sending the bikes Stans to Thailand?
 

Were in the planning stages of a bit of a journey and with the recent happenings in Pakistan were thinking of Freighting the bikes (and us) from one of the Stans to Thailand.

Is this possible?
I've sent off an e-mail to air Astana , but no reply as yet. They're the only one's that I could find that flies from Almaty, Kazakhstan to Bangkok.

Our plans are still quite flexible any suggestions will be appreciated.

Cheers guys!

getting stuff done with Air Astana, I suspect will be difficult and expensive. I reckon you should also be trying Uzbekistan Airways from Tashkent. A guy recently had an accident in Uzbekistan and flew his bike home with them to London for a minimum of paperwork and about 700 EUR.

I recently had quotes out of Almaty to London at well over twice that rate and with a mountain of paperwork.

Uzbekistan Airways flies Tashkent - Bangkok

Excellent plan, I've not thought about Uzbekistan-Thailand.

What are visas like for Uzbekistan, can you get them at the border with Tajikistan?

Visas for Uzbekistan are a pain in the nuts (as are their customs and traffic police). You need to get an invitation (Stantours the best bet) and then apply. You would not be able to get them at the border.

But the really good food, and amazing cities such as Bukhara and Khiva and to a lesser extent Samarkand make the hassle worthwhile.

So could you apply for a UZ visa in say almaty, kazakh.

Once were there well have a bit more of an idea of what were doing.

I dont particularly wanna do everything from the UK 'cos it runs the risk of becoming a bit of a pre-planned package holiday.

The plan now seems to be a bit of a lazy Stan arch, Kazakh-Kyrgyz-Tajik-Uzbek.

Thanks for the info BTW. I see a plan forming....

Yeah you could do that ... it might take a week for each visa, but you may be able to try and get them simultaneously by showing your passport and giving them a copy of your passport to work with. And get the visa actually input into the passport when you come to collect. Note, that from memory, Uzbek visa invitations themselves take a week or two to come through. So you might want to ask for that a week or so before you get to Almaty. Check all of that with David from Stantours

Also worth noting is that there are no hostels or cheap hotels in Almaty ... it can be an expensive town to spend a lot of time

Noted, cheers for the info.

We'll get talking to David then. We already need to get hold of him for a LOI for Russia.

Guys any advice still welcome!

I sent off an email to Uzbekistan air but still no reply. I'm gonna try and get a phone nr and try again.

In the meantime if anybody knows of anyway to get from the stans to Thailand let me know.

Cheers!