05/08/2015
Our Chiang Mai to Vladivostok, Russia, Expedition has started.
This is a 37-day, 10,000 km, motorcycle ride through Thailand, Laos, Mongolia, through Siberian Russia, all the way to Vladivostok on the Western Rim of the Pacific Ocean.
Eight of us, on August 1, will depart on seven motorcycles and one 4x4.
For the first-time ever on a motorcycle tour, I will not be on a bike and instead will be in the 4x4; someone has to drive the truck and there were no volunteers. I am bringing a ton of great music for the sound system and will be concentrating instead on photography and blogging.
Hopefully I can share this tour with a lot of people around the world who might find this expedition interesting reading.
An international group comprises this expedition.
As the trip unfolds, I will introduce all the participants in detail.
But in summary, besides myself who hails from good ol’ Brooklyn, USA, we have one other Yank, one Brit, one Thai, one Malay, a Norwegian, and one man whose ancestry is so mixed that, depending on the situation, he can call himself either a Russian or an Israeli or an American, and he can pull out the appropriate passport to prove it.
Also in attendance is one lady from New Zealand whose presence will probably keep the boy’s behavior more-or-less out of the gutter.
The writing of this blog will start on day 3, on our way to Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan Province.This is when the riding, scenery, and culture starts getting interesting. Hopefully the blog will commence August 3 or 4.
The first 2 riding days were comprised mostly of hours waiting at border crossings watching the rubber-stampers scour every scrap of documentation we bring, looking for uncrossed “t’s”, undotted “i’s”, or missing signature and seals. They even get excited over staple marks.
You can follow the blog on our website by clicking on this link:
http://www.asianbiketour.com/chiang-mai-vladivostok-blog-welcome-post/
A new blog post will appear at this url everyday with the newest blogs in the top position.
I will try my hardest to come up with an entertaining report of every day’s ride. I promise this will not be a Day 1 we did this, Day 2 we did that-sort of blog.
If you know someone who might be interested in following our progress, please share these links with them.
We already have reservations for the 2nd CM to Vladivostok Expedition that will commence July 2016. If you are interested in the next expedition, don’t wait too long. And the second time around we will know exactly how to get there.
Also, our new newsletter just went out announcing a bunch of new tours, like a Scuba-Ride Tour in the Philippines and a Trans-Borneo Expedition. If you want us to send you the newsletter, please send us your email.
