hi folks. im in the early stages of planning the first leg of RTW trip. Im looking to leave in the spring of 2015, riding solo on my V-strom 650, from italy to malasya. From there the plan is to ship to North America (or even better Mexico or central america).
i just wanted to run this by some of you more seasoned travelers to see if you could help solve some doubts or pinpoint errors/discrepancies in my planning.
The route is as follows:

ITALY, SLOVENIA, CROATIA, BOSNIA, SERBIA, MACEDONIA, BULGARIA, TURKEY, ARMENIA, IRAN, PAKISTAN, INDIA, NEPAL, back to INDIA, BURMA, THAILAND, LAOS. CAMBODIA, back to THAILAND, MALASYA.

BUDGET: very tight. will camp rough or couchsurf where possible and stay away from hotels.

BORDER CROSSINGS: i will be traveling on italian passport, with a CDP for my motorcycle. Its pretty straight forward all the way to the TURKEY/IRAN border. For the remaining countries, as far as i understand, the situation is the following:
IRAN: can obtain visa in Ankara (maybe), but im better off getting it from the iranian embassy in italy. At the moment it is unclear wether a guide is needed when entering with own vehicle, wether this only applies to USA/UK/CAN/AUS citizens, or even if it's true at all. Monitoring the situation carefully as it unfolds, but in case things go south and iran becomes off limits does anyone have any suggestions for bypassing it and shipping directly into Paki or India?
PAKISTAN: tried to find some info on the web but the site for the paki embassy in italy is down, and all emails bounce back. on another site, however, i found that in order to get a visa you must present a whole lot of docs: most of them are pretty regular stuff like passport and such, but it seems that they also wanna see my bank statements for the last 3 months (WTF!!!), airplane tickets (which i obviously dont have) and hotel reservations (do i have to have this?). Once inside pakistan i understand that i will be escorted for part of the way (at least through baluchistan) but that this is free of charge (?). can you confirm that?
INDIA: VISA is pretty straight forward as far as documentation. Can it be gotten at the border? as far as i understand there are no particular restrictions as far as getting around on a foreign vehicle.
NEPAL: according to their govt website a tourist visa can be issued directly at the border. can you confirm that?
MYANMAR: Would absolutely LOOOVE to see Burma but i understand that at the moment it is a major pain in the back. Need to be escorted the whole way trough the country at a considerable cost. It might be feasible if i manage to find a large enough group, but if thats not possible i will be forced to fly the bike from kathmandu to Bangkok.
THAILAND: i will need to get a double-entry visa since i plan to go to laos and cambodia and will need to re-enter thailand to get to malasya. their embassy website, however, says that you need to provide a two-way air ticket. How did you sort that out? Other than that, i assume it can be easily obtanied en-reoute by going to a thai embassy/consulate in india or, even better, kathmandu. is this the case?
LAOS: tourist VISA can be easily gotten through the embassy in Bangkok or directly at the land border. no major drama there
CAMBODIA: 30-day visa can be issued at the border.
MALASYA: Visa at the border. no hassle.



WEATHER
i worked out a chart with monthly rainfall averages (find it in the attachments). ideally i would leave Italy at the beginning of June. Aside for a couple of stops in Croatia i will be tearing it up through the balkans as ive been there many times before. I do however plan to spend some time in turkey and especially in Iran where i have some very very good friends.
i would like to enter India in late Septmber or early October in order to escape the summer rains, but that would put me in Nepal in late October/Novermber. Do you reckon it's feasible to visit the country around that time of the year or do i risk getting bogged down in snow?
from then on it seems pretty straight forward. Hit SE Asia in November when the dry season begins, and ride around for a a few months. It seems theres absolutely no way of staying dry in Malasya as it rains all year round, but i would be shipping out of there in the spring of 2016 towards North America or, even better, Central America (so far i have been unable to find reliable routes from SE Asia to latin america, do you know of any?)

That should be it. What do you people reckon? can it be done? any thoughts?

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FYI there is no open border between Turkey & Armenia. You can go via Georgia. They are all visa on arrival.
Pakistan has many checkpoints and you will be frequently escorted by police. This is definitely free. It makes the going slow sometimes especially when it's 2 guys on a tiny bike or you have to wait for the escort to arrive, but everyone is very friendly. Pakistan visa must be obtained in your home country.
India visa must be obtained in advance, I don't think you can get one at the border.
Nepal, sorry I forget about the visa but weather wise you will be fine. They don't get as cold & snowy in the populated parts, November in Kathmandu is cool & lovely...not really so cold. Air freight to Bangkok is pretty easy.
Thailand gives 30 day visa if you arrive by air, 15 day at the land border. You can make "visa runs" to renew.
Hope this helps!

