Blindness is the last obstacle keeping Cao Shengkang, masseur and amateur athlete, from pursuing his dreams. With nothing but a walking stick and 4,000 yuan ($632), this 35-year-old once traveled four countries in just 19 days. Now he is ready to undertake more trips by listening to the sounds of the world around him, feeling the places he goes and talking with the people he meets.

"I want to be the first blind person to travel all over the world. I knew it would be hard but it's proving harder than expected," said Cao, whose skin is tanned from his previous experiences sailboarding in Hainan Province, and his recent trip to four Southeastern Asian counties from April to May. This ordinary villager from Huaibei, Anhui Province, who lost his sight in a car accident when he was eight, managed a trip to Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam all by himself and is now back in Beijing to save money for his next trip.

Speaking of travel…

Aside from simple greetings such as "hello," the words "China" "blind" "hitchhike" "money" and "massage" are the only English vocabulary Cao has, and most of them were learned from a backpacker who traveled with him from Xishuangbanna in Yunnan Province during the first five days. They were introduced by friends and planned a trip together, but later had disagreements and went separate ways on the fifth day, before entering Laos.

"She might have thought I was a burden, but I can understand that," Cao said. The first day alone was the toughest for Cao.

"When we parted I felt helpless because I had never expected to travel alone," he said, "I was carrying the 70-kilogram bag and starving, while trying to flag down a car so I could hitchhike. I fell into a deep ditch. My head was bleeding and my clothes were torn."

Finding directions, particularly when searching for hotels, can be a difficult task, as he doesn't speak the local languages of the places he visits. More importantly, he can't see.

"Everywhere I go I shout aloud in Chinese, asking, 'Does anybody speak Chinese?'" Cao said. Sometimes he is lucky and manages to find Chinese tourists or foreigners who speak a little Chinese, but there were times when he failed to find help and had to wander around for hours. "I waited for a long-distance bus for almost a day, since I didn't know when the bus would leave and nobody around me spoke Chinese," he said.

He looked for a cheap hostel or a hotel with people who could speak Chinese, hoping they could help him get a visa to the next country. But without enough cash and because he didn't know how to withdraw money at a bank, he had to use his ears and listen to every possible voice around that might be speaking Chinese.

Friends on the road

Many strangers are moved by Cao's endeavors. A young woman from Taiwan, who met Cao in Vietnam, cared for Cao when he was suffering from a serious fever. A Belgian traveler who spoke Chinese well helped him with his visa, and wrote him notes with English sentences asking for directions. 

"All those people that helped me during my trip were my eyes. Everywhere I went they would tell me about the local culture, the scenery and the people," Cao said. In addition to the things he heard, he got to taste the local food. "I remember every place by its sound, weather, people and smell," he said." In return, Cao would offer a free massage service for the people that had helped him, as a way of saying "thank you."

"One of my hostel roommates at Chiang Mai, Thailand, a young foreign woman, caught a cold and fever. I gave her a massage and she hugged me and kissed me on the cheek," Cao recalled.

Cao has many dreams and ambitions and traveling around the world is just one among many.

He came to Beijing in 2001 pursuing athletic dreams. In 2004 he persuaded a teacher with the Beijing Sports University to train him in track and field. He won a medal in a sports competition in Guangdong Province two years later. He was then trained in track and field and judo with the help of a teacher from Tsinghua University, but failed in the athlete selection for the 2008 Olympic Games after he broke a rib while in judo training.

Injuries forced Cao to temporarily drop his dreams of athletic glory, but he soon found a way of living through massage, thanks to his experiences learning osteopathic massage in Guizhou Province. He opened a massage parlor in Wangjing, Chaoyang district, in 2007, and earned a monthly income of 8,000 to over 10,000 yuan.

"I saved up some money, but lost most of it on the stock market. I was very depressed and thought of committing suicide," Cao said.

The road to recovery

With only 20,000 yuan left, he chose to go traveling to ease his depression. He toured Qinghai, Yunnan, and autonomous regions of Tibet and Xinjiang and some southern Chinese cities from 2008 to 2010, and met a person that inspired him to pursue a life of adventure.

Zhai Mo, a professional navigator, who met Cao in 2010, was the first Chinese person to sail around the world solo in a sailboat with no motor. Under Zhai's encouragement, Cao went to Sanya, Hainan, for two months of training and participated in a sailboarding competition in Hainan in March this year.

"I asked Zhai whether a blind person could travel around the world on a sailboat like he did. He said sailboarding might be easier, but it would still be difficult for me. Well, I thought, if sailing around the world is unrealistic; hiking should be a lot easier." It wasn't.

"I'm so grateful that I met so many nice people along the way. Without them I couldn't have survived this trip," said Cao, though he also said that the trip had proven to be very rewarding. He is getting ready for his next trip, which will be to Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan later this year or early next year.

Currently Cao is in Beijing looking for a job, and plans to open a microblog, write a book or film a documentary about his trip. He thinks he will need a lot of help.

He is learning English and trying to recruit travelers for his second trip.

"I have talked to several blind people but nobody's willing to come with me yet," Cao said, explaining that he welcomes and encourages people with disabilities to go out and try something new, such as traveling, because he has gained so much from his experiences. He also indicated he is ready for a relationship with a woman who would support his choices and would like to travel with him.

"I can have a brilliant life, even if it might be imperfect," he said.