Hello bikers,

As I am trying to avoid China (which is nowadays too difficult even impossible to cross over with motorbikes}, I am looking for some alternatives in order to reach South East Asia. I am in Uzbekistan at this time.

I have several options and I need your help to choose the good one :
1. Find a forwarder in Tashkent ( by road or by train) to send my bike from Uzbekistan to Vietnam, me going by foot through China
2. Find a forwarder in Almaty( by road or by train) to send my bike from Kazahkstan to Vietnam me going by foot through China . Actually I have the Kazak visa and my ouzbek via will finished in few hours.
3. Cross over Kazakhstan and then Russia in order to reach Vladivostok and then find a ferryboat up to Vietnam...

Please give me your points according to your experiences.

Thanks a lot

Simon
Aux P'tits Bouts Du Monde

Hi Simon. What size is the motor on your bike? As far as I'm aware, it is still illegal to ride a bike bigger than 175cc in Vietnam. You might be able to ship it there, but I think you won't be able to ride it there.

Regards

Nigel in NZ

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The mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with . -- 2200 BC Egyptian inscription

Hi Nigel,
our bikes are 125cc. So it should be ok for riding in Vietnam normally!
Does anyone knows how to get in Vietnam from Vladivostok by ferry? Is that possible via Korea? I saw a lot of topics on the ferry Vlad - Japan, but nothing about Vietnam...

Regards
Simon

I doubt that there is a ferry from either of those. It is quite a long distance!
You will have to ship the bike separately and get a flight for yourself.
Or maybe you can ship the bike by air and go with it.

By the way, does anyone know if Vietnam is allowing larger bikes now?
There was news that Vietnam will allow big bikes when they join the WTO. Harley Davidson wants to sell bikes there. And their bikes are not 175cc!

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Japan touring information

Sorry Simon, I should have looked at your profile to see you are riding the mighty CG125, the pinnacle of Honda's motorcycle engineering! Now there truly is a bike that you couldn't kill with a big stick. I assumed you were on a Yamaha TDM by your name. This thread may be useful>>
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...-vietnam-29102

By the way, how has it been traveling on the small bikes? I'm planning a similar trip on 185cc trailbikes.

Kind regards

Nigel in NZ

__________________
The mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with . -- 2200 BC Egyptian inscription

" our bikes are 125cc. So it should be ok for riding in Vietnam normally"

Sorry, but it aint that simple. Foreign bikes are basically banned in Vietnam. The new rule theyre talking about could mean, that they can sell new big bikes there, not necessarily that tourists can bring their own ones in. Or even if they could, just when that rule would be applied at their borders, would be anyones guess.

We tried last December with 115cc Yamaha Nouvo´s (Thai plates), went to all 3 international borders with Cambodia, 1 with Laos, and one with Cambodia we tried twice, so 5 times altogether. Did not get in.

We were a group of 8, dont know if it wouldve been different if there were only 1-2 of us. They didnt really seem to know what to do with us, and suggested we leave the bikes at the border and take a bus into the district capital, and ask for police permission there, but we didnt want to do that. Someone offered to smuggle the bikes in for about 300us per bike, but with a big group like that, it probably wouldve got us serious problems when leaving the country, if not before.

At the last border (Laobao) one officer told us that before setting off, we should have got some import permission booklet from the Thai ministry of transport....... that does sound a bit like then, even if you had it, they´d just find another excuse, why its not ok. And you probably wont be able to read, write, speak or understand even 1 word of vietnamese, unless youve studied it for a long time, and normally they speak very little english at the border.

But my friend, who lives in Thailand, now has actually got that very same booklet mentioned, and right about now he´s setting off again with a Nouvo, to try his luck at the Vietnamese border, probably with a smaller group this time. He said he´d keep me informed, so hopefully I can bring some good news in a week or so.

But it is a problem to get any foreign-registered bike into Vietnam. Not even the over/under 175cc "rule" (if there is, or ever was one!) seemed to matter anything. The consulate in Phnom Penh provided us with very generous help, too: (in french) "we only do visas here, we dont know nothing about bringing bikes, please go away, go ask at the border!" (and at the border: "go ask at the consulate!"

In short, you could probably save yourself a massive headache, if you imported the bike into Thailand, for example.