On a hot evening, inside Kali Babur Bazar in Howrah, three friends showed a documentary on how they cycled to Vietnam. The screen was a white cloth, fluttering in the wind, but the documentary was a hit with the audience.
This was not the first time Malay Mukherjee had cycled to another country with a message of awareness; it certainly was not the last.
In January 2026, Mukherjee and his two friends, Partha Pratim Hazra and Debasish Chakraborty, started their expedition ‘Cycle-e Sahara’ from the port of Alexandria.
Mukherjee is a professional mountaineer, Hazra is a cloth merchant, and Chakraborty is a journalist. They had trained for weeks to build up endurance for the nine-day journey in the largest desert in the world.
“My school friend stays in Cairo, so we got a place to stay before starting our expedition,” said Mukherjee.
“We generally start at 4.30am on rented cycles and move from one pit stop to another.”
During their expedition from Cairo to Lake Nasser, they noticed a paucity of people, as is normal in a desert. The national highways of Egypt connect six major cities, so the only other vehicles on the roads were heavy trucks and cargo carriers.
“There were clay pitchers every 20 kilometres under date trees, open to all travellers. As water was a concern, this helped us a lot,” said Hazra.
Meeting the locals, sharing food from a plate and talking about life, the three friends completed the course of the Sahara.
“If you meet the locals and live like them, you get incredible stories. We learnt that you get free bread wherever you go. You just have to buy the dish to eat the bread with,” said Hazra.
The three shared their meals on large plates, as is the habit of the community. The villagers shared fruits and vegetables free of cost along their journey, all while being curious about the Indians cycling.
“We have Sri Lanka as our next target,” said Mukherjee, over the phone while preparing for an expedition to the Trisul peak.
Hazra said the three friends aim to take a cycling tour every year during the winters.
“Three of us have become one body. So, if anything happens to any one of us, all three of us have to halt. We are always careful on our expeditions because of this,” added Hazra.
Permits and access have very rarely been a problem for the group because they have had four expeditions already under their belt, having already covered Bangladesh, the Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam.
“All our journeys have been magical. Be it the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Vietnam or the Angkor Wat trail in Cambodia, because we had no inhibitions about the places,” said Mukherjee.
They plan to cover Sri Lanka by the coast, uncovering the vast landscape of the island country, said Mukherjee.
The Sahara trail was chosen for its historic significance as well.
“Cycling through the Valley of Kings, Valley of Queens, and hugging the Nile river was a dream come true. It felt like the little boy who had dreamt of visiting the land of pharaohs had finally got his chance to do so,” added Mukherjee.