G'day travelfriends,

In October my girlfriend and me (both 28) will try to find our way back to Holland while driving our two Honda Transalps out of Bangkok. Any advice you can give us about Carnets, insurances, licenses or whatever is highly appreciated, and you can count on a meal and a stayover whenever your in Holland. So please help us out if you can.
Thanx, Rob & Martine closmann@hotmail.com
Our trip:
Thailand>Burma>India>Bangladesh.Bhutan>Nepal>Pakis tan>Afghanistan>Uzbekistan>Iran>Turkey>Rest of Europe.

Rob & Martine

You will certainly need a carnet to traverse that route, and assuming your bikes are registered in Netherlands, you can get one from the Dutch ANWB.

"...I arranged a Carnet at the Dutch ANWB (AA). The Carnet is valid for a year but we can ask for another one just before the end of the first one. This will only cost us administration costs (NLG 265,- for a 25 page carnet) and the "guarantee-money" (NLG 4000,- for a Unimog 404 of 1963) will stay on their account." Thomas Ezendam, Tilburg, Holland

ANWB
Wassenaarseweg 220
post office bus 93200
2509 BA the Hague
070-314 71 47

Dutch ANWB (AA) has a website which might be useful: http://www.anwb.nl/city/anwb.htm

For details re carnets generally, there is a detailed description on the site at: http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tri...er/index.shtml

I think you can find quite a few answers to your questions in the Trip Planning section of the site, and then you can come back to the bulletin board with more specific questions.

Good luck with your trip, and please keep in touch.



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Susan Johnson
Share the Dream at <A HREF="http://www.HorizonsUnlimited.com/index.shtml" TARGET=_blank>www.HorizonsUnlimited.com
</A>

Hi,

We've been in Thailand for a month and are seeing regular reports of skirmishes along the Thai-Burmese border and for the time being I understand it's not possible to cross that border any way other than flying. I don't know about the Burma-Bangladesh border but you should check if you can cross that.

Visas are necessary for most of those countries and my advice is to get at least the visas for Turkey (if you need one) and Pakistan before applying for an Iranian visa. Allow at least 4 weeks for an Iranian visa but be aware it will only be valid for a period of 3 months from the date of issue. I'm sure you already know to make sure there are no Iserali immigration stamps in your passports.

Aside from the question of being able to get visas for Afghanistan I'd check if it is possible to cross the Pakistan-Afghanistan or for that matter Afghanistan-Iran borders overland. I don't think Iran and Uzbekistan share a border so your route would need to include Turkmenistan. Last I heard only Iranians and Turkmens can cross that border in their own vehicles but that was over a year ago. The established overland route in that part of the world is India-Pakistan-Iran-Turkey.

Good Luck,
Stephan

Hello there,

I drove from holland to Thailand,are now in Africa and can give you some good tips for export your bike from Thailand.You can't go true Birma,you have to fly over it.If any problems,ask me on franklinde@hotmail.com, you can ask in dutch,have a nice trip,Frank

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