Marcel - already loving your blog!! You're right, i think we would have made great riding buddies! I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it and am sure the Oz bits will be useful Thanks again!

Fraser - I think maybe I had a bum deal with how they handled it but from what I hear Pakistan is a bit of a highlight so maybe worth the effort.

The only issue is that they ask you for a sponsor in Pakistan or the name of a travel agent in Pakistan in order to get the visa. I had te explain the motorcycle part as why I didn't have either of these. I think you might be right to avoid using the word motorcycle at all and maybe get and agent to do the paperwork which might remove the need for a named sponsor - they can also throw together an itinerary for you.

Carnet was about £200.00 plus the bank guarantee, which for my route was 500% of the value of the bike. There's a lot of confusion with the banks about this but it can definitely be done if you have the money in your account, rather than having to pay the ridiculous 'insurance premium'. There's good info on the HUBB about the carnet bank guarantee but I spoke to 4 people in HSBC who flat out told me it couldn't be done, before I spoke to a manager and showed him the print out posts from this forum - then it took a week to sort and cost only £40.00 but the deposit money is frozen in your account.

I would also say that the carnet is valued on the cost of the bike when you bought it, a recent valuation (on stamped headed paper) from a reputable dealer or, the site the RAC use is Motorcycle Price Guide | New & Used | Price Any Bike. Use this site to see what range of price you can use for your vehicle and see what is the lowest realistic valuation you can perhaps get away with

Good luck on your prep Fraser - as long as you start the process for Pakistan visa and carnet early then you'll be fine!

Also meant to say that the RAC dropped the ball a couple of imes on the carnet process so keep an eye on it and follow up regularly. I dealt with someone called Jess who was lovely but there were a few mistakes that cost me some time.

The big issue was that the deposit for the carnet can either be a bank guarantee, the full amount paid to the RAC to hold or through an insurance premium. What I was not aware of is that the RAC can only take a deposit of up to £10k. Anything over this and you have to get the insurance premium as well they only told me this after they'd had my application for 4 weeks and the day before I was due to leave They'd said the application was fine and being processed right up until that point. This caused a fair amount of fuss and added an extra 10 days onto the process as I had to sort a bank guarantee. Luckily the Pakistan embassy were not playing ball either so I had something to keep me occupied

Oh, one last piece of advice - if you're going to the Pakistan embassy, or any for that matter, take a good book...it'll save your sanity while you're waiting!

Cheers Senorc... picked up bike last weekend. The race is on to get my ducks in a row before the snow in eastern Turkey dumps!

Great - hope it goes well!! Have a shifty at my blog to get an idea of the spares and equipment I've taken - fair bit of research that might save you some time!

Good luck getting it all sorted in time, else maybe snowchains are added to the list

Let me know if you get a blog up and running detailing your progress!

Cheers senorc.. Won't feel official until I have carnet & Pakistan visa ticked off. ha. So yes, might need to be investing in snow chains & Arctic suits. haha. Or trying to find a truck to hitch a ride with!

Saw you had a little accident. Hope it was nothing serious!

Basically I was hit by a car the turned onto the road in Split. The guys panelling was screwed but my luggage and handlebars took the brunt of it so I walked away and the bike's in to get the front suspension and handlebars fixed - should take about a week. I've picked up some broken ribs as well but there's not much you can do about that apart from wait for them to heal.

The fallout is that I have to spend another week in Croatia - I've been in Split, have come over to the island of Hvar and will wander down to Dubrovnik. All I can say is there's sun, sea and ridiculously great looking women everywhere here. I can certainly think of worse places to be out of action for a while!

SHIT! Well heal fast and good luck fixing bike. Looks like you made it as far as Croatia pretty quickly.

Hi, hope is all going good. Where are you now?

I've got my Iranian visa finally and just left Istanbul. On the north coast sipping by the beach on the black sea.

Are you back on the road?

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Steven
Perth to Perth 2012