Hi

first of all, trip planing is part of the adventure and I would not give that out of my hands, so why isn't your friend doing it himself? When on the road you need so many information in your head, that you gathered while making your planing and that perhaps seemed not important, but on the road become important. We started this year in Thailand and went to Turkey, up to Kyrgystan we only met very very few motorised travellers (we were on pushbikes). I think the reason is, that it is not so straightforward to go to Thailand, some borders are not open or very difficult to cross. It is quite common for motorbikers to go up to Kyrgystan, but for China you need usually a guide that is accompanying you and is quite costly (permits etc, you find threads on the hubb dealing with it or about finding mates to lower the price). As far as I know there is no open border between China and India, at least for Westerners, the same applies for India/Myanmar, although there is now lot of news about Myanmar (I did not follow the news on that). So you would have to change the itinerary (China-Pakistan-India or China-Nepal-India, for Myanmar I have no idea)
To get more information you can just read some threads in the regional forums on HUBB, as this covers especially the view of bikers, more information is to be found on thorntree (mainly backpackers), good information about paperwork (visa) is found on caravanistan. Additionally some trip reports contain also information on paperwork and pictures (for knowing the nice spots not to be missed on your itinerary).

Cheers

Christian

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Cycling in Asia: Thailand to Turkey, Siberia and Central Asia