It may sound hard to believe in this digital age but Yang Hao, a 32-year-old doctoral student studying in the United Kingdom, embarked on a solo trip the old-fashioned way last year, using a printed map, paying for everything using cash or a bank card, reading train timetables, and talking to strangers.

Over the course of 134 days, he visited 68 counties and cities in 24 provinces and regions across China, read 40 books, documented his experiences, and used two cameras to record what he saw.

"I realized that those 134 days were the most fulfilling, focused and productive period of my life. It was an experience of absolute concentration," says Yang, who was born in Taiyuan in Shanxi province.

Since his story was posted online, it has gone viral, triggering widespread discussion and reflection on the modern dependence on technology. One netizen from Hubei province named Yangbu'er, commented that "while technology makes the world smaller, and we seem to have more resources to hand, we also lose some things".Another from Fujian province, who goes by the online name of Silence, wrote that not having a phone equates to anxiety in modern society, because phones combine many functions in one; navigation aids, digital wallets, and social connectivity.

Ironically, even as it poses questions about how technology is woven into daily life, the internet has provided a medium for making Yang's trip known to more people.

Although he foresaw that it would trigger some discussion, the public attention his journey has drawn has exceeded his imagination.

He says that he has gained a great deal from his "experiment". Now, he keeps a degree of distance from the internet, and does not have Wi-Fi connected to his phone, or installed at home, and also limits his phone usage to 90 minutes per day. He tries to finish all his work at his art studio in the UK, which has internet access.

Yang's life was quite different before. His journey was inspired by a screen time notification from his iPhone informing him that he was spending almost seven hours a day on his phone on average each week. Startled, he asked himself whether this kind of dependency was really what he wanted. The idea of leaving his phone and computer at home to face the uncertainties of a digital-free life and interact face-to-face began to fascinate him.

Bumps in the road

Pursuing a doctorate in contemporary arts at Lancaster University at the time, Yang put his academic work on hold, made preparations, and persuaded his parents that he wasn't placing himself in any danger.

Last Nov 27, he set off from Taiyuan with a 40-liter backpack, which contained clothing, two cameras, maps, his identification card, bank cards, cash, two writing brushes, a bottle of calligraphy ink, a pen, a notebook, and three books.

Standing at the Taiyuan Railway Station as his parents saw him off, he randomly chose to board a train to Linfen in Shanxi, paying for the ticket with cash.

"It was the first time in my life that both my parents saw me off together. They felt more distant from me without the internet," Yang says, adding that his parents were likely to worry more about him as they couldn't contact him by phone.

Arriving at Linfen that night, he encountered the first challenge, as without a phone, he couldn't book a hotel online. Although he showed his ID card and offered to pay cash at the hotel reception, it seemed that without a phone, he could not reserve a room. One of the receptionists recommended another hotel, and as Yang didn't have a navigation app, he drew a map for him in his notebook.

During the trip, Yang experienced lots of situations like this. At the entrance to the Hubei Provincial Museum in Wuhan, he wasn't allowed in because the museum required reservation in advance and he couldn't reserve a ticket online. He was finally able to get in with the help of an elderly man who had a fast pass for seniors, and was able to take a person in as a guest.

Writing letters was his only way of keeping in touch with family and friends. However, sending them posed difficulties. At a post office in Wuhan, Yang discovered they only sold commemorative stamp sets, while in other places, they didn't sell envelopes. At a post office in Hotan in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Yang was the first person to send a registered letter, and the staff members were not certain how it was done.

Along the way, people wondered why he didn't want to use a phone. Some thought he wanted to escape a bad relationship, some took him for a sociologist or a reporter observing life, while some speculated that the trip was just a gimmick to attract attention.

Be more present

Yang was surprised by the many rewards of leaving his phone and computer behind. With no access to travel bloggers, books and museums became his guide.

In Hunan province, a book by Shen Congwen (1902-88) served as his guide. Following Xiangxi Sanji (Random Notes on a Trip to the Western Hunan Area), Yang tried to retrace Shen's trip by boat along the Yuanjiang River about 90 years ago.

But upon reaching Changde, the starting point of the book, Yang found that the passenger boats he'd read about were gone, as dams and reservoirs had been built along the river, so he took buses to the places Shen mentioned, instead.

Besides the changes to the landscape, the names of many places in the book had changed, which made Yang's visit full of surprises. One local taxi driver in his 40s was confused by the names of the places in the book, and told Yang that he knew every corner of the city, but had no idea where these places were.

In Gansu province, Yang began buying books about archaeology in the Xiyu, or Western Regions, a Chinese term used to describe today's Xinjiang and Central Asia in the past. French Sinologist Paul Pelliot (1878-1945) and Russian explorer Nikolay Przhevalsky (1839-88) were among the Western researchers, geographers and archaeologists that visited the region.

Following in their footsteps, Yang visited heritage sites in the Taklimakan Desert in southern Xinjiang. In the years between 1906 and 1913, German archaeologist Albert von Le Coq (1860-1930) visited today's Kizil Cave-Temple Complex and looted several caves. Yang discovered empty caves with photos of the murals that had been removed pasted onto boards. Some of the fragments are now at the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin and Yang says that he regretted their loss.

He also rediscovered the nostalgia of writing letters, and the pleasure of calligraphy, which he had studied at school as a child.

Yang wrote his first letter to his parents on the third day. Holding the brush, he struggled to find the right words to start.

"Through the traditional way of writing letters to convey my feelings and longing for my family, the distance and the waiting helped me reflect on my relationship with the world," Yang says.

He mailed 40 letters during his trip, and received five replies, which have become treasured memories.

Back to usual

Yang returned to Taiyuan on April 9. His mother welcomed him with a bowl of noodles in accordance with the Chinese saying "Dumplings for departure, and noodles for return".With the noodles warming his belly, Yang felt that his journey had come to an end.

When he first saw his phone and computer, which had been lying unused for more than four months, he didn't want to turn them on, because he had become used to a quiet, peaceful life without the internet.

A week later, he relented, knowing that it is difficult to live completely cut off.

Setting aside a day to deal with all the messages he expected to find on his phone, Yang switched it on and waited for an hour but not a single message appeared, not from WeChat, social media platform Sina Weibo, or even from Alipay. When he'd left the internet behind, the online world seemed to have abandoned him, too.

Later, he found out that in China, if a recipient doesn't open a message within 72 hours, it is gone forever.

"The messages that I would never see left me with the somewhat regretful feeling that I had missed something. But upon further reflection, there was nothing to miss," Yang says.

His old life soon returned. During a recent 90-minute trip from Nanjing to Shanghai by high-speed train, he spent most of the time choosing a hotel on his phone, comparing prices on different apps only to realize that his choice was no difference to the hotels he'd picked randomly during his phoneless journey.

A book, No Mobile: A Happy Excursion Against the Digital Leviathan, will be coming out next year and he is busy making a documentary about his journey.

"I hope to offer a different perspective on seeing the world, whether on screen or through my words," Yang says.

With the internet influencing every aspect of life, Yang seeks to use his experiment to prompt greater reflection on the eternal connectivity of the modern world.