Going Full Nomad - just laps of the world
 

Hello. I’m Greg. Currently in Sydney waiting for delivery of my 2023 R 1250 GSA Triple Black in a week or 3. Bought the only one available while it was still in a container on a ship somewhere. But if you can’t trust the Germans who can you trust?

Well, certainly not my business partners; accountants; lawyers, or anybody in the Department of Human Services or the Tax Office. Or Academia. Or scientific publishing….the list goes on…it’s long story involving a very beautiful but tragically doomed widowed Chinese grandmother and psychedelic medicine…I won’t bore you.

Since the deficit of trust and basic human decency may only be a local problem here in my neighbourhood I’ve disposed of all my wordly possessions bar aforementioned motorcycle; a Leica M3 and M10, an iPhone/iPad, my stamp collection, a PLB, toolkit, ultralight camping setup, my favourite shirt/jeans/sneakers…carnet+ passport.

As soon as I (actually - my helpful shipping agent Brent) can find space in a plane for the bike we’re (edit:Not me and Brent. Me and my R1250 GSA...) off to find truth and happiness wherever in the world it’s hiding these days.

Was almost committed to dep: Sydney / KL around 30 March 03. But uncertainty of entering and transiting either China or Burma now has me hassling Brent to land me somewhere further away than SEAsia (which I’ve already explored on HD many many times anyway) .

This journey very light on planning and relying mostly on experience (outdated), technology (over-rated), insouciance (often faked), burned-bridges (uncrossable), optimism (innate), charm (endless), the kindness of strangers (prayed for), time (endless), the will of the gods (regularly checked).

And you guys. Online or out there on the road/track/trail/bar/clink or ditch.

Welcome to The HUBB. If you got a decent monetary return on your "favorite shirt/jeans/sneakers," probably you have something valuable to share with the rest of us. I'd say the same about any past confluence of the tax office, doomed grandmothers, and psychedelic substances, but I guess that would depend on the telling.

Meanwhile, I personally would not be shipping into SE Asia right now unless I really wanted to spend some time right there IN SE Asia; as you know, escape routes through China and Myanmar are expensive, fraught propositions, even if they open soon. The marginal cost of shipping elsewhere--Europe, the Americas, Africa--is probably not that great.

Oh, and best settle that pesky identity question: are you Greg, or Brent? Having done that much, I expect that trust issues will soon resolve themselves as they usually do, subject to certain basic precautions. It's not difficult to spot the exceptions in forums like this one, and to see how they turn mild paranoia into self-fulfilling prophecies which they then carry wherever they go.

Fun journeys!

Thank You Kindly
 

Thanks for the welcome and encouragement. I am indeed "Greg". You can find me on Insta under the same name as here or as "Black_Rabbit_Images" (which matches me to my 8+ year HUBB (just reading and learning ) membership under my former name (https://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hu...-rabbit-images).

The "Brent" mentioned in my post is the ever-enthusiastic Melbourne-based plate-juggling specialist motorcycle Shipping Agent doing his best to get me out of Australia before the end of March. I wanted to fly the bike out because I just don't want to sit on my arse for a few months waiting for a container. It's time to go.

I lived 20+ years in SEAsia so I was keen to actually start my wanderings in Bali and catch up with old friends between there and Bangkok. I was curious whether the insane tear-gas throwing / rubber-bullet shooting Harley Davidson riding road marshals who supervised a 1990's group ride from Jakarta to Denpasar are still going strong.

Burma and China etc are very appealing places to explore - but I don't want to get stuck in Northern Thailand for endless months waiting to get in. And both have all kinds of potential trouble I don't want to deal with in my first 10,000 kms at least.

May I suggest he try to get you on one of those direct flights to SCL? South America does not need any carnets, and you will have plenty to explore going down through Chile towards Ushuaia and back up via BA and Brazil before you hit Central America and the Darien Gap.

It may not be as bad getting into Myanmar / Burma as you thought. The people doing the trip from Singapore to London in a very old Series 1 Land Rover managed to do it. The series is still on catch up in Australia with SBS On Demand - link here - the cover that part of the trip in the second episode. BUT YOU WILL NEED TO BE QUICK TO CATCH IT They didn't go into Myanmar from the very north of Thailand but from further south. Hopefully, this will give you an avenue to explore.

