hoping to cross to eastern Ukraine - Russia later this year, happy if we can share any feedback re current affairs there.

Hi Zenmote,

We are in Greece at the moment thinking of going in to Turkey for 4 or 5 days then Bulgaria,Romania,Moldova to arriving in Ukraine about 15th 16th May and then on the Ukraine/Russian border 17th 18th May we have not made a final decision yet but are trying to get info where we can about the situation on the ground in the Ukraine, so if anybody can help with info it would be greatly appreciated.

Dave

Hi Dave,

we're currently stuck in Kyrgyzstan as we got our China transit cancelled for the second time around.

Would it still be possible to join your party? If I read the thread well, you're two vehicles at the moment. Would it still work time-wise regarding the paperwork? And what price would we be looking at?

We're two, travelling in a land cruiser and camping whenever possible.

Thanks for your reply,

Cheers
Michael

Hello,
We are a group of four people, two couples, one of whom is based in Mongolia and the other in Australia (we are all Aussies). We plan to drive through China and down through Vietnam and Thailand mid next year and are also looking for others to share the guide costs through China. We have our vehicle (just one) in Mongolia. We would love to join any of you who are planning this trip next year, please reply!
Jocelyn

I know it comes quite late, but we are looking for a way to cross china around that time! Do you still have one spot available?

Andreas

Hi
We are the road and heading through Russia, Mongolia and China ending up at Laos or Vietnam. We will be in Mongolia mid to late September as our entry to china visa expires on 30th September. We are a couple in our 50s on a motorbike. We are currently trying to sort our route out via Navo Tours recommended on this site. The costs are high because of the number of people crossing at this time. our email is sally.david@hotmail.co.uk if you need extra people. 1 thing though motorbikes are not aloud on Chinese main highways.
David & Sally

Hi Dave and Les,

I have been reviewing your post and the subsequent threads, I would be really interested in an update now that you should be through China. I am planning a similar venture in the future and would like to know the issues/problems you may have had, including any "must do" experiences.
What do you estimate was the total cost of the passage through China?

Hope it all went well,

cheers
Andy

Hi Andy,

Sorry it has taken me so long to respond to your request but we have spent a lot of time preparing to return to the UK (flying not driving), we are in the UK now for a short visit before we return back to Thailand and Plodd next month.

We were a party of 4 vehicles crossing China and we all had very different agendas, for example were was traveling from our home in UK to our home in Thailand in Plodd, another couple were traveling to Australia in a converted Sprinter, another were at the end of a one year trip that had taken them through the Stans in there Landcruiser and was ending there trip in Thailand before shipping the Landcruiser back to Germany and the last couple were traveling to South East Asia in a Man 8t Overlander truck before returning to Europe next year. Some wanted to look at temples some wanted to be in the cities some wanted to use highways and others the mountain passes, this caused a little bit of friction from time to time but we always manage to find a compromise on these few occasions. Unlike what we were told by other overlanders the guide did let us do our own thing to a point and one time we left the convoy for 3 day/nights to avoid the mountain passes and enjoy other sites, and on another occasion the couple in the Landcruiser left the party for 3 nights, so the guide was far more flexible than we were lead to believe was possible.

Well the must do's are endless but I will try to come up with some of the things we enjoyed on our trip.

On our travels we bumped into many other overlanders in Mongolia and China and some of them were not too happy with there guides, we met one couple that were with a Dutch/Chinese based company that were very very disappointed with their guide. Our guide was excellent and helped with any problems that any of the party encountered, she also spoke very good English and was very knowledgeable in all areas of China, which helped us to choose our route and stops through China.

We visited most of the known sights (Great Wall,Panda's, Terracotta Army, etc).

The total cost depends on many things, accommodation being one thing. If you stay in hotels or the camper or a bit of both, also roads that you use, highways or small roads, we used the highways a lot and the cost of the tolls was about £500 for the 30 days. Other costs were the entrance fees to the many sights we visited, you pay to see everything in China whether it be a museum or a lake and some sights are quite expensive, saying that, most are worth the fee charged, for example The Tiger Leaping Gorge was about £20 per person, Lake Lugi about £20, Great Wall and the Panda's around the same.

One place you don't need to visit is Shangri-La, just recently they had a terrible fire where most of Shangri-La was destroyed. Lake Lugi was nice to spend 2 or 3 nights at and if you like cities Beijing is very interesting but again you pay to visits all the sites of interest.

Eating the street food in many of the cities with the guide was good fun. The best (but very expensive) restaurant on the whole of the trip Temple Restaurant Beijing in Beijing.This restaurant had the highest standards of western food and hospitality we have ever seen anywhere in the world, If you go, tripadviser it first.

