Hi, I just joined this site 5 minutes ago. I don't know if I'm posting this in the right place so if I'm not then please tell me or move it. Thanks. Anyway, I would like to ride from Vietnam to Europe and I was wondering how feasible this is and what the most popular routes are. I've just started researching this trip and obviously have a lot more research to do before I even begin planning but I just thought I'd put this out here to help me get started. Also, how long does this type of trip usually take, going at a fast pace (I know that's a relative term but I mean in general) and about how much might it cost for the most frugal of riders. Thanks!

Hi, welcome to the site.

There are two main routes, one would be Vietnam into China, Russia then Europe, sound easy but China is a big problem for taking a bike in. In can be done and has been done, but the Chinese prety much make up the rules day to day so its not reliable. The other route would be to ride into Thailand, ship your bike by air to katmandu, then into India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey then rest of Europe. That is the common route, has been done recently by many people and there are many souces of information on this site to support traveling that route as well as many people doing it now.

You probably need to figure on at least 50 US$ a day when you add up fuel, food, lodging etc. Visas etc you need to find out about in advance abd be prepared with a lot of paperwork.

Good luck.

For India, Pakistan & Iran (possibly Nepal, too), you will need a carnet de passage to temporarily import any foreign bike.

Burma border is practically impossible to cross with a foreign bike, Vietnam is very tough, and probably China could be possible (and maybe crossing from Laos, not Vietnam), but it wont happen just like that. You´d need to contact them, and start arranging things several months in advance, and be prepared for miles of red tape, and also to spend real big money - thousands or tens of thousands of dollars - to cross the entire country.

The trip you´re talking about, you could probably easily double your budget, if you include crossing the whole China into it. Plus its much further north than Vietnam, for example, and some parts are uncomfortably cold or simply un-doable for bikes in the winter months.

That´s why most riders prefer to freight their bikes across the Bay of Bengal, between India or Nepal and Thailand or Malaysia. There are no ferries, but this can be done by cargo ships or by air, I´d budget roughly around 400 euros by sea, and 600-700 by air for 1 bike, plus 150-250 for flights per person.

There may not be very many bikes that would be seen as ´suitable´ for that kind of a long trip available in Vietnam. I wouldnt try to do that on a Minsk! There could be more selection in Thailand, Malaysia or Singapore (possibly Cambodia also), but prices may be higher. Thailand, Cambodia and Laos should be do-able on a Thai-registered bike, maybe Malaysia also.

Do note that you´ll need to be able to get all paperwork sorted, and your name needs to be in its documents, before you can take such bike anywhere out of the country, where you´ve purchased it.

I´d suggest searching the site, and also browsing back this Southern Asia section, will help you build a better picture of the project you want to get into.

I rode Vietnam to Italy in April 2008 taking 4.5 months for the ride.

Major challenges were taking a bike into Vietnam and/or China so this is how I (sort of) got round it.

1. Shipped my bike from Melbourne to Busan Korea.
2. Flew to Ho Chi Minh city with intent to buy/rent bike and ride North to China.

The challenge here was that it was all but impossible to buy and/or bike in Vietnam. I ended up renting a bike and riding around Southern Vietnam before taking a bus North to Hanoi.

3. Crossed border by bus to China and purchased new Haobon 125 to ride around China. With the help of other HUBB members I bought the bike in Qinzhou (40km from Vietnam border) covered 8,000km in a month, ignored local requirements for licensing/foreign ownership/registration/insurance and sold the bike in Shanghai.

The problem I had here was trying to get the Chinese bike out of China and into Mongolia. I ended up leaving the bike at the Mongolian border, taking the train to/from to Ulan Bataar and collecting the bike for the ride South to Shanghai.

Riding in China was a REAL challenge - not just the roads, but also traffic.

3. Flew from Shanghai to Busan, collected bike and rode North to Sokcho.

4. In Sokcho caught ferry to Zarubino (Russia) and from there it was overland all the way - Russia - Kazakhstan - Russia - Finland - Sweden - Finland - Norway - Sweden - Denmark - Germany - Czech Republic - Austria - Slovakia - Hungary - Croatia - Italy.

5. Shipped bike back to Australia from Rome.

See my blog Across the universe for more details.

Garry from Oz.

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Hi Garry, read your post re travelling through China and not being able to get your chinese bike into Mongolia. Hypothetical question, do you think it would have been possible to put the bike on a lorry, hidden it from customs and unloaded 100km the other side of the border and rode on?. I wonder about Khazakstan-China China-Lao using one bike and no rules?.
Jimmy

Jimmy, you know I feel really bummed about what happened at the Mongolian crossing. This was the only place where I had any real troubels, otherwise the authorities in China were fantastic to deal with.

In answer to your question, yes, it is possible and I'm not happy about the fact that I didn't achieve it even though i put in 3 days of effort. I recently discovered from advrider that a South African couple put their China purchased bikes on a lorry and crossed SEVEN days after I failed. I only wish that they had arrived earlier!

However, if you read their story on adv you will find that they ended up snookered at the Mongolia / Russian border and had to sell their bikes to Russians (who subsequently bribed the border guards to get the bikes into Russia) and they ended up taking the Trans Siberian train to Moscow.

Garry from Oz.

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