By Nazario Rodriguez Jr.
Horizon news staff

The world’s most traveled cyclist has just finished with his five-day odyssey on wheels around town including the Compact Road in Babeldaob.
Seoul, South Korea native Okhwan Yoon was almost unnoticed while touring the country. But this is always been what he really experienced in almost all the over hundred countries he already visited using his bicycle.
Palau is the first Pacific country Yoon has ever visited since he started his long journey in July 2001. Palau was also the 122nd country for this journey that he said is "a call from heaven."
Horizon learned about Yoon’s presence in Palau through Lucky T. Kim, proprietor of King’s Palace Restaurant.
"I just saw that it’s a Korean restaurant and I walked in to eat and met the owner," said Yoon, who turns 44 on April 11.
Yoon shared some of his experiences while touring Asia, Africa and Europe.
"I started this journey for three years in South Korea. I went to Tianjin, China six times then extended to Russia, Vietnam, Laos, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and Cambodia," Yoon recalled.
He started his tour to Europe in 2003.
He recently stayed for 30 days in the Philippines, touring the scenery in the countryside before coming in to Palau via Asian Spirit.
Yoon arrived on Thursday Feb. 15 and left last night for Davao.
From Davao he will go to Brunei, Indonesia, East Timor. From there he will go to Papua New Guinea to continue his tour of the Pacific. From PNG, he will depart for Fiji, Samoa, Tahiti, French Polynesia.
His first country of South America to visit will be Chile, then from Chile to most of the Latin American countries and ultimately to the US mainland, which has been his dream.
Yoon said that he has traveled through his bicycle over 2000 km since he started.
Asked what is the most peaceful country he visited, Yoon said it is safest to travel to the Arab countries because people don’t touch any of his belongings even if he just leave it somewhere.
Yoon expenses just come from his own pocket but sometimes, he said that supportive companies are willing to sponsor like in Sweden, where a paint company gave $3,000 and another $3,000 in Kuwait.
He said a total of 70 countries actually gave him some small amounts of donation, which has gave him strengths to continue with his journey.
"I met people along the way and they encourage me to write a book," he said.
While in the Philippines, two Koreans have gathered all information about Yoon, who left manuscripts and other pertinent records for a book that they will publish soon about him.
"But I don’t’ care. I just want to continue," he said.
When asked why he is doing this, Yoon said it is difficult to explain.
While in college, taking up law at the Chung Ang University, he read a lot about psychology.
He said he stayed in hospital many times after giving up his passion about cycling after several accidents but then he could not get away from it. He suffered four times with malaria. So he devoted his life traveling to other countries instead.
That was the time he realized the facets of life.
"I would like to study myself. Through this ordeal, it gave me a lot of happiness. Mine is a good and bad story episode. I have tested myself with this," he said.
Yoon can speak seven languages, including French, Spanish, English, Russian, Chinese, Korean and had been to five continents.
During his travels, he said, he saw conflicts around the world.
There’s a language barrier in this world. People have different backgrounds in education, religion, which he said contribute to these many conflicts.
Climate, he said, also changes human concept.
In Russia, he said that people don’t like to smile a lot because the climate is calm and cold.
In Africa, Yoon said people are very open minded and very easy to smile even without money they live and smile.
While in Palau, Yoon experienced stomach pains right on the first day of his visit.
"The toilet love me so much and I went there seven times in just several hours after taking food from a small store," he said.
Palauans he said are very warm like people from the Philippines, where he preferred to stay for long because the people are kind and wonderful similar in Thailand.
In Thailand, he said that there is a diversity in food but most are original unlike in the Philippines where there are imported menu.
The three countries that he said he had realized the importance of tourism were in France, Thailand and the Philippines.
Yoon said that the safest countries in the world are the Arab and Muslim countries.
Yoon said that he had harsh experiences in the big cities in Europe such as Italy, where pickpockets are rampant.
It was in Lisbon, Portugal that he lost his bag and money including his passport in just five seconds.
"That was infront of the Tourism Information office," he said.
These and many other experiences, Yoon, said would not stop him from his journey around the world through his bicycle.