In India.

    The words Ma most frequently heard in Yemen were, "Chinese people are very good." She continues, "Later I left Yemen and went to many other African countries. The local people were always very open towards me." Ma adds with a smile, "You don't need to learn their language. We could always understand each other."

Traveling to the Pole

    In 2007, Ma Li completed her trip to the North Pole. "Now local residents in the Arctic Circle, including the Inuits and Eskimos, wear the same style clothes as us," she says. "Their lives are not that different from ours. There are cybercafés and supermarkets everywhere." In a small town in north Russia, Ma saw many people sleeping on the side of the roads. "Those people had just got their salary. They keep drinking and playing with women as long as their salaries last. They get back to work when they have no money left."

    On July 8, 2007, Ma took a ship called the Yamal from Murmansk in north Russia, heading for the North Pole. "The cracked ice kept hitting the ship. I felt as if I was in an earthquake epicenter," recalls Ma. On July 14, she stepped onto the North Pole. In temperatures of minus 25 degree centigrade, she waved the Chinese national flag and shouted excitedly. Lewis Gordon-Pugh, an adventurer, happened to be traveling with Ma. On their trip he completed a one-kilometer swim in freezing water, at temperatures of minus 1.8 degrees centigrade, breaking the distance record for swimming in such conditions. A few hours later, Ma also jumped into the freezing water. "At that moment I only felt the biting cold on my body, like 10,000 arrows piercing me," she says with a shudder. She claims to be the first Chinese women to have swum at the North Pole.

    At the other end of the planet, there is no official border marking Antarctica, and the area doesn't belong to any country, making visas unnecessary for any tourists brave enough to go there. On December 5, 2007, Ma arrived at Punta Arenas City in Chile. "A ship in Punta Arenas leaves for the Antarctic Peninsula every three days. Usually there are plenty of vacant seats, so you can buy a last-minute ticket rather cheaply." Ma purchased a spot for US $1,700. Normally the price is over US $10,000. At 4am on December 22, Ma took a former Soviet bomber refitted as a cargo-transport plane from the Antarctic Peninsula to the South Pole. The total distance was 3,500 kilometers and the trip took 4.5 hours. Ma became the first Chinese backpacker to reach the South Pole.

    Travel frees Ma from the ties of daily life. However, in the end she has found that travel is only a process, and after all she still has to face life. When asked about the huge loan she took out for her round-the-world tour, Ma says: "I just want to do things I like and make myself happy." Currently she is working on a book, Travel Around the World and Fulfill My Lifelong Dream.

    Ma states frankly: "I have no idea what my future will be. It is hard to say." Maybe the important thing for a true traveler is to just keep traveling.