Hi All,

This is my first time writing sharing our part of our story.

My name is Zainal (difficult to pronounce, so just refer me as Z as in Zorro) from Malaysia and my wife is Celeste, a South African. We have been married since 1991 (didn’t realize it has been that long). We are starting our journey on 1 April 2014 (April Fool Day).

Due to the difficulty to get permission to ride through Myanmar and the high cost to go through China (our wallet is not that thick), we have decided to air freight our bike, the ‘Black V’ (V stands for Kawasaki Versys) to Kathmandu, Nepal. We shall start our journey from there and ride through a few Middle Eastern countries, Europe and down to South Africa. The traveling is plan for 13 months, free and easy and no rushing, nothing is set, and we will just go with the flow.

Why are we doing this trip? Simply because we want to meet people of diverse backgrounds, experience the different types of food, see different sceneries, experience the different kinds of weather and hear & understand (at least) the languages and the beliefs of people of the world. Most importantly we want to see for ourselves how people in different countries live their life because you can only learn so much from books.

Who are we? We are in our very early 50s. Since we have the energy, still physically strong and our hair is not yet fully grey, this is the right time to do what we want to do. Celeste is an educator in the entertainment and arts and also very active in social work. I am just an average 9-5 Joe, heavily involved in the development of human resources. Career wise, we both deal and have passion for people and this traveling suit us nicely.

The Black V is a 650 cc, year 2011 with 14,000 km on it. I am not a technical or mechanical savvy person so my ability to do heavy bike repair is almost ‘zero’ but it should not be an issue because we will pick up the know how along the way through ‘trial and error’. Why the Black V and not a Black GS or Tenere? Well, our reply is ‘why not?’. We know that any bike will do, even on a scooter. If you happen to see a Black V somewhere out there (riding or stranded), please give us a honk, a cup of coffee or even a place to stay (ha ha).

The Black V is already in the airport warehouse just waiting to be ship to Kathmandu via Bangkok on Tuesday. It will arrive Kathmandu on Wednesday mid-day and we will pick it up from the airport on the same day or latest by Thursday.

We will update our report as much as we could depend on wifi availability, so please feel free to follow our journey.

Cheers,
Zainal (Z as in Zorro) & Celeste

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