2024 Central Asia, Russia, Siberia & Mongolia trip
Solo motorcycle ride starting from Almaty (Kazakhstan), riding through Pamir (Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan), crossing Uzbekistan (Samarkan, Bukhara, Khiva, Nukus, Karakalpakstan), entering West Kazakhstan (Atyrau, Aktau) & then exiting to Russia, taking Trans-Siberian road to Vladivostok but chaning route to Altai from Novosibirisk (capital of Siberia) to enter Mongolia & losing passport there, riding without one like a fugitive till Ulan Bator (capital of Mongolia), getting an emergency passport from Indian Embassy, parked bike in Mongolia & decided to fly to India, Mongolian airlines denying me boarding due to my ‘weird’ document but could do so after 2 days from the help from Indian embassy, got ‘airport arrested’ in stopover destination Almaty but could finally made it to Delhi. 13k kms on road in 90 days without any planning & preparation. More details in Vlogs (links at the bottom)
With Mangystau layered hills in the background, somewhere in West Kazakhstan
I had bought a used Suzuki Vstrom 650 in London in March 2023, hoping to ride it to India once my work engagement in UK got over that year. But in that year, I could only ride it to Almaty as my China tour faced a road block. I parked my bike at a motorbiker's house whom I had met while riding to Almaty (his name is Dima) & decided that I would come back in 2024 summers to complete the China ride to take the bike back to India.
But somewhere in winters 2023, my plan changed. I had kept aside some money for the ride till India & a substantial amount of the money was still not over. I also realized that Central Asia & Russia were quite cheap when it comes to road trip (thanks to cheap fuel), stay & food. I rushed through my Central Asia & Russia part so that I could reach the China border on time & thought I should go back & do the part more leisurely, specially the Pamir Highway.
Also, riding bike through China is lot more expensive. Thanks to Chinese govt rules of a lot of paperwork (you need to get Chinese license, Chinese number plate which only a travel agent could do for you) & needing to have your itinerary approved through a travel agent plus the person being with you for the entire journey. I happen to meet another traveller Toco from Brazil, on Facebook (or IG, I dont remember now). He happened to ship his bike from Bangkok to Vladivostok (eastern end of Russia) & it was significantly cheaper compared to the China trip. I thought it should be equally cheap the other way. So I decided to skip China & ride through north of China (basically Russia & