four things: shut up, listen, know something, care. The same could be said for life on the road, too.’
In episode 8, I talk to Dr Stephen Fabes - a medical doctor who finally found his way home in 2016 after cycling the length of six continents - a six-year adventure across 75 countries and 53,000 miles.
When Stephen left his job as a junior doctor and set out to cycle around the world, frontline medicine quickly faded from his mind. Of more pressing concern were the daily challenges of life as an unfit rider on an overloaded bike, helplessly in thrall to pastries.
But leaving medicine behind is not as easy as it seems.
As he roved continents, he found people whose health has suffered through exile, stigma or circumstance, and others, whose lives have been saved through kindness and community. After encountering a frozen body of a monk in the Himalayas, he is drawn ever more to healthcare at the margins of the world, to crumbling sanitoriums and refugee camps, to city dumps and war-torn hospital wards. And as he learns the value of listening to lives – not just solving diagnostic puzzles – Stephen challenges us to see care for the sick as a duty born of our humanity, and our compassion.
His writing has appeared in The Guardian, the Telegraph, Geographical, CNN and the BBC among others. He is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, an inspiring public speaker and a regular at live storytelling nights. He currently works in the Emergency Department at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, and time off is for running trails. His first book, ‘Signs of Life’, was published in Autumn 2020.
W: stephenfabes.com
I: @StephanFabes
T: @DrStephanFabes
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00:00:09 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Hi, welcome to the Tales of Adventure podcast. I'm Chris, your host, and every month I'll be interviewing inspiring adventurers by overcoming hardship, taking risk, and doing it differently.
00:00:20 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
The podcast complements the live speaker series, which you hold in London every month, and it aims to document the learning that's got these stand out individuals to where they are now. Hope you enjoy this.
00:00:42 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Stephen, how you?
00:00:43 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Doing hi, Chris. Very good, very good. How are you?
00:00:47 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yes, not too bad. Thanks. Not too bad. Some really interesting times that we're in at the moment where.
00:00:53 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, life seems to be turned upside down.
00:00:55 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
That's it, I know.
00:00:57 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, but wait, if you if you wouldn't mind, can I get you to do a brief introduction of who you are and your recent recent expedition, please?
00:01:07 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah, sure. So my name's Stephen Fabes like my normal job is as a medical doctor, as I worked in A&E at.
00:01:13 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Saint Thomas's hospital.
00:01:15 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And this is going back to 2010, the 5th of January. I quit my job and wave goodbye to my friends and family from outside the hospital, and I set off on my bicycle and my plan at the time was to try and cycle the length of six of.
00:01:28 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
The Earth's continents.
00:01:30 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Didn't really know how long that was going to take. I'd been really absorbed by the tales of adventurers.
00:01:35 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And and and and long distance cyclists. And I was kind of inspired by them. And I'd I I I.
00:01:42
Left.
00:01:43 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Saint Thomas's Hospital we left into into the coldest European winter for 31 years, so I left it completely the wrong time of year, and as my my my, my, my first, my my last memories of of the UK were this getting attacked by large groups of children with snowballs all the way across Kent eventually.
00:02:04 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Returned back to the hospital and and that took just over six years. I'd cycled across 75 different countries and most of the time I was rough, camping, sleeping by the the sides of roads.
00:02:19 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And yeah, it's it's a huge adventure, really. I'd I'd undertaken a a bike ride through South America as a as a as a kid, as sort of 19 year old with my brother. So that was that. Had really inspired this journey, but it was just I think I just really wanted.
00:02:40 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
An adventure. I don't think there's any any sort of complicated reasons behind the the journey I got back four years.
00:02:47 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And I've since returned to my job as an A&E doctor back in the same hospital at Saint Thomas's, and I've been writing a book as well, which taken the last three years.
00:02:57 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Wow, my. I don't even know where to start.
00:03:00 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Like.
00:03:01 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
I've I've got your website up at the moment and like just the sheer facts you rode over six years, you rode across 75 countries.
00:03:11 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
And and covered about 53,000 miles that in that in its in itself is an incredible feat of human endurance to also balance it with being a medical, an A&E doctor before and after is wow, I've I've lost the word.
00:03:29
Yeah.
00:03:31 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Some of those countries were quite small, but I'm counting like Bosnia and Monaco, they.
00:03:36 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
They add to the like.
00:03:37 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
But but yeah, I mean, it was a long. It was a long journey.
00:03:43 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And I yeah, it was. I probably felt quite burnt out towards the end of the trip just because it had gone on so long. But one of the one of the things that for the last few years of the journey, I was visiting remote hospitals and clinics and medical projects and and that was.
00:04:00 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
As I suppose, I suppose as a response to this feeling, a bit burnt out and a bit tired and and and it was a it was a. It was a kind of trying to satisfy my own curiosity.
00:04:12 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And and try to write about these projects so that that kind of fired me up again and that was that was the sort of last year, the last few few.
00:04:20 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Years of the trip.
00:04:21 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah. Wow. I I I can't wait to dive into it. Start pulling us apart. So can you give us a brief summary of what route you took and then how you pieced it all together? And did you return home in that six years and?
00:04:35
Yeah.
00:04:36 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
So yeah, so I set off from my hospitals. I was all all the doctors and nurses outside waving me off off across Europe during this really brutally cold winter time and then cross the Alps. Even colder didn't have the right equipment. I was camping. It was just a quite a miserable time. The beginning of the trip.
00:04:56 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And I wasn't really prepared. I haven't done any training. My my attitude at the time was I have a lot of cycling to do. Why do any more? And so that's that that kind of landed me in it a little bit at the beginning and and it was a bit of a struggle.
00:05:09 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
So I got I got across here through to to. I was in sort of Greece and at this point I was having an issue with my knee. I it was clicking and there was a sort of a a mobile sort of lump within the knee. And I ended up getting an MRI scan and a a, a big chunk of cartilage.
00:05:30 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
To come loose in the knee, there's about A2 centimetre defects and and and there was sort of lots of micro fractures and and and there was sort of bone involvement as well. So it was a I I couldn't continue cycling after that. So that's the only time I returned home. So I got to, I got to in the end sort of limped over to Istanbul, I.
00:05:31 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Wow.
00:05:50 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
I I don't know if you remember, there was a volcano erupting in Iceland around that time and and all the the flights were cancelled. So I got stuck. I was kind of. I felt like I was kind of stuck. I couldn't get back, so I left. I ditched my bike in Istanbul and I hitchhiked home. So that took about 10 days to cross Europe again. Coming rides. And then I. Yeah.
00:05:53 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:06:08 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
So so hold a minute. Sorry, I love that he let you go. So. So you're in Istanbul and you're right. Need to go home. And so you you dropped everything off and you hitch type home back to the UK.
00:06:20 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah, it was just an excuse for a mini adventure. I guess I used to do a lot of hitchhiking as a kid. That was my probably my first taste of adventure.
00:06:28 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
There's he's standing outside my mum's house and then thumbing rides and and sometimes just kind of for the sake of it, really, just, like, not with any particular destination in mind. And I, yeah, I would like hitch to festivals and things like that. And so I had done a bit of that in the past, and I guess.
00:06:48 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
I just kind of wanted to.
00:06:51 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah, to to to, to have a a little adventure to get home.
00:06:57 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
I got home, had the surgery on my knee in my hospital and and then I was, I was about. Well, I don't know. It's fun to think that, like maybe 8 weeks or something at home having some physiotherapy and then I was I I. Then I flew back to Istanbul and from then on I continued.
00:07:16 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Trip. And that's the only time that I that I returned home. And so then it was still more than six years until I got.
00:07:24 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
The next part of my journey, so I was in the wrong. The being in the wrong place at the wrong time of the year as a theme to.
00:07:29 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
This.
00:07:30 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Trip because that was the the winter in Europe and and really just cause I was. That's when I was ready to leave. I I didn't really plan it.
00:07:37 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Particularly.
00:07:37 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Well, and then the next bit was Middle East in the in the summer time, so I was.
00:07:43 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Kind of this real, like sort of roasting heat all the way through Turkey into Syria just before the the war in Syria and then into came through Jordan into North Africa.
00:07:57 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
This stage I teamed up with my friend Naomi. She was some I was I was living with in London for a bit and we cycled together the length of Africa took about nine months and then from Cape Town I travelled to South America to Ushuaia. This closest.
00:08:17 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
City in the world to the to the South Pole and cycled from from Oshawa all the way up to dead Horse, which is right on the Arctic Ocean. So northern Alaska and Dead Horse is about as exciting as it sounds like. It's it's a very little that would attract anyone to dead horse this kind of.
00:08:34 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Bleak industrial outpost and it, and it's not really a place for travellers or even for citizens. It's it's just a kind of place for for oil workers working on the North Slope. So it's a bit of a, a bit of an out of the way spot with nothing really to offer anybody. And it felt like.
00:08:48 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
A massive anticlimax going there, but.
00:08:52 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Well then, I travelled from Anchorage. So a hitchhike from Dead Horse to Anchorage in Alaska and then flew to.
00:09:01 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Australia and from Australia I cycled the East Coast of Australia with my then girlfriend Claire and then we island hopped to Indonesia and then I was on my own again from Singapore cycling up across up through sort of Malaysia, Thailand.
00:09:22 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Into Myanmar, India. At this point I got stuck because I didn't have a visa. I chosen to go South of the Himalaya. I didn't have a visa to get into Pakistan, couldn't get one and there was no other way. It wasn't really possible to travel through Tibet.
00:09:37 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
So I was I was stuck. So I I decided I'd fly backwards to Hong Kong and then I'd cycle across China. But there was some other visa visa issue there was that it was. I only had a A, you know, a a month or two months with a renewal to get across China. So I thought I got to Mongolia again wrong time of year. I was I was in Mongolia in the winter time which was far.
00:09:58 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Older than than Europe in the winter time and it was -3540° -, 40 at night time, but across Mongolia into all the stands in Central Asia and back across Europe, and and back home and.
00:10:12 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah. And then and not long after that, I was shopping in Sainsbury's and pushing a shopping trolley along. And then I kind of my grip kind of shifted on the handle and I realised I was trying to change gear on.
00:10:24 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
The shopping trolley and that was a.
00:10:27 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
That was a sign, I think, that I've been travelling a little bit.
00:10:29 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Too long with.
00:10:30 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
A bicycle, but yeah, so that that was the entire.
00:10:33 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah.
00:10:36
Hmm.
00:10:37 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Wow. My God, you're you're talking tells Adventure is going to be absolutely incredible. I'm not sure. 4545 minutes.
00:10:48 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Time frame is going to be sufficient to get anywhere near to the amount of stories that you've you you will have from that your adventure. But can I jump sort of pre pre trip like what? What's then like your experience in medical school and what what? What kind of shape do you into once?
00:11:08 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
And take a a long a super long expedition. You know around the world. So it's it's cycling around the world, but in real macro detail isn't it?
00:11:17 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it was this.
00:11:23 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
This this journey through South America. So I was 19, my brother was 17 and we it was one of those ideas that you have when you're young where you just kind of feel a bit, you know, invulnerable and like, you know, up for anything. And I decided I was trying to cycle the length of Chile from from pantalones up to Erika.
00:11:43 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And that would enable me to travel through lots of different types of of climates and and lots of different terrain. And it was a huge misadventure, really. We made lots of mistakes cause we were, you know, teenagers and we.
00:12:01 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
We we run our money, we have fights with each other. I remember at one point I'm ******* my tent and not keeping anything to weighted down. And the wind just kind of carried it away. So we had all these problems and we and we of course we had no skills in in fixing bicycles either. So the bicycles fell apart. We didn't maintain them so.
00:12:23 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
But it was for me that that journey was was very much a an, A, a, a a turning point because that.
00:12:31 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Kind of introduced to me what it was like to travel a long distance by bike. That sense of vulnerability of being alone in the wilderness was was really intoxicating. That sense of adventure and the the sort of liberating feeling of being able to put your tent down anywhere at the end of the day. And and you'll always find a kind of find a bedroom as well.
00:12:54 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
All of those things the I guess the the uncertainty of of of adventure that the the unpredictability of it. I was really kind of drawn to that. So I didn't.
00:13:10 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Know if I would. I kind of had this plan after that, you know, it was kind of a what if I kept going moment when I got to the north of Chile and and, you know, eventually I thought maybe I could cycle around the world. But I I kind of half expected that idea just to be put to bed by the fact.
00:13:27 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
That I was a.
00:13:29 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
In a in a career that was pretty intense and that demanded quite a lot of you. So I was and I loved as well. To be fair, I really, really loved being a doctor and there was a bit of soul searching. There was a moment as I was.
00:13:46 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Working as a junior doctor where I had to, I wondered whether I was going to kind of follow this dream to cycle around the world, or whether I was just going to get on with my career and and progress up the.
00:13:57 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Ladder and.
00:13:59 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
I decided that that, that, that and it wasn't, it was quite a difficult decision, but then I decided I would. I would go for it and I would, I would.
00:14:06 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Start this this journey and and yeah, looking back, it's a good decision I.
00:14:11 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Think.
00:14:13 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Wow. And what?
00:14:16 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
What did? What did people say? What did your coworkers, your family? What did everyone? Although all those around you say when you said, well, I'm gonna embark on a around the world cycle.
00:14:27 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Very, very supportive, actually. And perhaps that speaks to sort of, you know the some.
00:14:33 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Of the you.
00:14:33 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Know privileges that you know had that people nobody was like, you know, don't do. Don't do that very very. At least very few people. There were some people I I worked with people. People generally just.
00:14:46 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Sort of. You know, supported me in in that in that in that goal there were some people I worked with who.
00:14:55 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Are very, I think medicine is, is, is is quite a sort of competitive field and there's lots of people who are very career centred and I think some of those people thought it would be a bit odd and that this might cause problems later on. But I I for for the majority of people when I explained my my plan.
00:15:16 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
I just got a lot of support, a lot of people wanting to help and I think I think that was the important thing I was doing early on is I was just telling everybody because that was a way for me not to back out of it. I you know, once you've told everybody, you kind of have to follow through. And also once you've told lots of people.
00:15:32 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Then when you're planning something big and ambitious like this, you need people on side because you're gonna need a bit of help in lots of different ways to get these kind of projects off the ground or also when you're on the road. So that was important as well to try and get people excited about the journey that I was excited about and then they'd I'd often then have people to turn to if I needed help.
00:15:52 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah. Well, and did he? Did he set out with any planned for the expedition or was it? Was it just? I'm gonna point my bike in this direction and then make a decision in three months.
00:16:05 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Time or or kind of.
00:16:07 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah, so I kept the roots fairly flexible deliberately because I remember from South America that that's what I really enjoyed was was changing your plan on a whim was kind of getting advice from other bikers and just going off in that direction or this direction and and and again, maybe sort of heightening that sense of unpredictability that was so drawn to.
00:16:29 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
So I had a rough plan and it was pretty much London, Istanbul and then Istanbul, Cape Town. And then I would figure out as I was.
00:16:40 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And I I think I did that pretty much the whole trip. I was there were certain places I had to get to because as as as the trip went on, I ran out of money. So I was having to then speak in international schools. So that gave me a little bit of a structure and I.
00:16:54 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Was.
00:16:54 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Also, of course, visiting these medical projects as well. So that was that they they were places to be at a certain time.
00:17:00 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
But mostly it was it was trying to figure this out as I went.
00:17:04 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Wow, that's my God. I love that. And what did you just say? You just said to friends and family and stuff. I'll see you when I see you. I I guess.
00:17:15 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Well, I had my mum, you know, she I had a kind of strict schedule. I had to speak to her at least at least every couple of weeks. But.
00:17:22
Yeah.
00:17:24 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Otherwise I didn't have a I didn't start off with a phone or computer, so I got some kind of like little netbook about 3 1/2 years in.
00:17:36 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
To the trip, but most of the time, most of the time I wasn't able to communicate until I got to an Internet cafe or something like that.
00:17:43 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Wow. So you, you're doing the expedition this this trip with sort of. No, no comms on to like the next to a support team or kind of the next village or the next town or or a city or.
00:18:00 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Thing that's.
00:18:00 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah, it's hard to imagine now, but actually I remember when, when, when I left. I I think I had one friend with a smartphone and when I came back, everybody had. So it was just in that it was just at that time of sort of early 2010 where it wouldn't have been that unusual. But now I suppose if you go cycling around the world, almost everybody has a phone. And when I meet.
00:18:09 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
This.
00:18:20 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Bikers at the end of my journey, it was they were all in contact with each other on WhatsApp. These vast, you know, network of touring cyclists in this or or touring cyclists in the same area, all kind of communicating with each other and swapping tips about routes and where to stay. And then, yeah, I didn't have that at the beginning.
00:18:39 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
But so yeah, definitely things have changed, yeah.
00:18:42 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah. And I've seen the the videos on your website. There's two incredible videos that that.
00:18:51 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You've obviously you've documented some some real high highs and some real challenges of the of the trip from the remote, the remote environments, the.
00:19:00 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
That, you know the difficulties you encountered by cycling with everything you need to live and then obviously the the incredible human connections that you made on the trip. Can you tell us a little bit about, you know, some of the highlights and low lights of the the chip itself?
00:19:18
So.
00:19:18 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
So I think for me the the most difficult times that start with that is the being on my own for long.
00:19:26 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Periods.
00:19:29 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
That was kind of OK in my own company, but I think that can go on for a bit too long and I don't think it's particularly good for anybody to be.
00:19:38 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
On their own for long periods, so they.
00:19:40 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And and it has an effect as well. I think the more time you spend on your own, we we think of sort of things like introversion and extroversion as being, you know, you are one or the other, but they're quite fluid. And I think I'd probably probably became a bit more introverted as a result of this spending a lot of time on my own. It was. So those were the more difficult times, not speaking to anybody.
00:20:01 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Some times for a long for for quite long periods. For more than a week in some parts of the world to couple of weeks.
00:20:09 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And the cold, I think was was definitely rank up. There's sort of the some of the most difficult things I had to deal with just because I'm not a big fan of the cold. And I went to some quite cool places along the way and I was obviously living outside and and that made things miserable sometimes. So.
00:20:27
Yeah.
00:20:29 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah, I think I think and and and just the general fed upness of having to live cheap and and and stuff got me down after a while living on less than $10 a day and and then always having to hustle to get a bit of money.
00:20:44 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
That those are the the the more difficult things the and and and frustrations with my complete ineptitude when it comes to repairing bicycles. I think my my professional insurers are very glad that I'm not a surgeon because.
00:21:03 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
I think it just makes the I think it just makes the story even more even even richer, because it's like like I can only imagine the amount of fortitude and resilience it would have taken to to be like ohh well, this this thing's broken. I'll have to wait here.
00:21:18 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
For a few days, until somebody passes on the road or. Yeah, I can. I can only begin to imagine those those moments.
00:21:22 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah.
00:21:27 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah, it's definitely easier to hand bike fixing duties to people more capable than I was, but.
00:21:34 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Highlights I think I mean, I would say what I would do is I would kind of make this, obviously I had to. I had a vague direction of travel. I'd I'd make up miles, sometimes I'm not the best Rd slightly busier ones, but then I would go off on these like mini adventures where I would take a very sort of circuitous route.
00:21:54 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
I would.
00:21:55 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Stick to unpaved roads. I was get up into the mountains. Get out of the way. Places where people often don't visit when I.
00:22:04 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
When I look at my route now on the map, it's those places that stand out. It's the wiggles that kind of stand out. I'm like that. They are the places where I have the most vivid memories from and and.
00:22:16 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
It was places that were extremely different to home. So often places that have got some sort of history of isolation. Yeah, that's Myanmar. When I was there, it was opening up. But I went to some quite remote parts. I hadn't really seen any travellers for a long time. And Mongolia as well.
00:22:36 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And Ethiopia, these are the places that really stood out in my mind as being very different, very exciting and and any of these.
00:22:48 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Mini adventures on the on the rough roads that that was I I I never regretted those those journeys and that those were the as I said, the sort of the, the, the best memories I have now.
00:23:00 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah. Wow. I I could only imagine having seen the videos now it it brings it to life even more. You, you, you you mentioned human connections in one of the videos. Was there any sort of stand out human connections where you were like this this happened to me in this part of the world or.
00:23:20 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
UM.
00:23:22 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Things that really just you know, were outlier moments for you.
00:23:25 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
So the first one would have been on my second day on the road where I was the first like. So my first one, I left Saint Thomas's I that was the hospital I.
00:23:40 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Was working at.
00:23:41 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
I didn't get very far. I got to the pub, which is about a.
00:23:45 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Half a mile down the road and I had a bit of a sort of moment of of what am I doing? And I was in the pub when some friends came down and I was eventually.
00:23:53 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Kind of cajoled to leave the pub, and by this point by this I've been there hours and by this point it was getting dark, so my first day as an adventurer ended 14 miles after I began in Bexleyheath in a bed and breakfast.
00:24:12 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
So that so I think every five, but then the next day I was in cycling through Kent and I said there's lots of snow record snowfall across the South of England and.
