China or bust
 

Hello everyone,

I have been reading the threads pertaining to the wish to travel to China and beyond for some. I have been researching a little on the matter as I too am hoping to visit China by motorcyle via Europe with a possible toe dip in Africa, along with a hope or even a pray to travel back to Europe and thus home, post China.

I understand that the carnet is not applicable in China hence the soul destroying fees, so I too would appreciate some company for companies sake but with a secondary wish/motive to reduce costs.

As for timing I was hoping to commit to 2011, however, knowing that this trip is life changing, possibly life ending even (apologies for the morbid humour), I am somewhat flexible on timimg.

Route wise I had planned to pursue a path which would take me through Iran, Pakistan, India and then Tibet on to China. My return leg would push my path a little north (Russia) thus covering both routes to/from China.

I speak a few on route languages so that may help, other than that i'm a lost soul. So any samaritans out there please do make contact. ;-)

We are making progress on our planning

Leave date for us is likely to be July 2012

We are going through Iran and Pakistan

Latest info is we will need to get Pak visa in UK as we are resident here. Requirement is that then need to be in Pakistan within 3 months of issue. Problem, we don't plan to get there within that timeframe. So we are lookin into whehter we can extend the Pak visa in Turkey. Iran is slightly different. If we got the visa in UK we would need to renew based on our timing, but all going well should be able to apply for the visa in Turkey...but if there was a problem we will have a major headache. So, will prob try and get in UK and renew in Turkey.

China....difficulties galore, all well documented. Aside from cost it looks like we would end up with a set timetable to be at the border. That doesn't appeal. We are debating the merits of crossing china versus the alternatives

We are in a 4x4 so options are (a) ship from india to malaysia - straightforward I think (b) try the burma option - on the postive side the eastern indian states have now opened up for tourists as from the start of the year, so it looks like it might be possibe to make the border. Whether the burmese will begin to allow anyone to transit the country in light of the recent political reforms awaits to be seen...unlikely, but you never know. We will keep an eye on developments but a big longshot.

So back to China option. We are going to sketch out a date when we think we would be in Nepal. Our plan if we go this option is to try and get to Lhasa and then head on to Laos.

We will post more details as we work them out but ideally would like to hook up with others for this leg of the trip to share costs etc. I understand that bikes are not allowed on the chinese motorways unlike us. So if we teamed with bikes we would be going backroutes and this take longer and naturally greater costs. Having said that we are open to any ideas.

Hope to find someone with similar plans and timings who is up for sharing the load on the research and enquiries into the China option. Happy to do it myself but will take me time....

Hope everyone elses plans are coming togehter!

cheers richard

hope all your plans are going well, I used www.navo-tour.com in 2009 to cross China from Kazahkstan, for 21 days we paid about £2k each + import bond which depends on the value of your vehicle.

I cannot praise them enough!


Here's my blog, its a bit crappy, feel free to message me

Rachiesbigadventure

Hi, Same time, same start point, same destination, different route. Im going north as far as St Petersburg then east staying in Russia. Interesting though I'll follow your posts. Cheers Louie