Wednesday 27 November 2013

The road to Mongolia

We bought our travel bikes. A couple of Hondas XR125. Small bikes, ideal for off road, which we have a lot of, once we leave Europe!
Preparations piling up, visas, vaccinations, routing, prepping up the bikes... We bought them on eBay!

My routing is not totally fixed but rough idea is Southern Europe, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgystan, Kazakhstan North to Russia, then into Mongolia. Then up to Irkutsz and trans Siberian to Moscow. And ride back home....

Of course the elephant in the room is getting a multiple entry business visa with Russia! 
I will apply in the next few weeks! Finger crossed! 

Sunday 3 November 2013

Mongolia Trip - Spring / summer 2014 - preparations

I have been investigating routing and visas.
The most important visa for us is to get a multi-entry business Russian visa as we will be in and out of Russia 3 times. It won't be easy and some agency already sent me packing.

However, I know, from various motorcycle adventure contacts that it is possible to obtain... just need to pick the correct agency to help me on that!

Anyway, the route is more or less set by now. We will cross Europe via Ukraine, then into Russia.
Then we plan to ride south into Kazakhstan, and continue south East into Uzbekistan (another visa required!).
Then we will continue East into Tajikistan and we will ride the Pamir highway. That should be one of the highlights of the trip. Then into Kyrgyzstan and we will then turn North into Kazakhstan.
From Almaty, we will cross Kazakhstan from south to North into Russia, before getting finally in Mongolia.
We will cross Mongolia.
Map here if it works!

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zvs7v3DkCpAE.kN8qSCfCrgyw

From UlaanBaatar, we would plan to get the bikes and ourselves into the Trans-Siberian to Moscow and ride back home.

Departure date is the 22d of April. We have 4 months in total and would like to be back home end of August.
Choice of bikes: 2 hondas XR125L. Small but will be ideal once we get into the Stans and Mongolia.

That's all for now!