Hi everyone,

I'm brand new to the forum, and looking forward to learning more about this global community. While I'm not a rider myself (yet?), I have a background in logistics and have always enjoyed planning trips. I've been asked to plan an epic trip from The Netherlands to Thailand for an American friend.

I am just getting started on figuring out what I need to learn in order to plan this, and he is currently looking at a possible June departure.

The tentative (and VERY rough) itinerary is Netherlands-Germany-Austria-Hungary-Ukraine-Russia-Kazakhstan-China-India-Nepal-India-Balgladesh-Myanmar-Thailand. I'd love to be able to route him through Tajikistan, northern Pakistan and on through to India, but that is out for political and safety reasons. He is planning to go alone at the moment, but would be open to travel partners (temporary or otherwise).

Google maps is only getting me so far, given the state of "roads" for a good chunk of the trip, and I'm hoping to find some tips on this site. I know I'll need to learn about costs involved, distance between fuel stops, converting baggage to hold fuel and water, what to pack (and what not to), visas, international drivers' license, cost of expected (and unexpected) bribes, dos, and don'ts, etc.

I know there is a lot of valuable information in the forums - and I intend to read as much as possible - but I wanted to put this out to the universe and see what might come back.

Besides reading posts here, what else should I be doing?

Cheers,

Lescad

Hi

first of all, trip planing is part of the adventure and I would not give that out of my hands, so why isn't your friend doing it himself? When on the road you need so many information in your head, that you gathered while making your planing and that perhaps seemed not important, but on the road become important. We started this year in Thailand and went to Turkey, up to Kyrgystan we only met very very few motorised travellers (we were on pushbikes). I think the reason is, that it is not so straightforward to go to Thailand, some borders are not open or very difficult to cross. It is quite common for motorbikers to go up to Kyrgystan, but for China you need usually a guide that is accompanying you and is quite costly (permits etc, you find threads on the hubb dealing with it or about finding mates to lower the price). As far as I know there is no open border between China and India, at least for Westerners, the same applies for India/Myanmar, although there is now lot of news about Myanmar (I did not follow the news on that). So you would have to change the itinerary (China-Pakistan-India or China-Nepal-India, for Myanmar I have no idea)
To get more information you can just read some threads in the regional forums on HUBB, as this covers especially the view of bikers, more information is to be found on thorntree (mainly backpackers), good information about paperwork (visa) is found on caravanistan. Additionally some trip reports contain also information on paperwork and pictures (for knowing the nice spots not to be missed on your itinerary).

Cheers

Christian

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Cycling in Asia: Thailand to Turkey, Siberia and Central Asia