(Ecns.cn)--Three years ago, if asked who the coolest senior couple on the Chinese mainland was, you might have had no idea who to suggest, but the answer now would have to be the adventurous couple Zhang Guangzhu, 64, and his 61-year-old wife Wang Zhongjin. Backpacking around the world's seven continents in just three years, their life is like a fairy tale.
Unlike most Chinese retirees, who stay at home helping to care for their grandchildren, the couple has used the past three years to tour the world. Only last August did they complete a 180-day journey through South America, the South Pole and Australia.
They have returned to their home in Beijing, but Zhang reminisces "I feel so young when I carry my backpack." The couple has been to over 40 countries, and though the process of living their dream has been interesting, exciting and attracting, it all began with a chance meeting the two could never had anticipated.
The couple were like most Chinese people who love travel but have only a little time to do it. They often spent some of their holidays climbing mountains around China until they were inspired by a trip to southwest Yunnan Province.
In February, 2007, the couple went to the Hutiao Valley for travel and joined a wedding ceremony prepared by a local family. Among the many people invited, the couple met a foreign backpacker who could only speak a little Chinese. People were very surprised by this, but Zhang started to wonder if a tourist could come to China without knowing the language, why not go abroad themselves.
He shared the idea with his wife, and though at first Wang found it shocking, her discomfort did not last long. So once back in Beijing, they put their plan to go around the world on their agenda and started preparing for the trip.
Europe was first on their list, and besides needing a visa, they also decided it was best to learn English and improve their knowledge of its history and geography. Zhang was assigned to learn the language, while Wang worked her way through a pile of books on the continent.
Learning a foreign language is difficult for a 59-year-old man, especially one who has no familiarity with it and refused to attend any public classes on offer. Everyday, Zhang settled in at home to read English texts for hours, but his initial choice of content was too ambitious, so he narrowed his focus to "survival English" - mostly sentences to do with transportation and dining.
After almost one year's preparation, the couple made their first trip in March, 2008. With 30 kilogram loads in their backpacks, Qatar Airways flew the couple to Athens. Although he thought they had prepared well, suddenly finding himself in a completely strange country made Zhang very nervous. "My mind went blank and all the English I knew disappeared," he recalled.
The start of their trip was hardly smooth, but as time went by, their adventures became more and more interesting.
During their footloose three years, they have swung in hammocks for six days floating down the Amazon River from Manaus to Peru, hiked the Alps, participated in Easter Mass at a church in Sarwar, Brazil, and even camped near the South Pole. During their stay at the Pole, Zhang learned to imitate the way Penguins walk so he could get closer to these exotic animals.
Admittedly, not all the trips were happy from start to finish. They were treated badly by taxi drivers, became ill mid-trip, and when losing their way even worried that they might be lost forever in a foreign country. The main thing is they have no regrets.
"The people and cultures we saw abroad impressed us a lot, and it is people that really matter when you travel," said Wang. Although, she still speaks very little English, she says she was able to communicate with foreigners. Body language and facial expressions are the best language, and she used them to let hotel employees know that she needed a quilt , and to tell a woman in Brazil that she had a daughter.
Before the couple's first trip abroad, they wrote a will letting their daughter know that if they got lost or passed away in a foreign land, she did not need look for them. "We did not want to trouble her, and if we had really disappeared, the search process for our daughter would be painful, so we did not wish that on her," said Wang with tears in her eyes.
But all things about their travels turned out to be treasures. For a long time before they began their adventuring life, the couple had not been happy together. They met when they were young and both working for the Shanxi Academy of Social Sciences, but several years later, Zhang resigned from the academy and moved to a new company in Hainan, while Wang remained in Shanxi.
Their work separated the couple for over 8 years until they reunited in Beijing. Wang retired there at the age of 50, but because Zhang still worked, they spent little time in each other's company, perhaps four to five hours a day.
"Though we seemed to be together every day, we knew little about each other in those days," reflects Zhang. The trips gave them a chance to get to know each other again, even though in the beginning they often quarreled, mostly over very trivial things like what angle should one choose for a picture or one giving the other the wrong directions.
It shocked both of them that although they had lived together for half of their lives, each had not yet discovered all of the different facets of the person they married. "I thought if I was back in Beijing, I wouldn't bother speaking to the woman," chuckled Zhang.
But their adventures ultimately brought the two closer. They were "forced" to be together in circumstances completely foreign to them, and here began to rediscover their lifelong spouse. "We had more time to discuss happiness and death, and we suddenly found that these travels in our late life had prepared us to be together , just the two of us," added Wang.
Traveling has eaten into some of their pension fund, but the feisty couple intends to go on more trips. "There are many places that we haven't been," said Zhang. Currently the two are in Beijing preparing for that next trip, and their inspirational way of life has attracted many fans in China.