Crossing the border from Mongolia into China we were informed that we would not be allowed to take any food products into China, we had no problem the Chinese Customs Officer just came onto Plodd and opened one cupboard then left without a problem. Our Guide was talking to the officers long before we arrived at the border explaining who we were etc and I am sure that helped a great deal in our speedy exit, also exiting at the Laos border the same the customs officers seemed to know our guide very well and we past through with no problems.

I hope this helps and if you have any questions or need any help in your planning do not hesitate to ask. If you would like to ask Spring our guide for a quote, I would be more than happy to forward your details to her and then she could contact you in due course.

Kind regards and good Luck

Dave
Plodd - A Trip of a Lifetime

PS when are you planning to do your trip ?

Hi Dave, Thanks very much for the response, there is a fantastic amount of detail here and I will take it all on board.
My build is in the process, we had a first tentative weekend away in it a couple of weeks ago at the overland show, it all seemed to work. Still got to do some bits on the cab and hopefully be away on short trips next year.

The grand plan is to get away for a couple of years four years from now. That is what I am building towards and hope to go, roughly, the route you have taken and just keep going.

I have now found your website so will have a proper look at that in the near future. Maybe in touch in the future fi that's ok ?

many thanks again,

Andy & Mandy

Hi Andy & Mandy,

Just to tell you when I finished building Plodd we went to Lancaster for a weekend then the next weekend we set off on our trip so we never slept in Plodd or went anywhere in she until that date.

Dave

hi Dave and Les
thanks for putting this info up.
we are intending to drive from Turkey to Thailand next year.
at the moment we have two vehicles with similar plan and timescale.
i would like to know your specific costs for your time in China please ?
costs for entry ?
daily guide / agency cost?
fuel total cost for how many kms ?
accomodation costs and did you sleep in vehicle much ?
food costs ?

please can you send me your guides contact details too ?

many thanks
phil.

Hi Phil,

You are asking for a lot of information, so I will get together with Les and try to sort out an approximate costing for all you are asking but it will take me a bit of time.

I must say that looking back on our wonderful trip that with our new found knowledge the temptation of trying to reduce the proportion of the cost of the guide in China by adding more vehicles can be false economy, we were a convoy of 4 vehicles and although we did get on the majority of the time (and are still emailing one another from time to time) it does restrict you to what the majority want to do and you are likely to only do this trip once in a life time so think carefully about the amount of vehicles you are prepared to have in your convoy, you all will be with complete strangers for 30 days and 30 nights so all parties before joining must think very carefully about what they want from the trip,what they want to see on the trip, ie driving on narrow mountain passes or motorways, and more importantly voice there ideas long before joining the convoy then everyone knows where they stand, Like I said in my last blog our guide allowed some of us to split from time to time from the main convoy and that was very good for all,however, after talking to others that have or are doing similar trips there guides would not allow this to happen and in that situation no one gets a break.

The only stipulation the guide made to allowing any split was everyone had to have a Chinese telephone sim in there phone not just an internet sim,so everyone was contactable at anytime, she also provided walkie talkies for all vehicles for when we were in convoy.
Just one more point we would not do a trip through China with any other Guide that is for sure no matter how much they charged, the guide's knowledge makes the trip good or bad:

PS
Phil if you PM me with you email address I will forward it to Spring the Guide for her to contact you.

Hi Phil,

I have not heard from you, so my question is Have You set off and if so where are you now.
After Lesley and I got to our home in Thailand we decided to buy a piece of land next to our house to build what we think is the first overlander stop build by overlanders in Thailand it is 100k south east of Bangkok and 10 minutes from Pattaya, the construction is well on its way and consists of toilets,showers, laundry and two on suite rooms that we will be letting out that would be good for motorbikes etc, but the main thing is the safe parking with electricity hook up, we are also planning to have a inspection pit to allow overlanders to inspect/work on there vehicles.
Anyway I thought I would just contact you to see if you booked Spring for your trip

Kind regards

Dave & Les

You can travel through China on bikes, but it needs to be pre-arranged.
I used the Guanzhou sports association last time, but you're right you can't use highways and always need a guide...

G'Day,

Not entirely correct ~ Beijing municipality legally allows motorbikes on expressways (tollways) and usually as long one stays on the expressways departing from Beijing they let one continue. Once exiting the expressway / tollways outside Beijing municipality they won't let bikes on again legally.

Do bear in mind please ~ most expressways / tollways in Mainland China are quite boring & dull...

__________________
Somewhere down the road in China since '89 ~ along the route I've learned the hard way that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everybody off is a piece of cake....TBR