Trip from Europe to Mongolia, Saving Time
 

Hello everyone,


we are a Dutch-German couple and we are planning to do a motorcycle trip to Mongolia in the summer of 2015. It is the first time for us to do a very big trip.

Unfortunately, we only have limited time (~7 weeks, from beginning of July until end of August) and decided, that the entire trip to Mongolia and back would be too many kilometers in that time and that rushing so much would not very enjoyable for us. This is especially, because at the moment we favor the southern route through turkey and iran, which means more kilometers.

We looked at different opportunities to save time, namely taking the plane back and shipping the bikes or even leave (=sell) them in Mongolia or taking the bikes on the train for our way back, and we even thought about rushing on the shortest way through russia to Mongolia and then back, which we concluded, would not be very desirable. Also we already sent lots of e-mails to shipping companies, travelling agencies, the Mongolian embassy, etc. to get a clear image about our opportunities.

Unfortunately, we are a little bit confused, because it is hard to really weight the pros and cons of the different possibilities to handle our "time issue", which is why we would like to ask other travellers about their experiences.

It appears to be difficult to pre-arrange stuff like taking our bikes as luggage on the train. So our main question is, if it would be possible and perhaps easier to arrange a train ride on the spot in Ulaan Bataar or Ulaan-Ude to for example Moskau, when we want to return to the Netherlands, instead of now going crazy about a perfect planning.

We would be very thankful if someone has experience with how easily this kind of stuff can be arranged on the spot and if this is a somewhat reliable plan. Also all other kind of input about how we could arrange everything would help us :).


Kind Regards,
Saskia

Fly then ride
 

Have you considered flying yourselves and the bike(s) air freight to Mongolia then riding back.

Basically if you have limited time and don't want to leave Mongolia in a rush trying to organise the transport of your bikes back from your destination then this might be a better option.

Also, as you get closer to Europe, there are more possibilities to put your bike(s) say on a train on the way home if you are running short on time or not interested in doing motorways in Europe...

Sounds like a fantastic trip, I would like to do it myself one day.

Hey, thank you for your answer :).

We have considered transporting the bikes back and already have e-mailed about prices with companies. Also we are still waiting for a reply of the russian partners from a dutch travelling agencies for russian railways, which we contacted, about our opportunities to transport the bikes on the train.

But transporting the bikes in general and transporting them on our way TO mongolia instead of back in particular might be problematic because of a couple reasons:

First of all, our budget is simply very limited. Also transporting the bikes this way would exceed their value by far anyways (both about 20 years old, one has already run 100.000 kms :D).
And last but not least we are not sure how reliable it is, that the bikes actually arrive in mongolia when we arrive there and want to use them. Most companies that we had contact with, avoided to be particular about delivery times :D.

We just heard a couple times, that travelers arrange this stuff spontanously and we were wondering, if this is wise for us to do. By the way, we are students, and if something goes wrong and we would be a few days late for university, that would be very undesirable of course, but not the end of the world :).

7 weeks it's not too bad, if you are just riding across Russia, visit Mongolia and then arrange shipment back.

If you want to take the southern route through Iran and the Stans, my advise is: don't go to Mongolia!
It's plenty of things to see and places to ride closer to Europe in Cental Asia and shipping the bike back is easy: don't rush, enjoy your ride and enjoy Central Asia, which is, beacause of many things, better than Mongolia...

First of all:
Mongolia and back is possible in 7 Weeks.

Last year i did it in 7 1/2 weeks, and still i spent 2 weeks in Mongolia with my family ( my wife is Mongolian )

OK, i had to go back faster, but it was no problem to do it in 12 days from UB to Vienna.
Also we did Mongolia kind of slow, because we also wanted to see a lot.
10 days of riding in Mongolia.

Our way to Mongolia was Vienna, Galati/Romania, Odessa/UKR, Volgograd, Samara, Omsk, Barnaul and the Russian Altai.

In 2015 I am also planning to do it again in 8 weeks, and I also want to spend 2 weeks with my family.

At the Moment I am planning to go to Turkey, Georgia, Russia, Kazhaksan, ,maybe Kirgistan, Russian Altay and Mongolia northern route.
And back the fast way, this time Jekaterinenburg and Perm....

So I really think it is possible.
Also to see a lot when driving, even if you have to do some km ..
You just have to get up and get going on the street :scooter:

Thanks for the answers.

We also got to a point, where we figured that we have to make a decision between focussing on Mongolia or focussing on all those central Asian countries, since without reliable, cheap and fast way of transport, there is no way we can do everything in 7 weeks, without that we feel rushed.

We decided to go through the southern countries: Turkey, perhaps georgia and azerbijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Taijikistan, Kyrgystan and Kasachstan (if i spelled names wrong, sorry, i dont remember their english way of spelling^^).

From there on we will, depending on time/money aspects either just ride home and take a train in between, or we still go to Ulaan-Bataar, sell the bikes and fly back via plane. But we will decide this later, when we have a more detailed planning about our route until Kasachstan.

Any kind of advice or suggestions are still always welcome :)

I rode from England to Mongolia this summer, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbajain, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan, Kyrgystan, Kazakhstan, Russia then Mongolia.

Just under 17,000 kms in 2 months. We did a significant proportion off road which is of course slower than a more direct road route. So a lot will depend on what bikes you are on and where you want to ride. I really loved Kyrgyzstan and Tadjikistan but you could save at least a couple of weeks by missing them out. Alteranatively there is so much to see and do even without going to Mongolia.

