Globe Gallivanting- motorbiking across the world

  Goodbye, dear Laos We finally made it out of Laos, with copious paperwork and hurried scurrying on the border control. The friendly border guard took pity on us and upgraded our bike visa to 6 months. We can only stay two on our visas, but its nice to know the bike can have a little holiday of its own. The ride down south to Bangkok was somewhat fleeting- we had less than 48 hours to be in Bangkok, to pick Sue and Steve up from the airport. I can remember a lot of blurred trees racing past, and swerving lumpy tarmac at 100kph. We stopped overnight in Nong Khai, and ventured out to find food. We didn't find any. But we did find a gaggle of chinese dragons, enormous and curling round and round with people running round underneath. There was strange deafening cymbal music in the background, and fireworks, exploding far too close with the sparks falling on the audience and people hiding and covering their ears. In the middle there was an altar with people worshipping in th...

When we were looking for information for shipping bikes it was very hard to come by for this route, so we decided to put this on for anyone looking to do a similar thing.  So here’s a shipping report for anyone trying to ship bikes from India to Thailand.  Obviously we didn't actually want to ship at all, and would much prefer to do it all overland, but Burma aren't willing to give motorcycle tourists visas, so that was that.  We went as far as we could, right up to the border in Bangladesh (we even asked the border guys), but then turned back and sent it from Calcutta. We researched various departure points and destinations around the area and this one won in terms of price AND speed. Kathmandu to Bangkok was pricier on flights for us, and based on other peoples reports pricier for shipping too. Chittagong in Bangladesh for sea shipping proved to be far more expensive, far less professional, and much much slower. Chennai, Sth India, to Bangkok looked to be...

look what we found! We made it!! This is just a mini-update but we are now in Bangkok, and the bike is sat happily in the courtyard, pleased to no longer be caged. Customs was a blimmin nightmare, and took a day of faffing, and then we couldn't put the bike back together again for quite some time. But in the end all was well, and after 6 hours or so we brought Manfred home, on beautiful tarmac roads, with a real road system. before we spent a very long time trying to wedge the disc brake back inbetween the seized brake pads, and then rode off without a front brake. And then the madness hit home.  We were surrounded by holiday-makers on Khao San Rd, and there were fish massages on offer (they don't massage the fish. The fish 'massage' your feet, by eating dead skin. Nice.) The streets were packed with shopping centres and trendy thai teenagers in mini-skirts. It was a far cry from our last few conservative countries. I reeled in shock, and therefore a st...