It’s one thing to get off on the wrong off-ramp during your respective road trip, but imagine the frustration of biking 500 kilometers in the wrong direction when you are trying to get home.

According to the BBC, an unnamed man was trying to get home for the Chinese New Year.

The journey that would have been 1,700 kilometers was all the more remarkable when you consider the man was attempting to cover that ground by bicycle. The story gets even more astounding because police officials who stopped him discovered this real-life tall tale and decided they would pool their money and send the man home by train.

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BBC cites the initial report via the People’s Online Daily, which breaks down the specifics.

The man, who is only described as a migrant worker, had spent most of his money and was living in Internet cafes when he decided to trek home from Rizhao to Qiqihar, a distance that’s a shade over 1,056 miles away.

It’s at this point we like to think the man thought to himself, You can do this ol’ boy, just don’t add any unnecessary miles to the journey.

Now, anyone who grimaces at the thought of taking the bike out for a Sunday stroll will cringe when they consider the daunting task of covering that many miles on a bicycle. Just imagine the anguish when you are pulled over on the highway by traffic police, stopping you because bicycles aren’t allowed on that particular stretch of road.

We can only imagine the man’s reaction was genuine pain when the police told him that, 30 days later, he had set off in the wrong direction.

As for an explanation: “The unnamed man could not read maps, meaning he had to rely on others for directions.”

Because the world isn’t always a horrible place completely devoid of goodwill, police and those merely described as “people working at the toll station he was stopped at” chipped in for a train ticket back the other way.

With that, we now find our own stories about driving five miles in the wrong direction while we were low on gas significantly less interesting.

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