Just a thought, but it occurs to me that you [Mattbibby] and Cwac are trying to achieve the same, or similar objectives.

Cwac says he's leaving the UK in August, which means he could easily get to the Turkish-Georgian border, at Sarp, by late September; taking-in plenty of scenery along the way.

You both meet-up at Sarp - or somewhere close-by, e.g. Trabzon - then ride together through Georgia + Armenia and eventually cross-over into Iran at the Agarak (Armenia) < – > Norduz (Iran) border. Meet your pre-arranged official Iranian tour guide right there. Or you can rendezvous at Agarak if you want to travel independently as far as possible - or somewhere in-between (e.g. Tbilisi, Yerevan.)

Ride all the way down through Iran to one of the Hormuz-based port-cities of (a) Bandar Abbas, or (b) Bandar Lengeh, sharing the cost of the guide.

You could try and involve even more UK/Canadian/US travellers and thus reduce the guide costs even further. There's plenty of time ahead to advertise and involve more overlanders.

Ferry to Sharjah or Dubai UAE from either Bandar Abbas, or Bandar Lengeh.

See the Emirates - all seven of them, and why not? Also take a look around Oman, both are fantastically friendly countries. Fabulous roads too.

By the time you've travelled through Iran, and around the UAE & Oman .. believe me, you will have seen more than enough desert by that time. You won't need to go through the southern deserts of Pakistan to see yet more sand!

Then crate-up and air-freight your bikes from Dubai to Kathmandu, Nepal. Turkish Cargo can deal with this for you (via Istabul.) You fly as passengers direct to Kathmandu with the lo-cost carrier, Air Arabia, from Sharjah Int'l Airport. Collect your bikes at KTM and head-off to one of the many Indian borders.

Into India .. via the back door.

WHAT an adventure?! Entirely do-able too, despite the recent visa restrictions imposed by Iran for Brits/Canuks/and Yanks.

Best of luck with your planning.

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Right Way Round ...

Omie, I have read some of your posts with interest, I have no doubt I will be nagging you for advice as my plans get more definite!!

It would be excellent to meet people to ride with in what feels like such a faraway land right now!

I am open to ideas and absolutely keen to ride with others! My main goal is to get to NZ, I'd like to ride overland in the correct direction as much of the way as is physically possible but that does sound like a hell of a ride

Hello all,

Hi to Cwak also. I'd be interested in discussing both of our plans in more detail. Whereabouts are you based?

Keith, thanks for your in depth proposed itinerary. It seems to correlate roughly with my (1). The Iranian 'guide' fees I have heard are c.€100USD/day, which I would rather avoid, though. This is then added with the required cost of shipping from the gulf to India, and I'm not sure whether it might be a better option to ship from further West entirely.

Edit: based on 'Perth2Perth's 10 days to cross Iran (going rather quickly and not seeing much, I assume) this is ~$1000USD in guide fees.

Through talking with shippers it seems that the cost of air freight isn't that related to the distance, but is instead more dependent on the outgoing shipping port. For example, shipping out of a large port like London is cheap due to competition, but most places in Eastern Europe or the Middle East are quite dear.

I'll be looking in more detail into shipping options are the number of hurdles to crossing borders seems almost insurmountable.

:-(

By avoiding Iran and Pakistan you will be missing two of the most amazing and friendly places. They really were our favourite countries and never once did we feel unsafe in either.
The hospitality of the Iranian and Pakistani people was the best in the world. We felt more unsafe in eastern Turkey and also India than anywhere in Pakistan.

Hope you get sorted.
Jaime

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