Darjeeling is cycling through a 13,000km stretch that was first navigated 200 years ago by Alexander Csoma de Koros, the famous Hungarian philologist and orientalist who also came up with the first Tibetan-English dictionary.

In 2019, Zicho Viktor, a 31-year-old Hungarian, decided to exactly trace the route that Alexander had travelled to reach Darjeeling in 1820.

“Zicho Viktor is an environmental activist and also into extreme sport. He decided to travel the route to mark the 200th anniversary of Alexander Csoma de Koros’s journey to Darjeeling,” said Mariann Erdo, director, cultural counsellor of the Hungarian Cultural Centre.

Viktor completed the journey in June 2020 after travelling through 10 countries but not before being jailed in Pakistan and forced to stay in a Bihar hospital for more than two months.

Viktor’s entire journey has been captured in a photo exhibition which has been put on display at the Manjushree Centre of Tibetan Culture here, in collaboration with the Liszt Institute-Hungarian Cultural Centre, Delhi, from April 19. The exhibition will be held throughout this year.

Viktor while retracing his journey said he had to overcome many obstacles to fulfil his dream.

“There were many parallels between his journey (Alexander) and my journey. He was also arrested on suspicion of being a spy and I was also arrested on suspicion of being a spy in Pakistan after I entered the country from Afghanistan through a non-official border line,” said Viktor.

Viktor was capturing his journey using drones and this was one of the reasons for the suspicion that he was a spy from India.

Viktor, however, said his prison experience was not so bad. “I started doing work-outs, read the bible, learnt languages and played badminton with the people there,” said the cyclist who was freed from the Pakistan prison after four weeks.

The Hungarian faced another obstacle when he reached Bihar. The Covid-19 pandemic had gripped the country and he was forced to admit himself to a hospital.

“I tested negative for Covid-19 but yet, I was admitted to a hospital for reasons unknown to me,” said Viktor.

The cyclist had to stay in “bed number 6” of the isolation ward at the government-run Sadar hospital in Chapra, the district headquarters of Saran, for nine weeks.

After his release, the travel from Bihar to Bengal was another problem.

“I then dressed like an Indian (complete with a turban and dhotis to enter Bengal). I left my cycle at Thakurganj (a town in Bihar) and pedalled a normal cycle,” said Viktor.

On June 7, 2020, Viktor could place the ribbon that he was carrying on and offer the walnuts that he had brought from Hungary to Alexander’s tomb in Darjeeling before sneaking out of town the following day.

Alexander had died in Darjeeling in 1842 while on his way to Lhasa, Tibet. Alexander’s tomb is on 18 Lebong Cart Road in Darjeeling and has been declared “a monument of national importance” by the Archeological Survey of India.

The Hungarian National Assembly has also erected a totem pole in Darjeeling that was brought from his native place Kovaszna in 2012.