By Chung Min-uck
Traveling is mostly initiated with the pure joy of finding new aspects in life through interacting with people from different cultures.
Yet, there are two Croatians who are somewhat different in their ways of traveling and the purpose of their trip.
They are Robert Koletic, 40, and Patrik Grguric, 30. The two have been traveling around the world on motorcycles since May 6 leaving from Split in their homeland of Croatia, a country in Eastern Europe with population just below 4.3 million.
From Croatia they rode all the way to England then took a plane to Halifax Canada and then made their way to New York City, United States. Then in order to cross the Pacific Ocean and reach the Asian continent, they again moved all the way to the west coast.
They arrived in Korea on July 20.
When asked the purpose of their once in a life time trip, Grguric answered “First of all a motorcycle is a way of life and I enjoy it. It’s the trip of my dreams.
“Yet, while we can enjoy it, we are going to meet a lot of people and to do some promotions to make our country known to other people. So the main idea was to promote our country wherever we go.”
While they were talking about the extremism of their world tour, they proudly showed their pictures on the motorcycles with registration plates of Split, the largest coastal city in Croatia, and Zagreb, capital city of Croatia, at the back.
“This is a way of promoting our country too,” said Grguric.
Croatia broke off from Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991 after series of political upheavals that led to the killing of 10,000 Croatians.
Koletic, who has been a Croatian police officer for 18 years, recalled back in 1991 when he took part in the war between Croatia and Yugoslavia for the independence of his country.
“Many got killed especially in the occupied area in the eastern and southern part of Croatia. There were 10 million (people) in Yugoslavia. They were a larger nation. Their whole government and the army didn’t want Croatia to be independent because 60 to 70 percent of their budget was coming from Croatia,” said Koletic.
To promote their country and bring peace to the world, Koletic and Grguric are preparing an overseas exchange program for children utilizing their networks that they are establishing through their motorcycle trip.
They explained that the program following their journey will be made so as to take care of the Croatian children who lost their parents during the war.
“We want Croatian children whose parents got killed in the war to see the world that their parents couldn’t enjoy,” said Grugric.
“It is something like a children exchange. For example, if you are in that program you can send your kids to Croatia and a Croatian family will take care of them. After that, the children from that family (Croatian family) are going to be sent to you. So we are trying to make towns in Croatia make some friendly towns in Korea and the rest of the world.”
As for their impression on Korea, their answers were simple.
“Our impression is that the people are very polite. They are all smiling,” said Koletic.
The motorcycle ride around the world is approximately 50,000 kilometers long and will take four months to complete.
The two motorcyclists took a ferry from Mukho Port, Korea on Sunday to go to Vladivostok, Russia. From there they will ride to Siberia, Mongolia, Gobi Desert, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkey and then eventually back to Croatia.