Originally Posted by niello8

The hassle & expense of the guide was why we sadly skipped Iran & went north. The guide cost for that small bit of china was much cheaper overall. But I can't complain, the caucuses, stans & KKH were al incredible! Maybe Iran will loosen up for us Americans someday...can always hope

Originally Posted by niello8

We submitted our passports at home and had them sent to turkey while we were on the road. We travelled on a 2nd set. The embassy was fine with mailing the visaed passports to our local address then we had it fwded. A service is also an option, try travisa, weve used them for other visas. Just make sure your Pak dates are very clear or they will give you 90 days from issue! We had to process and pay 2x, very expensive.

With travisa if you set it up right you can submit all of your materials apart from the physical passport online as well.

Originally Posted by mahsita

Hi all,

I just got back from a road trip in Iran and Pakistan. I have posted some useful information about Pakistan part on my blog as well as some pics. There will be more soon. You can check out the info on Country info in Central Asia, Silk Road, China, Pakistan & Iran | Not Just a Tourist as well as my last post about security and traveling in Baluchistan part Overland on motorbike in Baluchistan/Iran | Not Just a Tourist

Generally, I found Iran & Pakistan quite safe (apart from the motorbike accident I had in my last week in Persian Gulf on the island of Qehsm resluting in 2 broken legs and meeting a Spanish rider that was stopped on Saveh Tehran road by a car and got stolen all his money, passport and even the bike key). The only thing is that from Pakistani border in Mir Javeh/Taftan you will be accompanied by some security guys that will slow down your trip considerably and some times foce you into staying where they want. However, it could be fun too. You will not be allowed to go wherever you want. We could not go from Quetta to Islam Abad as you need a permission and it´s not given to overlanders. So we had to head for Lahore and we were escorted till Multan. In some cities we had problems finding a hotel as they were told to inform the police and the police would take you the hotels that they would consider safe and we would consider expensive. But in Quetta there was no problem at all and in the rest of country either except for Karakoram highway that due to some ethnic problems we were not given permission to continue either. Anyway it was to snowy and cold to be on the road.

As for the carnet and from my own experience you do need them for both countries. However, what I did was to buy a bike in Iran, travel there, head for Pakistan, ride back to Iran and sell it again. The only problem is that bikes in Iran cannot be more than 250 CC. But, still there could be 2 of us doing 80000-9000 kms on a Kawasaki KLE easily.

Pakistanis are very nice and friendly although camping will be a bit difficult in populated areas as you will never be alone. The emptiest part is the Baluchistan, where it will be only you, your bike and maybe the escort.

Enjoy!

Mahsa