00:24:21 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
8000 schools were closed across the country and I was being attacked by big groups of gangs of kids with snowballs and but then? But but there was a a woman was like shovelling snow from her driveway in Sittingbourne in Kent, and she asked me what I was doing and I didn't really want to tell her.
00:24:41 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Because I felt a bit ridiculous that I decided during the coldest winter in 31 years to cycle around the world, that's when I was.
00:24:48 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Gonna start my trip and and she.
00:24:52 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Kind of like my story kind of came out in, you know, and she said, where are you staying tonight? And I I didn't really have an answer. She said well, come and stay in my house because kids have grown up. We've got a spare bedroom. You know, you can set off again tomorrow. We'll dry your clothes and all that stuff. And that was incredible act of hospitality. Right at the beginning of the journey.
00:25:14 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And in miserable Britain as well, you don't expect this kind of goodwill. But of course, there's something about, I think being an outsider. And I was, I suppose, a bit of an outsider. I was suddenly being taken from, you know.
00:25:27 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
I suddenly I was a guy on a on a bicycle, and so I was. I was welcomed. Then she saw that I was perhaps doing something a bit different and I was given a a bed for the night and and then six years later I knocked on her door and and she she they'd baked a cake in my honour and I really wanted to to complete the loop.
00:25:30 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:25:48 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And to kind of say thank you, because that was really the first of many, many acts of hospitality that I had in almost every country that I travelled through. So that was a really special memory for me.
00:25:59 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
I also I really enjoyed like meeting other bikers as well, and and I met a guy called Lianne in China who's who are cycled with for a very for a for a for a couple of weeks, but he and we didn't have much language in common, so there was a lot of sort of communicating by sign language and it was kind of quite interesting relationship we had.
00:26:19 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Tried to both on our own separate journeys and it felt like there was a bit of a cultural chasm between us sometimes, but it was.
00:26:30 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
My my whole perspective on China changed through meeting him and he was a kind of a bit of a guide, I suppose in in lots of ways. But he he took me under his wing and yeah, we had lots.
00:26:44 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Of.
00:26:44 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Communication disasters cause he would use his phone to translate.
00:26:49 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And his phone would sometime.
00:26:51 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Translate in very strange ways, so it would for example, one night he said it's too cold for the Praetorium and Praetorium wants out to look at a praetorium is like a general's tent within a Roman encampment. So his throne had just gone rogue and and we had.
00:27:10 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
He he used to say things like we are kinsmen and stuff like that. So it's just really endearing and it's like, but yeah, so but but meeting people like him as well. I remember meeting other bikers and cycling with them for a time was definitely something that stood out in my memory as being a kind of the the human connections that I really.
00:27:28 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Finished.
00:27:29 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah. Do. Do you still stay in touch with anyone that you cycled you met on the?
00:27:34 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Cycle or.
00:27:35 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yes. Yes, definitely. Yeah. So, yeah, I've got. And I feel like I've got places to stay in, lots of different countries. Now, if I ever go there, cause of people that I met along the along the way and and equally I'd love to host other bikers who I met in different places, who who I met on the road if.
00:27:53 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
They're ever coming through.
00:27:54 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
The UK, but yeah, there is, there's certainly.
00:27:58 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
I'm still in touch with a lot.
00:27:59 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Of those people, yeah.
00:28:00 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah. Wow, it's it's absolutely incredible. And and I'm guessing the expedition itself has reinforced your love of cycling or is it put your cycles all together or what's?
00:28:13 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
The the kind of.
00:28:14 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
I was a bit burnt out to be honest, and actually I haven't done a lot of cycle touring since I got home and that was about four years ago now and and and at the moment I I took I did need.
00:28:25 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
A an obsession to replace the the the cycle to the bike cycle touring and it was an obsession. I guess. You know, it was a bit of a sort of monomaniacal thing to do to sort of devote 6 and a bit years of my life just to basically cycling from dawn till dusk. And for me that's been running. So I think I I felt a bit of this emotional dip.
00:28:47 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
They came home and and that was for lots of different reasons, but one of them was certainly the fact that I felt a bit addicted to exercise and and I've been doing that for a long time and suddenly I'd stopped. And so for me, running was this was something that was a, a replacement obsession, really. And I got very.
00:29:04 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Sort of threw myself into that, joined various clubs and started racing every weekend and I think I ran 50 races last year so so it was and it and although cycling was not competitive in any sense, running of of started really getting interested in the competitive development of it.
00:29:15
Well.
00:29:26 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
So.
00:29:27 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah, got really into that and and and and still do a lot.
00:29:32 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Of that, at the moment, yeah.
00:29:33 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah. Yeah. Wow, it's, it's it's, it's funny you say that cause then.
00:29:38 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
We used to call it the post expedition Blues about when you do set off on a big, you know, endeavour and then you come back and then all of a sudden you you've got very used to the I guess the adrenaline, the stresses of being away and having to think very dynamically that you when you get home to, to, to.
00:29:59 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Quote unquote normal life, it can feel a bit of a a bit of a a downward step, but I guess it's just a it's just another transition that you go through when?
00:30:09 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah.
00:30:10 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
The same as when he.
00:30:10 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
When he sets up for these things.