Hello, I'm an Italian national, too.



Don't worry for this.
I rode central Nepal in november 2012 astride a rented Royal Enfield and I found an average temperature of 17-18°C with peaks of 20°C, and only 2 hours of rain out of 10 entire days of fair skies!
Temperature was like in North Italy at end of March / early April, much pleasant even at average altitudes.

__________________
Nick and his 2010 Yamaha XT1200Z Super Ténéré

Hi!
I would agree with niello8 that you need to get your Indian visa before you get to the border.

For Nepal you can definitely get it at the border. November is a great time to be there.

You're right about Myanmar/Burma, but if you do her a group it might be cheaper than flying you and the bike?

For Laos, get at the border, quick and easy.

Thailand now issues 30 day visas at the land border as well, except if you are Spanish, they remain at 15 days. You can leave the country and return (eg after Cambodia) and buy a new visa, no problem. And I think you can do this 4 times in 1 year.

You're going to have a great time!!



Gesendet von meinem iPhone mit Tapatalk

Ciao

Everything can be done.
We are also italian and we did that route 2 years ago [wow! it's already 2 years...time goes fast! ]...

As already said:

No border open between Armenia and Turkey so you'll have to go trough Georgia.

It is better to get your Iranian Visa in Italy, the Consulate in Milan is in the very center (so you get to see the Duomo , and the Visa will have 3 months validity from the date of issue (this means you can enter in that time frame and from there your 21days/1 month visa will start).
I don't know wether you need a guide or not, we didn't have one, but maybe things have changed.

About Pakistan I can only suggest you 2 things:
- don't ask it in the Consulate in Milan
- tell them you are going via airplane (showing them a airplane ticket if necessary)

When we went there in 2011 telling them we wanted to ride from Italy to India, they simply refused to give us a visa. It took us days (and the help of the super nice secretary) to have a meeting with the Consul so that we agreed that we would ship the motorbike straight to Islamabad from Dubai in order to avoid driving in Baluchistan. (They gave us a restricted visa to make sure that we would do so).

☆☆ Read the story on our Blog ☆☆

In 2013 on our summer holiday to Italy we went back to the Consulate asking for a new visa (why not? )and after a first refusal and a funny attempt to ask us a Piece of Moon before they could proceed, we got our Pakistani Visa valid for 1 year from the date of issue!!! ::
[See you in Pakistan in July!!]

Papers needed: an invitation letter (if you check even on the hubb there are some travel agency that can provide you one).
The Piece of the Moon that they wanted from us was an invitation letter from a governative authority, possibily a minister. Well, we got one from the Pakistan Tourist Departement that stated that we were gonna go to Pakistan "to promote adventurous sports"!

For India no Visa at the border.
If you want to be sure to have a 6 months visa you should get it in Italy, but consider that Indian visa start from the day they are issued (not from the day you cross the border).
In 2012 we got 6 months visa in Islamabad (not so easy). Since then only 3 months visa (both in Sri Lanka and Nepal).

☆☆ Read about the Indian Visa in Islamabad on our Blog ☆☆

A veichle can stay in India for only 6 months on a row, then it has to go out (same for Turkey).

Nepal: visa at the border 25$-->15 days, 40$-->1 month, 100$-->3 months
Best time to visit Nepal is spring (april-may) and autumn (september-october).. so Enjoy!

About the rest of SEA... we got stuck this side of Burma (we spent 2 years between India, Sri Lanka and Nepal), we will try to cross it in the summer of 2015....

Write us a email (in italian ) for any other info..


Buona strada!

Agata and Thomas

__________________
Him + Her + The Bike = 300kg. Everything else is Fleeting
**http://www.300kg.eu**

Well, it seems that italians gets more crowdy in here; that's sounds good to me..
AS Thomas has already shown above the proper vademecum, i can only wish you a nice route.
I'd just say that it would be a pity to missing Ladakh...

well. .. thanks a lot for the replies folks! youve all been, as usual, very helpful and polite. good to see some italians in here too. Guess I will pvt you guys in case I need somo more info.
The fact that the Indian visa has to be obtained in one's home country is a bit of a pain in the ass, as I was hoping that I could keep my schedule nice and loose. guess not!
once again. .. thanks a bunch to all of you.
peace

You can find some information on SomnisBus | "Viaggia in furgo per tutto il pianeta" in Italian, English, Spanish and Catalan.
We are a couple travelling from Spain to Malasya now, we are planning the way bacj trought CHina and ...stan countries .
Ciao ciao