Q. Hello there. For a year now, I've been planning my bicycle trip from Europe to India, but still didn't come up with any sure idea how to reach that country safe way. I thought about 3 options, but all of them contain many doubts. I hope you can share your experiences or knowledge so I could be able to confront some of my doubts, and maybe fall even deeper in some of them. So here are my speculations made as so far:
1) 1st option seems to be the cheapest one (thus preferable):
From Armenia, go through Iran and Pakistan - but it seems a little bit risky. First of all Pakistan sounds rather dangerous, and secondy the trip starts in 2013, analyzing the news, probably there will already be war with Iran.
2) 2nd option is the longest, and seems to be by far the most problematic, but also the most attractive in terms of the travelling itself. Appeared as a result of doubts about crossability of Iran, due to the potential war, but after all, I liked it, and I'd like to also focus on it for a while...
The plan says: go through the North - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and... yeah, and what now?
- As far as I know the Tajik-Chinese border is crossable, isn't it? I've stumbled upon an information that the border is in dispute, thus the doubts.
- It doesn't seem to be a good idea to go through 'sensitive' China with so many electronic recording devices as needed for good recording the whole trip, does it?
- Maybe there's a possibility to cross the Chinese part via train? But is there any train station in Murghab (Taji)? And if is - are there any courses to...
- ... yeah, the next doubt... to where exactly? What after China? Chinese-Indian border is not possible, then what about the Chinese-Nepali one?
- btw, isn't Tajikistan dangerous? It's located very close to Afghanistan, some part of the road would lead just via the Tajik-Afghan border (the road has some special name, but I've forgotten it). There are mountains to cross in order to get there from Afghanistan, but I guess they wouldn't constitute any problem for 'bad people'...
3) The last one seems to be the less attractive, very long and extremely hard physically, moreover I'm not sure if not a little bit dangerous, either; therefore it's only the last alternative - to go through the Saudi Arabia (btw in case of war with Iran, which would make me to choose that way, I guess SA wouldn't be much safer place), reach Dubai and get via ship to Mumbai.
So, what do you think about it? Are some of my doubts unjustified maybe? Should I have any other doubts, that I didn't take into consideration, like dangeres comming from side of the locals, or anything like that? (btw I'm caucasian, so I'll be very distinctive in every one of those places... but how not to be, riding a bike with 80-kilograme bags...) It's hard to be predictible, when the only experience as so far is made in the European area.
Thanks in advance. If I succeed, you'll have a lot of photos and movies to watch. ;)
(oh yeah, I'm not American (yet), I'm Polish - I've set "American" in my profile to have everything in English. My bad for not saying that - guess it does make a huge difference in travelling, especially through the Middle Asia)
@oneofcold The 80 kilogrames include not only the electrical devices, but also stuff like some food, back-ups of water (there will sometimes be a risk of not having access to the drinking water, so I guess carrying 10 liters would be reasonable), book or two, some dictionaries, tent, clothes and many other utilities.
As for my devices, I'm taking one big photo camera (SLR), one little one in a pocket, little handycam and small camera attached to my helmet to capture everything more naturally. But I guess it's enough for Chinese officers to be quite suspicious. Especiall that the near-Nepali areas are the Tibetan ones, or around the Tibetan.
1) 1st option seems to be the cheapest one (thus preferable):
From Armenia, go through Iran and Pakistan - but it seems a little bit risky. First of all Pakistan sounds rather dangerous, and secondy the trip starts in 2013, analyzing the news, probably there will already be war with Iran.
2) 2nd option is the longest, and seems to be by far the most problematic, but also the most attractive in terms of the travelling itself. Appeared as a result of doubts about crossability of Iran, due to the potential war, but after all, I liked it, and I'd like to also focus on it for a while...
The plan says: go through the North - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and... yeah, and what now?
- As far as I know the Tajik-Chinese border is crossable, isn't it? I've stumbled upon an information that the border is in dispute, thus the doubts.
- It doesn't seem to be a good idea to go through 'sensitive' China with so many electronic recording devices as needed for good recording the whole trip, does it?
- Maybe there's a possibility to cross the Chinese part via train? But is there any train station in Murghab (Taji)? And if is - are there any courses to...
- ... yeah, the next doubt... to where exactly? What after China? Chinese-Indian border is not possible, then what about the Chinese-Nepali one?
- btw, isn't Tajikistan dangerous? It's located very close to Afghanistan, some part of the road would lead just via the Tajik-Afghan border (the road has some special name, but I've forgotten it). There are mountains to cross in order to get there from Afghanistan, but I guess they wouldn't constitute any problem for 'bad people'...
3) The last one seems to be the less attractive, very long and extremely hard physically, moreover I'm not sure if not a little bit dangerous, either; therefore it's only the last alternative - to go through the Saudi Arabia (btw in case of war with Iran, which would make me to choose that way, I guess SA wouldn't be much safer place), reach Dubai and get via ship to Mumbai.
So, what do you think about it? Are some of my doubts unjustified maybe? Should I have any other doubts, that I didn't take into consideration, like dangeres comming from side of the locals, or anything like that? (btw I'm caucasian, so I'll be very distinctive in every one of those places... but how not to be, riding a bike with 80-kilograme bags...) It's hard to be predictible, when the only experience as so far is made in the European area.
Thanks in advance. If I succeed, you'll have a lot of photos and movies to watch. ;)
(oh yeah, I'm not American (yet), I'm Polish - I've set "American" in my profile to have everything in English. My bad for not saying that - guess it does make a huge difference in travelling, especially through the Middle Asia)
@oneofcold The 80 kilogrames include not only the electrical devices, but also stuff like some food, back-ups of water (there will sometimes be a risk of not having access to the drinking water, so I guess carrying 10 liters would be reasonable), book or two, some dictionaries, tent, clothes and many other utilities.
As for my devices, I'm taking one big photo camera (SLR), one little one in a pocket, little handycam and small camera attached to my helmet to capture everything more naturally. But I guess it's enough for Chinese officers to be quite suspicious. Especiall that the near-Nepali areas are the Tibetan ones, or around the Tibetan.
A. If you weren't on a bicycle, it would be fairly simple - take the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Beijing, take the train to Tibet, cross into Nepal at Kodari, and cross into India.
The bicycle makes things a lot more difficult. I have no idea how bad the roads are in remote parts of Russia and China, or how hard it is to cross the Himalayan mountains by bicycle (take the Alpine stages of the Tour de France and multiply by 10 probably).
Would you need 80 kilograms of camera equipment? Not only the Chinese authorities might give you a problem, but that might also make you a target of thieves. Could you carry a small digital camera with video capability?
The bicycle makes things a lot more difficult. I have no idea how bad the roads are in remote parts of Russia and China, or how hard it is to cross the Himalayan mountains by bicycle (take the Alpine stages of the Tour de France and multiply by 10 probably).
Would you need 80 kilograms of camera equipment? Not only the Chinese authorities might give you a problem, but that might also make you a target of thieves. Could you carry a small digital camera with video capability?
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