Romania to Thailand
 

We are planning to go from Romania to Thailand via Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal.

We will be leaving on the 1st of August (if can get everything sorted out by then).

More details on ZUMZUMZUM- from Romania to Thailand on a bike
The plan is here: ZUMZUMZUM- from Romania to Thailand on a bike » The plan

Anybody on the same route ?

Cheers,
Ciprian

Hi, were planning roughly the same, but some 1 - 1,5 months later. Were riding 2-up on a Vstrom 650. Some areas seem interesting to say the least, if you look at the news about Turkey, Iran and Pakistan right now!! I hope it´ll be more settled later on this year...

Hope you will update your blog as you travel, as it would be truly excellent to get some fresh info about things. And if your schedule is so flexible as it seems, who knows maybe we can meet you somewhere along the way!

About carnet, as I understand youre going to need one.. are you getting it from your local automobile association, and how big is the "guarantee"/deposit that they ask from you? See, here in Finland they want 5000 euros to issue it for us!! I hear it might be possible to get it with a smaller deposit from Germany, Im working to find that out.

Do you have any insurance on your bike (against theft&fire) that´ll be valid outside Europe, or you just trust your good luck? Im finding it hard to get any company to even offer one and the bike´s almost brand new (bikes cost a fortune here because of our high taxes). Thats something I´ll have to get a solution into.

What tyres do you plan to use? And will you carry an extra set with you (Im hoping to avoid that, but not sure at the moment if I still better do that)?

As far as Ive been informed (never done this route myself, though) your plan seems realistic, except maybe for Vietnam where your probably not allowed to go with a big bike.

We plan to keep it updated, we will see how easy is to access the net on the road. We will have a notebook with us.
We chose to leave in August in order to get the best weather in south-east asia and to avoid the Ramadan.

You are lucky with 5000Eur deposit, the local automobile club is asking 10.000 for our bike. We are still trying to settle with them for a little less.

we will have medical insurance for ourselves and insurance for the luggage, nobody seems to want to insure the bike.

I just bought a new pair of Metzeler Tourances. I won't carry extras with me (only extra tubes). If needed we can get a pair sent to us in India via DHL (or something similar).


Keep in touch,
Ciprian

Its likely to be extremely hot on the way to India in August, thats why we plan to leave a little later. Remains to be seen if the Ramadan will affect the journey much. Ive been to Thailand the past couple of winters, and (near Bangkok) the rains dont really seem to completely dry up until mid- or even end of november.. maybe someone whos been there longer can tell, if thats normal or not.

At the moment Im in talks with a company named Alessia in the Netherlands, they said they "might be able to insure the bike for some, if not all the countries visited"... but I havent received a quote from them yet, if its an astronomical figure then I wont take it.

Sending spare parts somewhere might work if you can wait for them a few days.. not so sure about tyres, because they take up much more space and weight quite a bit, too. I´m actually hoping I wont have to test how expensive it might turn out to be in reality.

10000 deposit - wow.. for once something´s actually starting to feel cheap here!! Its a ridiculous idea anyway, that I could profit from selling a Finnish-registered bike in any carnet-country (´cos they cost so much here) but what can you do. Probably still less hassle (and perhaps more likely to get that money back) than handing out that kind of money to, say, an indian or pakistani border official - and trying to get it back when leaving the country, I figure!