Thanks guys for all your advice. It was a long shot but I guess I will opt to fly from Thailand to India and take it from there. I currently live in Bali so will be getting the carnet in Jakarta. I have completely built this bike from scratch so it has never been registered or ridden except in its previous life. Thirty years ago I was given part of the engine and a small portion of the frame, but up until a few years ago it sat in my workshop waiting to be restored as I had other journeys to do.

Ninety percent of the nifty four cylinder bike has been made on my lathe from pictures and with the kind assistance of other FN owners around the world. I will be leaving here early 2010 with the intention of riding to Belgium to celebrate the motorcycle's 100th birthday.

This week I've had the bike fired up for the first time..it's an awesome sound. The seat leaves much to be desired in terms of comfort and the pedal assistance will be challenging, given my last major journey was back in the early 80's when my wife and I did 200,000kms on a Honda Goldwing from the top of the world to the bottom. At that time we were towing a fully equipped camper trailer - no such luxury this time unfortunately. I smile when I read about GPS, laptops and etc. Back then we just had to remember to keep the volcano on our left!

Dingo, we will get together for that Bintang soon I promise! Cheers, Ron