00:30:12 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah, and it can be a bit delayed as well. It doesn't happen immediately. It can take a little bit of time because there's a lot of excitement about coming home and and you and you're suddenly reunited with all these things and people that you've missed, but then a little bit later down the road, you can definitely feel a bit crushed by this sense of maybe a bit of a sense of what.
00:30:32 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Next, you get a got very wistful for the sort of open Rd you know got very lost staring out the window lost in these sort of romantic memories of what it was like to have that sort of freedom.
00:30:44 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
UMI think there's lots of different reasons for that? Yeah. And it was something I struggled with a lot when I came home, I was back living with my mum again. You know, I had no money. My mum was really my mum was really into Levison Wood as well. That that adventure she was like, you know, she was like, I really love that.
00:31:04 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And say, well, he's such an adventurous guy and I'd be like mum, I've been cycling around the world for six years and she said, yeah, but he's so handsome, isn't he?
00:31:14 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And she took me. I remember one of a definite, like low point was when she took me shopping for clothes and I had no money. I. In fact, I was in debt to a lot of my friends and and I hadn't quite managed to get back to work yet. And she took me to Sports Direct. And she was, like, holding up the I was like, you know, at this point 35.
00:31:33 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Years old, going bald.
00:31:34 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And she's holding up kind of bargain jeans and asking me to try them on. And then I looked across and there was a kind of maybe 9 or 10 year old boy following his mum around the shop in exactly the same situation. And we swapped a little look that was just like, ohh, mums, you know.
00:31:51
And I just.
00:31:53 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And I just don't watch my life become. This is awful. But it did. Of course it didn't last. I've managed to move out of home and got back into my job and stuff and yeah, and. And then. And then I was very busy writing, writing this book so that that gave me a sense of purpose again.
00:32:11 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah. My God, that's it's incredible. It's, UM. Well, Lev Lev's been a tells Adventure Speaker back when.
00:32:17 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
The.
00:32:18 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
When it started in, I think 2014. So yeah, you know, it's interesting obviously that he he's been fired as well. And obviously now you've.
00:32:28 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You know, now it's your go and obviously I'm referring referencing Les, my God, I think it's. Yeah, just the whole, the whole expedition, the whole. I don't want to call it an expedition because it's it sounds more like it was it was this sort of, you know, a life challenge that.
00:32:32 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah.
00:32:48 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
But you know, got.
00:32:51 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Somehow fitted into a time when you, you know, you felt like you, you had to do something that was more than just career focused, which I think you know, it's incredible. There's there's not many people out there, certainly ones that I've come across that can say I I took.
00:33:07 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
A six year sabbatical to go and you know, follow my follow my wanderlust.
00:33:14 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah, it felt something. I just had to do at the time. Well, actually at the time, it was a difficult decision, but I think.
00:33:20 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Once I got.
00:33:22 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Going on the journey after I got through that cold winter, then I I really sort of fell in love with that. Yeah, and it and it felt like a lifestyle, you know, it it sort of started feeling less like a journey and more like, this is my life now. You know how to. And and there's a almost a sense of relief as well in that.
00:33:39 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
I used to have to make quite big decisions at work. You know that there's you have to decide on on what the diagnosis is and the treatments and and there is a a an amount of stress that comes with that that all doctors I think will recognise and and that that that responsibility. And when you're on the road you're like the the decisions are more like.
00:33:59 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
You know, should I buy some mayonnaise or like, you know, there's those decisions they don't really. They only impact you. And and there was a sense of relief I think, of of having this very.
00:34:02
That's right.
00:34:14 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Simple sort of life that I didn't really have to make big decisions and I just it was basically which Rd should I take and where should I sleep?
00:34:23 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah. And obviously, mayonnaise. Mayonnaise was lighter. Mayonnaise or hellman? Mayonnaise or.
00:34:31 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah. The more calories the better.
00:34:35 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Well, wait, is there an?
00:34:38 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You know is it helps your career? I mean I'm I'm presuming yes, that's six years of being on the road making making some real.
00:34:49 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You know, real life decisions has probably affected your outlook and you know your your career as a doctor, it's probably brought things a lot of things home and on you know how to best help your patients.
00:34:59 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah.
00:35:01 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah, definitely. I think it has helped me become a better communicator because like when I ran and started running out of money during this journey, then I thought, oh, I'm gonna make some I.
00:35:11 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Have to develop skills in order to.
00:35:14 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
To make money and and so for me, that was speaking in school. So I did a lot of public speaking as I travelled and and and that's that's of course a really important skill to have. And the other one was was writing. So I started writing freelance journalism for adventure travel magazines and then a bit for newspapers and.
00:35:20 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:35:34 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Again, it takes a very long time to to learn to, to write well and and that and that started because I was on my.
00:35:41 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Loan because I run out of money and I had to had to learn how to write but then also because I was on my own and I didn't have much to do in the evening. So I read a lot. So I read like a kind of.
00:35:49 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
A book a week as I travelled. Yeah. And that then was.
00:35:57 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah, it was. It was.
00:36:00 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Something that I was really obsessed by was was writing my blog every month.
00:36:06 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And that has now translated into a book and I, you know, I probably well, I do consider myself a writer now, and it's probably taking a long time to get to that. Good to get to that stage. But but that's I I suppose a a new career almost like that's I I I I've been working part time on the book and part time in the hospital.
00:36:27 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
So I consider myself to have those those two careers now.
00:36:31 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
The.
