To(o) far: (tOO'far) Meaning: Driving to Kuala Lumpur (more than 22.000 km)
Roughly we are planning the route we are making during our trip.
Eastern Europe:
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| The route (roughly) |
In the first part of our trip we want to drive within one week to Istanbul:
From Lithuania we'll drive over Poland through the Tatra mountains entering Slovakia. From Slovakia we'll pass the Eastern part of Hungary going to Transylvania in Romania. From there we'll drive through the center of Bulgaria to Istanbul. Too bad we don't have more time to travel around Eastern Europe but we will have enough opportunities to visit again the nicest places.
Turkey:
We are planning to be in Turkey two weeks. We would like to spend a couple of days in Istanbul, staying with locals. From there, depending on what people suggest us, we are planning to drive along the black sea towards the mountains in Eastern Turkey from where we'll enter Iran. We decided to take this route as we would like to see something new as we have been traveling before in the south of Turkey in 2009.
Iran:
Iran:
We heard from many travelers that Iran is often the highlight of travels because of the friendliness of the people. Knowing this, we are going to try to sleep at people's places (although we don't have a clue if this plan will work out). There should not be too many campsites in Iran, but if we're not able to stay at people's places we would like to pitch our tent somewhere in the wilderness.
We are planning to cross Iran through its centre from Tabriz to Esfahan, Yazd and Bam towards the Pakistan border. We expect to get military guidance from Bam to the Pakistan border. Otherwise we are going to try to join a convoy with more travelers to not take any risk. Our stay in Iran should be around 2 weeks.
Pakistan:
Not many travelers go to travel to Pakistan although Pakistan should have many beautiful places to offer. As soon as you start studying the travel opportunities to Pakistan you realise that the risks you take by traveling overland from Iran towards India are limited as long as you take the right precautions. Dress according to the locals and avoid the north Western regions (near to the Afghanistan border). We are planning to travel through Quetta towards Lahore (with military escort). From there we're planning to pass Islamabad going towards the KKH. We are planning to travel for a week in the North Eastern regions (Balitistan) from the total 2 weeks we are planning to stay in Pakistan.
India and Nepal:
We'll be travelling in the Northern part of India and try to avoid the busy and stressful streets of New Delhi. The movie 'driving solo to the end of the world' inspired us to travel through the Himalaya towards Nepal. We expect to spend around one week only in India. We don't know too much about India and for sure it will surprise us.
In Nepal we are planning to stay for around 10 days. From Kathmandu we'll ship our bike (and ourselves) to Thailand by air from where our travel will continue. We have to fly this part of the trip as, due to strict travel regulations, it is very complicated to travel through China. Myanmar (former Burma) is out of the question as it is not possible to travel by own vehicle through this country. By this time we'll have send our camping gear back to Lithuania most likely as we'll not need it any more for the rest of our travel.
South East Asia
In Nepal we are planning to stay for around 10 days. From Kathmandu we'll ship our bike (and ourselves) to Thailand by air from where our travel will continue. We have to fly this part of the trip as, due to strict travel regulations, it is very complicated to travel through China. Myanmar (former Burma) is out of the question as it is not possible to travel by own vehicle through this country. By this time we'll have send our camping gear back to Lithuania most likely as we'll not need it any more for the rest of our travel.
South East Asia
Arriving in Bangkok we'll start the second part of our trip which should take around 7 weeks. We are planning to change the tires in Bangkok to more off road tires as we will cope many unpaved roads during our travel in South East Asia. We are planning to drive in one week to the northern part of Asia and maybe see few friends who should be there this time of the year. From the north we will enter Laos. Within two weeks we are planning to cross Laos towards Cambodia continuing our travel back to Thailand. From Thailand we will travel in one week to Malaysia. In Malaysia we'll slow down, celebrate new year and prepare for our detour to Europe. But... that's a plan, let's see where the travel will lead us!
