Friday, February 29, 2008

Briton who planned to walk to India gives up at Calais - Update

He planned to make the journey on foot, without spending any money, as a kind of one man protest against commercialism.

He wanted to put his faith in the goodwill of strangers to provide food and shelter.

He even changed his name from Mark Boyle to Saoirse, Gaelic for "Freedom".

Mark Boyle

Shortly after arriving in France, he realised that getting food without any money would be much harder than he had expected.

The language barrier proved to be a stubborn hurdle to overcome. Because he could not speak French, people thought he was free-loading or an asylum seeker. So he reluctantly returned to the UK, tired and hungry.

Now, after a bit of rest, Mark is off on his travels again - but this time he's decided to walk around Britain to raise awareness of his project before he makes any attempt to cross the channel.

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