00:36:32 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
So the portfolio career, I think that's a really interesting term that somebody put to me recently when I said I don't really know what it is. I do. Of course you got a.
00:36:41 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Portfolio career so.
00:36:43 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
A portfolio career? Yeah, I like it. Yeah.
00:36:44 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, that's that's the new the new, the new term for it.
00:36:47 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
OK.
00:36:52 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
It's incredible. It's, you know, you think of all the things that you would undoubtedly learned and well learned and saw. And then what that's brought back to helping your patient and helping your helping your writing, giving you a whole tonne of work to do as well.
00:37:07 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah.
00:37:10 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Budget.
00:37:11 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah, definitely. For in terms of patience, yeah, you, you definitely have more things to talk about. I think if you've travelled to a specific area and and and. But obviously London is a very diverse city and we have patients who come from lots of different parts of the world. So it's sometimes it's quite nice to just chat about that.
00:37:31 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
A little bit, even though I was only a very fleeting visitor to lots of these places.
00:37:37 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And yeah, I I when I was visiting the medical projects my I've got an interest in in health inequality and and marginalisation and how those things impact on health. So that was the the theme running through the these projects that I was visiting. So it was it was quite diverse places so from.
00:37:45
Yeah.
00:37:58 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Orthopaedic wards in.
00:38:00 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Stan to mental health rehab in Mumbai to a floating medical clinic on the Tonle SAP in Cambodia to hospital with pay for patients with leprosy in Nepal to a old sort of crumbling sanitorium for patients with TB in the in in Georgia, so.
00:38:20 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Lots of different places and and and that was.
00:38:23 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
It's I suppose I was a bit of a a journalistic investigation into this association between marginalisation and and poor health and and that was the theme of the the that's running through the book as well. And so that that opened my eyes to.
00:38:37
Yeah.
00:38:40 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
To a lot of these, the consequences of health inequality, but I was.
00:38:45 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Kind of driven towards that from my experience in A&E and the NHS, which is where, you know, you don't see this neat cross section of Britain. You see certain patients more often than you do others. And there's a lot of you see a lot of disadvantage and disempowerment. So it was really just that was my kind of awakening. And then I was when I was.
00:38:57 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:39:06 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Visiting these places, it was trying to draw parallels I suppose.
00:39:11 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah. And and.
00:39:13 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
When you set off on the on the trip itself, it was that wasn't your primary driver for for it, but that's kind of developed as you were, as you're on the trip as I'm. Am I right in thinking that?
00:39:24 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Exactly. So it I because I was thinking it burnt out. It was only really the last I did visit occasionally medical projects before, but mostly it was the last couple of years, about 2 1/2 years of the journey where I was quite regularly.
00:39:40 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Visiting places and and it was began very organically and it was just sort of what I heard about and what I found on the Internet and where I was and then finding out what projects were in the area and then and and and being a doctor opens the door, you know, to all kinds of things. You just have to send a message and people are always.
00:40:00 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Keen. They sort of trust you straight away and they're always keen to show you around. Sort of. If there's a doctor working in a in a different area, they're happy to to show you. So that was a way to.
00:40:13 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
To explore it was another journey, really. It was the physical ride on the bike and then there was this other journey of trying to further my understanding about health inequalities. And it was also, I think, a response to the fact that when I was cycling everything seems great. You know, people are smiling and.
00:40:33 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Was often be places to stay and I felt that that was not a particularly full, you know, idea of I wasn't getting a complete sense of the places I was travelling through because I I didn't have the language to get to the heart of things so.
00:40:47 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:40:53 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Visiting medical projects helped me understand some of the problems in the local areas and I realised as well that I was. We all travel.
00:41:02 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
We, we we all have a lot of cultural baggage. You know, we we see the world through the eyes of through the fact that of our position in the world and through our experiences and and I thought probably I'm biassed in lots of different ways, but perhaps the most interesting way I'm biassed is that I'm a doctor, so I've I can but.
00:41:22 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
If I visit a medical project here, perhaps I can think of a way that that's similar to some of the things that I've seen working in the NHS. So it was.
00:41:32 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
So that that was probably what. Uh, yeah. What? What inspired that, I guess.
00:41:38 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Wow, it's. I mean it's it's it's super interesting cause we've been we've been talking for about a month now and trying to line up a line up.
00:41:44 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
A.
00:41:44 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Date and and the subject of adventure with purpose has come up in some of our conversations, doesn't it? Which is a it's an area that I I think is is definitely missing from the.
00:41:51 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah.
00:41:58 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Adventure travel kind of sports sector, but it's something which I I would really like to see the, you know, the the, the whole area become more sophisticated in is is going out to do something not not necessarily to always be the first to row across an ocean or go or get to the North Pole.
00:42:02
Yeah, yeah.
00:42:11 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah.
00:42:19
Yeah.
00:42:19 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
But to to do something that's got you know, to shine a spotlight on something else, you know, to that that other people should be aware of. And so.
00:42:25
Yeah.
00:42:29 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
And that my my immediate thoughts is my God, I would love to watch a movie or, you know, some kind of video of your your whole experience. And if you've got loads of.
00:42:39 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Footage from this I would love to see it cut into a movie or something, you know?
00:42:43 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Obviously.
00:42:45
Yeah.
00:42:45 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
After the when the books released.
00:42:47
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:42:48 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
You have to. I have to keep plugging the books. Sorry if I've mentioned I've mentioned it a few times. It's taken me.
