Thanks very much for the detailed reply, brilliant!

No you don't sound sarcastic by the way, totally get your point on docs etc and having done a lot of looking this weekend I think it may prove to be just a touch ambitious!!! Whilst i hate overplanning on stuff generally, with stuff like this i think its amust!

As with all these 'ideas' it seems always doable and am quite surprised how difficult it is in fact to find a route.

I was hoping someone may 'pop up' and say....do it this route, simple!! But far from the truth to say the least.

YOUR ROUTES ( Which is what i kind of worked out from all the blogs)
1. to Vladivostok, and then possibly to Korea, then ship to Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur - JUST FAR TOO COLD NOW APPARENTLY

2. Kazakhstan > China > Laos, but this would cost more than you´ll believe (the Chinese part I mean, and to put it short: unless you´re VERY rich, just forget it!) TOTALLY GET THIS HAD QUOTES OF $5000 usd ADN NEED A CHINESE LICENSE AND BE PART OF AN ORGANISED TOUR TO GO TO CHINA

3. Kyrgyzstan > China > Pakistan thru the famous Karakoram Highway (..and then the rest as in #4). This KKH-route is actually used quite a bit considering that it involves getting into China.. but on the upside, it´ll only require some days inside China, so the costs are probably a bit less.
SAME AS ABOVE ON THIS


4. Turkey > Iran > Pakistan > India, and then freight the vehicle across Burma to Thailand or Malaysia. The bike definitely needs a carnet for India, and you might have trouble getting the appropriate visas, too, but otherwise it´s pretty straightforward, even though traffic is quite bad in many countries along the way. And shipping might actually be easier to do from Nepal.
JUST BEEN TOLD THE AREAS IN PAKISTAN CAN BE SKETCHY AND THAT VISAS ARE VERY DIFFICULT FOR UK AT PRESENT FOR IRAN. AGREED WILL PROBABLY TAKE MONTHS TO EVEN APPLY FOR A VISA

Routes 1-3 face a severe winter, and will not be passable then. Route 4 gets cold mid-winter in eastern Turkey & northwest Iran, but otherwise it should be more or less do-able (also on a bike) almost year-round.
AS ABOVE - BUT TOTALLY AGREE
Regarding the subject, check out for example this previous thread on this forum:
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...pian-sea-55471, REALLY GOOD THREAD

BTW, I did that route #4 almost 4 years ago on our way to Oz, some report here (I´ve asked to fix the Scandi alphabets on the header, so hopefully the link won´t become a mess as it has done before!):
MOTO-Ykk�nen - Matkalla


HEY LISTEN, I really appreciate the above, you have just really endorsed what I've been reading and maybe I should be looking at something closer to home bearing in mind the time I have and the issues on routes and visas
-----always nice to dream a little!!!!! catch you soon

Martin