hi, my friends and I are planning to do an off road motorbike holiday in 2011 and have whittled it down to :

location : thailand, malaysia or vietnam
time : may or june 2011

I have done some biking in vietnam and loved it, but none of us have done it in thailand or vietnam.

Does anyone have any recommendations for countries, times and tour companies, we are not looking for hard core as some of the group will be 1st timers.

thanks, badge

hey i have been to Thailand many times always ended up north, chaing rai.
loads of local shops to hire bikes and go explore, head north out of town just over the river bridge turn left and follow the river, i went out all day and just ran out of track !!!! so the next day i went again and turned right somewhere along the river track and it took all day again to get home, the locals are great and no tourists to get in your way only water buffalo lol
all depends what you want i spend £1000 for 6 weeks that included the flight !!!!!

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hi,
i bought a dirt bike in phnom penh and travelled with it through lao, (could not enter vietnam or china) thailand, malaysia, singapore, brunei and east malaysia. now i ended up in flips and i toured the whole country there. now i just flew to vietnam to rent an old minsk to tour through the north...its nothing compared to laos. espacially from a dirt bike riders point of view.
i always did dird roads, whenever possible. the best countries for dirt roads are by far: 1) laos 2) cambodia 3) flips 4) thailand. so i'd recommend to forget vietnam and go to vientian and rent (or buy dpends on your time) a bike at mr. fuk (no joke!, its his name) and only go through the dirt roads at this beautiful and densly populated country. there are really pristine roads and villages there. espacially along the vietnamese boarder. forgett the "every where sold" gt rider map and get the gecko map in beforehand, much better. i was lost so many times with the first mentioned one.
if you got more time, buy a bike in cambodia go through mondulkiri up north to laos to do a big loop there, then go to thailand and be disappointed by the chang rai surroundings ( compared to the lao north) and head back to cambodia to sell the bike for nearly the same price
hope i could help. for more detailed info please contact me.
hafe a nice trip.

p.s: for seriously and quite heavy dirt bike riding in cambodia...go to the cardamons in the south...there are bikes to rent in kho kongh. near the thai boarder. but like i said for only one country laos is the place to go.

thanks for replies, we have now added Mongolia to the list of possibilities.

I went there in July this year for the annual Nadaam festival and reckon Mongolia would be great off road touring country.

i hope to include the Nadaam festival either 2011 / 2012 on one of my overland tours.
still finishing my truck should be good for next year take a look on my site 4x4-rtw-motorcycle-support see how my Bedford looks now.

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Your mates, your route, your timetable, your bike....... http://www.4x4-rtw-motorcycle-support.co.uk

Have narrowed the options down to Mongolia or NE Vietnam.

Having been to both countries in last year, know both would be great for a biking holiday, will see what the group decide. If money not the option then Mongolia for me, but Vietnam would be about 2.5 times cheaper, so will see.

well we decided to do North East Vietnam and am all booked up with - homepage - motorcycle tours, motorbike adventures in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia

even managed to get a really good deal on flights from shanghai.

can't wait now