Gu Yue and Liu Chang hitchhiked from Beijing to Berlin last year in order to visit Gu's German girlfriend. The pair caught 88 rides in 13 countries in the more than 100 days they spent on the road and, as they went, made a 16-episode documentary series, To Berlin By Thumb, which is currently airing on the Travel Channel.

Starting from Houhai in Beijing, backpacker Gu Yue took 88 rides in 13 countries in three and a half months to visit his girlfriend in Berlin. Courtesy of [Gu Yue]

"If you really want to do something, the whole world will help you," the pair, both in their thirties, say in series, a message that rings true as they experience hospitality across Central Asia and the Middle East.

Liu acts as the cameraman while Gu is the series' protagonist. Netizens described the journey as the "most romantic hitchhiking trip ever," but Gu said he was inspired by American writer Jack Kerouac's On The Road. The film series is possibly China's first ever television road trip documentary.

The series, and trip, began on drizzly day last June at Houhai. In what Gu calls the most difficult part of the journey, they struggled to find a lift out of Beijing into Hebei province.

They eventually made their way to the expressway entrance, where the clouds open and they stood, getting drenched in the pouring rain, ignored by passing vehicles. At one point they struck up a conversation with a tollbooth officer, who ridiculed their plan.

Just getting the trip under way was almost as tough, said Gu.

It took the pair two and half months just to get visas from most of the countries they planned to visit.

They had to make multiple visits, outlining their route in the utmost detail, he said. He even resorted to bringing a picture of his girlfriend in Berlin to help plead his case.

Gu is a self-styled professional backpacker.

He said his first travel adventure was walking alone from Deshengmen, on north side of the second ring road, to Tianqiao, on the south side on the second ring road, when he was just 6 years old.

He quit a steady job with General Electric Co when he was 24 years old to take a two year trip to 42 countries, setting foot on five continents.

But being a "professional" backpacker doesn't bring in much of a salary (or even any kind of salary) and Gu and Liu funded their documentary by spending almost all their savings.

"We don't own any property or vehicles - it is necessary to sacrifice for the pursuit of our passion," said Gu. "People should live for themselves."

But the costs of hitchhiking across countries such as Kyrgystan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Turkey, Iraq and Romania are offset by the rewards, he added.

"I feel I am addicted to hitchhiking," said Liu in the Beijing Evening News. "The best part is you get to meet so many different people."

In the documentary the pair met a driver in Shanxi province determined to work tirelessly until he can buy both his sons a house, lonely drivers in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region happy to give free rides and a drunken driver in Georgia, whose erratic speeding scared the hitchikers.

The two occasionally resorted to the same tactics they used at embassies in Beijing, using Gu's girlfriend as an emotional appeal for rides.

In the former Soviet Central Asian republics they held a sign on which they wrote, "hitchhiking to visit my girlfriend in Berlin" in Russian to convince passing drivers to stop.

The most interesting part of the trip was in northern Iraq, according to Gu.

He and Liu ended up on a tractor headed to a burning village, where they watched locals battle the flames.

After the fire was extinguished, a crowd gathered around the two Chinese men, and they were soon invited to dinner.

The documentary ends when, after weeks hauling around heavy backpacks filled with clothes, sleeping bags, laptops and video and camera equipment, the two finally arrived in Berlin.

Gu was so excited to finally see his girlfriend and recited a poem he wrote for her.

"In the past three months, I walked toward the sunset where Berlin lies, because my beloved girl is there," he told her.

"Next time just take a plane to see me," she replied.