We are planning to ride the dream ride of every hardcore motoadventurist out there

The plan is to buy Royal Enfield Himalayans from Chennai, India and drive them all the way to Helsinki, Finland. We reserved 65days and planning to go around 15000km - India, Nepal, China, Kyrgistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Estonia and Finland. 18 countries all together!

We will have 16 riders + 2 tourleaders - All of the riders have Finnish passports. And all of the bikes will be registered in India. All of the bikes will be new Royal Enfield Himalayans.

The tour would start 15.04.2018 from India and we are planning to be in Finland middle of June.

We are aware of most of the problems - registering bikes in India as foreinghers, Nepal / China border crossin being wiped out during 2015 earthquake (It's open now as of 01 of October 2017!), Needing organized tour in China and the costs, All the Stan countries need visas and bike incurances and so on...

I will try to post as much as I can about our arrangements and the actual trip - if people are interested?

Have anybody done similar trip lately and can advise us with practical things and personal experience? All help will be highly appreciated!
Br,

Dani

Hi Dani,

We are thinking of travelling some of these same countries in 2019, so very interested in how you get on, and any issues you have.

We are planning to ship to India our own bikes and then travel back to the UK. We have around 5 months to travel so we are planning on taking in a lot of Russia as well.

Anyway good luck sounds like a lot of fun and bet great with such a big group of people.

Guy

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Sounds like an adventure.
The Turmenistan visa has always been notorious for it's difficulty to get one arranged and for its inflexibility. A transit visa is the easiest to obtain. The ferry at Turkmenbashi was highly unreliable for years (don't know the current situation) and some people where trapped in the harbor for days waiting for the delayed ferry after their transit visas had run out. Make sure you sort that one out early.

Belarus is also tricky as you can really only get a 48 hour transit visa and they seem to want to know exactly the two days you plan to be in country. I had no problem as Belarus was at the start of my route, but if you are coming west you will most likely not be on schedule by the time you get to Belarus. Also, not sure where you get the visa if you don't pick it up in your home country.

You already know about the guide issues in China if traveling with your own vehicle. That one has to be done a min of 60 days before entering China, at best through a Chinese Travel Agency. And it's not cheap. You will have to pay for or provide transport and a driver for the guide. Not sure if he is going to ride shotgun on an Enfield.

Oh, and get ready for some terrible asphalt on the road from the Romanian border through the Ukraine to Kiev. I just drove that 4 weeks ago and seriously overweight trucks have carved huge ridges into it. I saw one saloon at with a punctured oil pan at the side of the road. I didn't have any problems with my Dakar prepped Land Rover but my teeth still got a good shaking. The asphalt only gets good when the motorway joins the other one coming in from Poland about 100km wet of Kiev.
Have fun!!

Is the expectations that the border crossing will be doable, with an Indian registered bike and a EU passport? That could be an issue?
Not for Nepal, but all the countries after that.

Can you as a foreigner take an indian plated bike out of India at all?

Anyhow - I hope your plan is doable, it sure sounds like an adventure. Give us updates on your progress please...

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In the end everything will be fine. If its not fine its not the end....

Hi Dani,

On Horizon Unlimited they say it is illegal to purchase and drive an Enfield away from India

See here

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/get...#CarnetExplain

About half way down.

It does say it was 2003 so might be different now.

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I read that you can't buy a bike in India. It must be registered to an Indian. And if you go that route, registering in someone else's name, it could be confiscated by the person you let register if they wanted to steal it from you. I don't know. It's what I read.

There is a Himalayan for sale by an Indian. He said it is good to go in India and Nepal with the paperwork. I want to ride India and Nepal this coming year, non tour. But I need to research bike ownership verses rental more. I'll start my research in a couple weeks.

Things changed in Thailand this year. They say taking a foreign owned bike in is now as difficult as China and Vietnam. Earlier this year I went there. I rented in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar. When I went to China, I bought a Shineray 250cc bike new- $1300. I rode all countries unescorted. For me this was easier than fighting paperwork and possible rejections. Peace of mind. Yes, I would prefer to be on my own bike.

Purchase
May not be possible to legally road register the bike. Purchase may be legally possible. Talk to who your buying from and then go see a local lawyer.

Carnet
Not available. If the bike requires a carnet. e.g. for Iran/Pakistan etc. then your out of luck. If you can get north to China etc then no carnet is required for these countries.

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There is something about crossing India to Nepal or Nepal to India ... If I recall correctly the Nepalie bike can go back and forth ... but the Indian bike gets stopped? Do your homework.

Good luck with the paperwork and fees.

That's not really true, you can get a tourist visa to Belarus, it will just be more paperwork (and money): http://uk.mfa.gov.by/uploademb/uk/CO...urist_visa.pdf

Anyway... from what I understand, the border crossing between Belarus and Latvia is small and somewhat dodgy. You might consider going via the main road from Minsk to Vilnius and catch a bit of Lithuania on your trip as well. Going to Tallinn for the ferry, it's really no big difference if you go via Vilnius or via Daugavpils.

Hi Everybody and thak you for tips and advises!

It was a small nightmare to buy and register bikes in India as an foreigner. It took us about 4 months but now there is 17 x Royal Enfield Himalayans waiting for tour to start. We will fly with one way ticket to Chennai 17.04.2018 and strat the tour from there. (I can open up registering process when we are out of India - not sure everything was done By the book

Visas for all the countries along the way are ready and China / Tibet papers in progress.

I will update this post along the way

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Congratulations on your RE acquisition process. Can you share with us how you pulled it off? It's almost time for your trip. Good luck.

Trek N Ride wishes you all the best for your epic journey!!

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Hello from Spain!!! Amazing trip!! Good luck!!! Looking forward to heard how is going everything.

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Hi Dani,
I searched for reports about your trip: I found some blog, but unfortunately I'm not able to read Finnish language :-)

Can you report us about how it went?
Personally, I would like to know about bureaucracy:

-how did you made it to register bikes in your name in India and how much that costed
-how was Tibet/China crossing, what agency you used and costs
-last but not least: how did you entered Europe? Was that easy? I mean, green card and indian plates?

thank you very much,
cristiano