Only a whim at the moment, but any suggestions of a rough outline (i.e. countries and not-possibles/hops)? But these things often snowball quickly soon after

Probably starting with a fairly direct route as afraid I don't have unlimited time!

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Hi Ian, met you back in 2007 in La Paz, Bolivia...seems a very long time ago now!

Did this route in reverse from Oz to UK in 2008 though getting Iran visas maybe looking a bit iffy thanks to our excellent foreign relations policies..have a look at my blog site below for the rough route, think it was around 5 months in total but could/should have taken much longer.

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My little Vid: India/Pakistan

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Hi Mike, how you doing? Yes I remember it well, you gave me some tracklogs of what actually turned out to be one of the most exhilarating sections of the whole Trans-Americas trip - certainly the highest altititude!

I'll take a look later. Did you do that one solo? Or with Michelle(?)?

Would you say this trip is similar in time/distance to Prudhoe/Ushuaia?

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You´re not saying when, and for about how long?

Getting a visa for Iran with a UK passport could be tough right now. Not advisable to go through Afghanistan either, so it is likely that you´ll run into the dilemma of ´can I go to China´, which is in fact a widely discussed topic on these boards (the short answer seems to be, that you can, but it has to be arranged well in advance, and costs several hundred euros per day – going from the Stans to the Karakoram Highway and Pakistan, however, only necessitates a relatively short stay inside China).

You´ll also need the carnet, if you plan to enter Pakistan or India (or later Indonesia or Oz) with the bike. Burma is also practically a no-go, so once again you pay big time to go through China to Laos (crossing the Himalayas, so it´s not possible 12 months a year) or, like most people do, you ship the bike across the Bay of Bengal by ship or by air. There are no ferries. The most common route here seems to be Kathmandu to Bangkok by plane, where you can avoid the horrible Indian bureaucracy, but you can also ship out of India, if you like – I did that, but I don´t recommend it!!

Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Malaysia are also do-able on your own bike, and all very highly recommended, too (warm climate, nice people, great food, beautiful roads and sceneryl!)... but Vietnam unfortunately is a pain to get your own motorcycle into. Easier to leave your bike somewhere, fly in and rent locally.

And how to get the bike from one of the island nations to Australia is yet another slight problem (once again no ferries)... the most widely used option seems to be cargo ships, run by Perkins shipping, that go between Singapore - Dili (East Timor) - Darwin. You could also send by air or by sea from the bigger cities/ports in Indonesia, but it is probably complicated. Some smaller boats from Kupang (West Timor) might also be an option, when the weather permits, but there probably isn´t any solid information about them, you´d need to go there and ask (...and basically the same goes for most ferry boats operating inside Indonesia – do not expect to travel very fast there, unless you fly!)

I did Europe to Oz with my girlfriend about 4 years ago, and we spent 6 months. That was okay, but sometimes I wished we´d had a few more months, mainly to rest a bit in some nice places along the way, so maybe 8-9 months would´ve been sort of ´optimum´ for us. It was some 34.000 road kilometers, though we did some 9.000 out of that in Australia... and actually I would not start off on that route (or I would cut the trip shorter), if I had less time than what we had. If you really wanted, I guess you could do it in just 2-3 months, but that means rushing a lot.

More about our trip here:
MOTO1 - Matkalla

Hi

Im intending same route, well going from Perth Scotland to Perth in australia. China was the original plan but others have dropped out so its way too expensive now to go alone, although a few days avoiding Iran into Pakistan sounds not too bad an idea for me.
I'll fly across to BKK then head to Singapore and shipping straight to Darwin. Indonesia will have to wait until year after when I have more time.

Im looking to leave UK in late august so interested in anyone else going same way, your thoughts perhaps.

Cheers
Steven

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Steven
Perth to Perth 2012

Hi Steven

If you leave UK in Late August, and avoid Iran, I'm guessing you'll be taking the Karakorum Highway from Kyrgyzstan-China-Pakistan. The border as far as I've read is only open from the 1st May to about 15th November. I wonder how cold it will be by late autumn?

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