Wheeling it out for the kids

As passers-by nod a greeting to Calle Wollgard, a resident of Karlskoga some 250 kilometres west of Stockholm, they are unaware that in just a few days their young fellow citizen will be leaving Sweden on an epic cycling journey that will take him halfway across the world.

They’d be even more surprised to learn that Wollgard is embarking on the trip for his family in Phuket – the caretakers and dozens of orphans of Barnhem Muang Mai , a post-tsunami orphanage run by Susanne Janson and Hans Forssell. Businesses in Sweden, Phuket and the rest of the world have already pledged cash for each 10 kilometres that Wollgard and his team of three put between themselves and their homeland.

The largest hurdle to date for Wollgard has not been obtaining any particular visa or even the training, but wrangling a blessing for the trip from his distraught mother.

“First she cried then, after a couple of nights of not sleeping, she forbade me to do it. Fortunately when three friends said they would join me, she came round,” Wollgard laughs.

Now that the hard part is done, Wollgard merely has to conquer 18 countries (including Iran), 16,000km of questionable roads, insane traffic, mountain passes, visas and all the other unknowns that lurk within the epic pages of an adventure.

The three men that have joined Wollgard and helped him secure his mother’s goodwill for the trip are Fredrik Jessen, Tomi Blumen and Christofer Johansson, all 27 years old.

None are cyclists. Jessen, reportedly handy in the kitchen, has been dubbed the cook. Johannson and Tomi are more used to adventure having made it to Mount Everest base camp in flip-flops while serenading fellow travellers with their guitar.

For an estimated eight months, with a Christmas Eve deadline, the team will be averaging 80km a day on their heavily laden bikes.

Though the team expects to spend 80 to 90 per cent of their time abroad camping, countries such as Uzbekistan have laws requiring them to stay in hotels. They will be asked for receipts when they leave the country.

“It’s a whole adventure in itself. We will be able to see so much, and meet a lot of people from so many cultures while we will live a very simple life in our tents,” Wollgard enthuses.

The 18 countries they will traverse, each filled with its own diverse cultural groups are: Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Laos and Thailand.

“Traffic is a much bigger problem than terrorists. Of course there is a risk of that as well, but I think the traffic situation in Iran, especially around the capital, Tehran, is going to be crazy,” says Wollgard.

“Really, my biggest concern is that the equipment will fail – especially the bikes. I’m also worried about the bikes being stolen, that would really suck.”

But despite these fears, Wollgard is laid back about the trip and willing to roll with whatever chaos and misadventures they meet on their way. He’s also really determined to make it to Barnhem Muang Mai in Phuket, which he thinks of as his second home.

A visit to Barnhem Muang Mai makes it easy to understand why. The orphanage is not shiny and new but rustic, honest and openly full of love and care.

“We will follow him with mixed emotions, horror and joy, as he has become kind of like our little brother,” says Janson.

“He came here as a volunteer, and we just connected. He got very close to Thailand and the children and the Thai staff here,” she adds.

Barnhem Muang Mai in Phuket was founded in the wake of the 2004 tsunami disaster by a Thai-Swedish couple.

Though Barnhem means “home for children” in Swedish, it is a home to many in need, often accepting single mothers with children, or grandmothers with grandchildren, unable to provide for themselves.

Janson and Forssell volunteered at the orphanage in 2005 and moved to Thailand permanently in 2006 when they became managers of the home. It was no whim. The tsunami took the lives of Janson’s two daughters who were vacationing in Khao Lak at the time with her ex-husband and his new family...

“I felt a connection with the Thai people,” Janson says. “They had suffered so much more than I suffered. Here, you had people that lost children, homes, everything, and they were strong. So I think that affected me, and their kindness to me was such that I wanted to give something back.”

Back in 2011, she adds, Wollgard and four friends walked from Bangkok to Phuket to raise funds for Barnhem Muang Mai.

“We would just have been happy to cross the finish line with Bt100,000 or something like that,” Wollgard recalls. 

They raised Bt1 million.

“So hopefully we will make it to a million this time as well, but if we raise even more, no one will be happier than me. And if we raise less, it’s not the end of the world,” adds the young Swede.

But perhaps greater than any amount of money, from the kids’ perspective, will be their hero arriving in time for Christmas. There continues to be a great amount of speculation behind their sparkling eyes about whether or not Wollgard has been the one donning a thick white beard and red suit for several years now.

Red suit or not, Wollgard is without a doubt travelling from the snowy north to the sunny shores of Phuket with an unbelievable gift for everyone at Barnhem Muang Mai.

On the Web: 

Barnhem.org