I meet Emiko and Steve Seal on a sunny Monday afternoon in Chiang Mai, in a shady garden courtyard close to the Ping River. Emi is Japanese, magnetic and lively, with a small, strong frame, and a smile like the sun. Steve is a congenial Australian with blue eyes, a salt-and-pepper beard and a wicked sense of humour. It is the couple's second trip to the city; they first visited northern Thailand 17 years ago, a few months into their journey of a lifetime - an epic 140,000 km bicycle tour around the world. Since then they have come full circle across the world, through the snow capped peaks of the Himalayas and the tropical rain forests of Central Africa; the redwood forests of North America and the desert sands of the Sahara. And like any journey, the road has not always been smooth. They have lived their dream, but at times the dream has seen the dark side of the moon.

Emiko and Steve's story began in 1989, in the Australian city of Cairns. "It was a Wednesday", says Steve. "I'll never forget the day I met Emi - the day my life changed." Steve was seven months into a world bicycle tour, and had spent the first phase of his journey doing an extensive exploration of his homeland from south to north. Emiko, a journalist, had been on the road for four years, writing for a monthly travel magazine while touring Japan, Korea and Australia on a 750cc, passion pink Honda motorbike. She had met a few cyclists along the way, and was starting to feel that she was missing out on sights and sounds on her fast, noisy vehicle. "On a motorbike, you go from point A to point B," she explains, "but on a bicycle you really experience everything between A and B; it's a continuous journey."

Emi and Steve planned to meet up again in Darwin, where Emi switched her mode of transport to a bicycle, and the two planned their route across the world. "I'll never forget seeing pictures of an African village when I was a kid and wondering what it would be like to be there, really experience the world with all five senses," says Steve. "That's what we've done on our travels - smelt the scents, tasted the food, heard the birds in the Amazon." From the north of Australia the couple would travel South East Asia together, continuing to Japan, then Alaska and North America, to the southernmost tip of South America and back to Brazil. From Brazil they flew to Cape Town, South Africa and cycled the entire south-north length of Africa up to Morocco, then to Europe and across the Middle East to Pakistan. "Our targets were the extreme points of each continent," says Steve. "So we travelled to Cape York in the far north of Australia, Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, the end of route 3 in Tierra Del Fuego, Cape Agulhas in South Africa and so on."

After being on the road for 11 years, Emi and Steve reached Pakistan, via a challenging route through the Karakoram Mountain Range from China. Emi had been sick for some time already, but had tried to put her health aside, not wanting to believe that she was seriously ill. "I felt I had no choice but to keep on going," she says. "There were no hospitals in the mountains of China and we had to finish the journey before winter." When the couple finally reached Islamabad in 2000, they stayed with a family in Pakistan who convinced Emi she should see a doctor. The results of the consultation turned Emi and Steve's world upside down - Emi was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Within 10 hours of receiving the news, they were both on a plane, heading home to Japan.

By the time they reached the hospital in Japan, Emi's situation was so serious that she was checked in immediately, without the usual delay between consultation and treatment. The cancer had spread quickly, and she was started immediately on a course of radiation and chemical medications. She was 35 years old.



After four months of treatment, Emi had shed 13 kg and was terribly weak, but the cancer had responded somewhat to the treatment and her doctor felt it was the right time to operate. He gave Emi two choices: he could remove as much tissue as possible, which would confine Emi to a wheelchair, but increase her chances for survival and a long life, or he could minimise the intervention, which would allow her to cycle and travel again, but would give her only a 20% chance of survival. "I chose quality of life," says Emi. "I chose the second option."

From then on, Emi followed her own formula for success, with Steve's full support. "It was a combination of believing in all sorts of different ideas from both western and holistic medicine," says Emi. "But the most powerful healer was faith. There was a high chance I could not cycle again, but I believed 100% that I would be able to continue on our travels. Not just wished - really believed - and I think that my determination is what got me through. I told my doctor that I was very serious about living."
Emi's operation went smoothly, and a year later, she and Steve embarked on a 1000 km tour of Taiwan. Emi was still in recovery, and she only managed 100 km of the journey. "But I was happy with that, because I had achieved my dream to travel again," she says. After Taiwan, the couple decided to wait a few years before they set off again, to give Emi time to regain her strength. Four years later, she was still in remission, and her doctor, a cancer practitioner of 25 years, had declared her recovery miraculous. The Seals returned to the same family house in Pakistan where they had left off when they received Emi's diagnosis, and their cycling trip was reborn.

The first leg of the new journey was from Islamabad in Pakistan to the Taj Mahal in India over a period of three months, then on to the holy city of Varanasi on the Ganges River, and through Nepal to the Chinese border. In Varanasi, the couple visited the burning ghats, where bodies are cremated on funeral pyres, and the ashes thrown into the sacred Ganges. Emi describes her experience while watching a body burn: "I became aware that when we are alive, the physical body and the spirit are one, but when the body dies, the spirit passes on - so the death of the body is not the end. That made death less frightening to me, but at the same time it made me realise that we should really appreciate life while it lasts. It made me think of my illness as a message. I had spent so much energy on living that it almost killed me. I felt there were so many signs telling me that I needed to rest more and enjoy my life; I needed to find a balance."

It has been three years since Steve and Emi began travelling again, and Emi is strong and healthy. "It is still scary sometimes, because the cancer put a huge strain on Emi's body and sometimes she still has physical issues as a result of that," says Steve. "So we still live in…caution." But Emi's recovery is so far down the road now that the couple only has to return to Japan for her check ups every six months, and Emi herself is so full of life that it is difficult to imagine it ever slipping away from her. "Once when I was really sick, I read an article written by a cancer patient who survived, and that gave me so much hope," she says. "This is my chance to give hope to others. I am still alive - I want people to know that it is possible."

To find out more about the Seals and their travels, visit www.bicyclingworldtour.com

The Four Seasons Resort will organise a walking and running fundraiser for the Cancer Research Foundation of Thailand at Huay Tueng Tao Dam on 3rd November. For more information and reservations, contact 053 298181 or cancercare.chiangmai@fourseasons.com