Ooh, that sounds like a great show. Absent a VPN to Australia, I'll have to see if the series is available on some of the more, uh, Caribbean-themed parts of the internet!

Thanks for the suggestion. I like that idea a lot. I've never been south of the US in The Americas before (and never anywhere over that way on a motorbike).

I'm not too phased by the Carnet thing. Going RTW means I'll need one eventually. I wanted to start in SEAsia because I have experience touring all over Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand by motorcycle with minimal drama. So I figured it was good place to break-in myself and my new bike!

I also want to keep the accommodation and food costs to a minimum for the first 12 months while I digest the upfront costs of this new life of mine!

But I imagine costs-wise lots of South/Central America is similar to SEAsia...I'm not really sure.

Just depends on if/when my Shipping Agent gets back to me with a reasonable quote for a shipping date out of Australia.

A Bit Behind Schedule
 

Well, my RTW bike finally arrived on Saturday. As of today it has 14 km on the clock. So need to get going I think. Getting out of Australia on a plane is not as simple as I’d hoped so I’m most likely to start a lap of Australia next week while gradually sorting out “stuff” and trying to get my bike into a container to Europe or the US at some point.

Unless getting through Myanmar or China on my own bike becomes more certain.



https://i.ibb.co/zx1nctM/A2353517-38...A021835-F0.jpg

Thanks a lot for the link to this (on C4 via your post) - a nice watch. But realise this was filmed pre-covid/military coup. The Burma-India border is closed.

Travellers are starting to plan trips through China (state supervised, at a cost of course) since tourist visas became available once again in the last month ot so.

Update From far North Queensland
 

Well, I’ve been flogging the bike and myself for the last 2 months around Far North Queensland. Made it as far West as Mount Isa (tools stolen by locals) and as far North as Cape York (obligatory photo taken). Only racked up 8,000 km - but some of them were pretty good ones! And only had one off (on the Old Telegraph Track north of Archer River Roadhouse. Bike fine - but I will need a new helmet!

Am now confident it’s time to head overseas so have organised to ship bike to Port Kelang in Malaysia early next month. I’ll holiday in Thailand without bike while waiting for the bike to arrive in Malaysia and then spend 8 months riding around Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia before air-freighting bike to London for the 2024 European summer (assuming traversing Myanmar or China still too difficult.

https://i.ibb.co/3fbkqMH/Snapshot-202307208-210700.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/y0zfTFC/IMG-20230729-181514-396.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/sq55xYd/Snapshot-202307209-200700.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/TBJ0fY7/Snapshot-202307209-210700.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/VqFChM5/IMG-0573.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/6m5zCzz/IMG-20230729-113333-346.jpg

Looks awesome!

Traversing China once again looks more expensive than difficult (but you may need to apply for a visa in your home country embassy). Laos to Kyrgyzstan through Sichuan and Tibet may be worth the money!

The road less travelled is almost always worth the money in my experience. I’m going to seriously research what you just recommended: the Chinese route from Laos to Kyrgyzstan.

At this moment I’m sitting in a cafe in Patong Beach, Phuket, Thailand and trying not to feel so sad about what the place has become in the last 20 years since I came here on a whim from my job in Singapore and stayed six months to become a TDI Trimix Instructor …

It’s like Kuta but now fast-track ****ed up by low-rent sub-continental and Middle Eastern visitors instead of being slowly destroyed by your plain vanilla good old-fashioned beer-chugging Aussie yobs. I can’t believe that there is now a legal weed cafe every 100 meters here.

I’m wishing I air-freighted my bike and only had to wait a few days to get into the back-blocks of Thailand instead of having to be a ‘tourist’ for almost a month while it takes the slow boat. Especially since I just can’t bring myself to hire a moped to just hoon back and forth between bar/tattoo parlour/strip club/backpacker dorm/beach in thongs and singlet.

Anyway that’s my whinge out of the way!