However with regards to shipping to or from Mongolia here are my experiences from this year.

I flew my bike back fron Ulaanbaatar. I emailed 4 companies in UB but only one seemed switched on and effiecient. Landbridge in UB, speak to Mr Enkhbayar who speaks good English, his email is bayaraa@landbridge.mn.

Be warned though that airfeight will be charged by volume, not by weight and it ended up costing me around £2,200 to fly my bike back to England from UB.

Road freight would have been a lot cheaper but takes several months.

Oasis guesthouse had brochures for a German freight company who will ship in or out to UB contact andreas.koenig@pan-europa.de

I believe that Zimi from Switzerland used Pan European to road freight his bike out to UB and it arrived on time for his onward trip to Magadan.

I hope some of this info is useful. Good luck with your trip.

Thank you for the detailed information. We already contacted pan europa (and also other companies) before, but after they sent their offer and a lot of thinking about everything, we decided that we cannot afford transporting the bikes, neither by truck, nor by plane.


We are already intensively planning for about two months now, but somehow the more information we gain about everything, we just get more and more uncertain about where we want/can go and how :D.
But now we at least decided, that we go the southern route to kasahzstan, no matter if we still go to mongolia afterwards or just straight home from there (even though it is hard to let go of mongolia as 100% certain main destination, since we are already pretty fixated on this idea for a while).

If you want to ride the southern route throug Iran and the Stans, my advice, as I wrote a few posts ago, is not to go to Mongolia: you can ship the bike back easily and pretty cheap from Bishkek to Europe.
If you want to ride Mongolia, do it: doing the Stans and Mongolia in 7 weeks is possible, but you will be in a rush.
It's up to you and to the way you want to travel, if you like to stop or if you prefer to just ride through places

I did both, and, as for now, I prefer to visit less places but with more time.
Anyway, it will be a great trip and you will want to go back to those places:-)

Just take more time and take a gap year from uni and take your time :)


Nepal to Holland 2014

Sending a bike back from UB with paneuropa is about 1000 Euro.
You will need the same amount of money when riding back!!!
I calculated it and drove back because it is more fun.
And never before I did go somewhere with my bike when it was on the back of something....
It was always me on the back of my bike

I am also just calculating my time for different routes.
And with the Stans you need time.

For me it is clear, my target is Mongolia.

I rode this route this year from Munich, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia and sold my bike in UB.

This took me 11 weeks and quite a bit of it felt rushed on occassions doing 500-600 klm day after day. Yes it's doable, but it is not fun.

Please also keep in mind that in June/July you will experience extremely hot weather. We rode in Iran/Turkmenistan for 5 days in a row over 45c and went almost a month without a day under 38c. You will need to take days off in these conditions to recuperate. bier

The riding highlights were Georgia (central border crossing from Turkey, not the coast), Southern Armenia and Northern Iran (absolutely spectacular), Tajikistan/Kyrgyzstan and the Altai Mountains in Southern Russia/Northern Mongolia.

I'm not sure what sort of bike you will be taking, I was on a Transalp and I can tell you that Mongolia was not a lot of fun. The sights were great, interesting people but unless you have a suitable bike ie. a lightweight single cylinder it can be hard going. The combination of washboard and sand drifts make for scary moments on a heavy bike.

If I were you i'd ride to Bishkek or Almaty and ship your bike back from there. Leave Mongolia for another trip.

What about the idea to make it till UB, leave the bikes and come back one year later and drive back home?? 2x 7 weeks!!

GRTZ,

JP

Well, thank you for the more answers :>

Jervig, due to university related stuff we cannot be sure, if the year afterwards we will have enough time to do a trip at all. Unfortunately :(


Daze, actually what you describe is almost exactly what we plan to do by now :). We are just not sure yet, if we go through iran and Turkmenistan (Carnet is expensive) or take the ferry from Baku to Aktau (time schedule not reliable), or if we go from Azerbaijan to Russia and then Kazakhstan and then south through uzbekistan (safety issues in North Caucasus). "Worst" case we enter russia from Latvia and then go South. We will see what time brings (financial aspects, safety situation in different areas, etc.). There are many opportunities for the final route. We also still need to do a lot more research.

We like the idea of selling the bikes in mongolia and flying back, because after mailing with the customs it turns out that there is not much of paperwork problems :).

We are going on a Honda Transalp and a Dominator, which we think shouldnt be a problem.

Interesting is the aspet of time issues that you mention, which is also one of our bigger concerns. But we "only" have to average a little more than 300kms per day, so we thought especially because in the first few days in Europe we can make a lot more than that already, and if we plan our riding and especially resting times well, the time schedule should be okay - at least we expect that right now^^.

Daze, was it hard to find someone to sell the bike to in Ulaan Bataar? Did you have to sell it far under value?

In 2013 there were this Dutch couple going to UB on (one) motorbike.
They shipped the bike back from UB by train (Transsiberia railway) to Moskou but it cannot be booked in advance. You have to organise it on the spot. I dont think they had any trouble doing this. This trip took 3 months.
We are a Dutch couple as well, planning our trip in 2015 as in the same direction (and further to NZ), scedule now is leaving Holland in april and do the Stans in june. I agree on the do not hurry-mode; it always the tension-wanting to see and do-time and also enjoying it!:smiliex:
Groetjes
Lilian