00:42:53 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Three years to write it, so I'm just gonna.
00:42:55 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
I'll mention it every opportunity. Yeah, I'm. I'm really sold on this adventure with purpose as well. I I think adventures of Broad Church, though, right? So you don't you don't have to go away and explore a a social issue you care about. But I think that adventure can be very powerful if you do that. And then obviously if you're able to share that in an engaging way is really important.
00:43:18 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Some of the most impressive adventures that you know I hear about are the ones where it's attached to A cause that someone really cares about and it's in some way investigative, you know, and I think there there's definitely been a change in direction. There's the.
00:43:37 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
On the adventure scene, there's a lot more of of this adventure with purpose and and I think that's the way that adventure is heading now. Yeah. Yeah, less, less less. Sort of Willy waving, sort of, you know, world firsts and more. Sort of.
00:43:52 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
What? What are the big issues in the world today? How can we marry that up with adventure and how can we then communicate that to people in a really inspiring way?
00:44:02 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, definitely. I guess what that leads me on to the next question, what you know, what does the future hold for you? Where where?
00:44:10 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Where? Where do you see stuff going next? With this or or bring it to to have most purpose.
00:44:17 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
I I mentioned the book, didn't I? As I mentioned, yeah, yeah.
00:44:20 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yes.
00:44:24 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
I I'm back in my job, so I've been obviously at the moment with the, with the coronavirus, very busy. I've been very I was very busy with that and I.
00:44:40 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
I think in the future I I would. I definitely want to keep writing that that is a a real passion for me. So I'd like to write another book after this.
00:44:49 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And continue to write blogs and articles. I haven't got a very set idea about what's going to unfold. I guess I just want to see what comes along, but my main focus has been the book just cause it's it's taken so long to write it and and I and and the book tour is kind of.
00:45:10 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Fallen apart, unfortunately, but it's gonna be. I wanna kind of see how that lands and then I'll I probably can make some decisions after that.
00:45:18 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah. My God. I it's, I think. But it sounds it.
00:45:23 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
There, it sounds like there's several books, you know, in you in from this experience, from this whole endeavour that's I think, you know, slowly the, you know, the these these components will start to come out.
00:45:37 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
And yeah, I'm. I'm I'm I'm so excited to to get you on the teams adventure stage. It is unreal. I think 45 minutes is gonna be an absolute like an absolute challenge for you just to be like oh this happened and this happened this.
00:45:42 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Brilliant. Yeah. It'd be great to watch that. Yeah.
00:45:49 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
And and then try and limit it to a few questions will be. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean it's, yeah, it's just it's just got so many directions. It can go in. But I, yeah, I guess let's let's do the final question then before I let you get on to your afternoon, who is there anyone that's been instrumental in this.
00:45:51 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah.
00:45:53 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
I'd have to cherry pick the stories. Yeah, yeah.
00:46:10 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Journey that you want to say thank you to and highlight and applaud.
00:46:16 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Everybody who offered me accommodation, all the strangers that invited me in along the way, my mum was the kind of one woman support team at home who I think I've got, who I'm most grateful to have anybody and she was, I said, always, very supportive and always had a lot of belief that I'd.
00:46:36 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Eventually get around the world and and. Yeah, and then there's various kind of inspirational people and and mentors that I had along the way.
00:46:48 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
So this I mean I was.
00:46:51 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Trying to write this like acknowledgement section at the end of the book and it's just goes on and on and on and and still realise that there are many more people that I was just not able to thank. So a lot of people played a part in, in, in the journey in some respect to another but.
00:47:08 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah, I think.
00:47:10 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
And so I've read a lot of books as I was travelling and and reading books by adventurers was also quite inspiring. So yeah, there are some. There are some good books about long bike rides that got me got me interested in in this kind of journey. So yeah.
00:47:27 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Fantastic. And just before I do let you go, what's remind us the the name of your book and what your website is and your social media handles.
00:47:35 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Yeah, so my website is my name so it's Stephen and that's with pH. So Stephen fabes.com and my book, it's called Signs of life to the ends of the earth with the doctor and that's published by Profile. And that's being published on the 6th of August. And there'll be some kind of online.
00:47:57 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Launch just after that and yeah you can. There is details and the blurb and all that stuff on my website and you can pre-order a copy now there's a little link where you can pre-order a copy and it's going to have. That's like it's obviously it's the hard back and it's going to have colour plates in as well so.
00:48:17 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
It's been a long road to get to this publication. I don't know what I'll do when the the first box of books arrives at my doorstep. I'll probably have a quite an emotional moment, but it's because that's been a long journey in itself as well. But it's I'm happy to get.
00:48:32 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Mate, that's that's that's absolutely incredible and I genuinely can't wait to, well, both meet you and also get you on the tails venture stage because this is.
00:48:41 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, you're you're one of the most exciting speakers I think I've ever, ever engaged.
00:48:42
OK.
00:48:45 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
In for this you know this this project.
00:48:46 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Brilliant. I'd love to look forward to that. That'd be great.
00:48:49 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Well, matey, I'll leave you to your afternoon. Thank you so much. This has been fantastic and stage. Take care. Cheers, Stephen.
00:48:50
All right.
00:48:54 Doctor Stephen Fabes, 6 years spent cycling 53,000 miles through 75 countries and author of ‘Signs of Life’
Cheers, Chris. Thanks very much for the best bye bye.
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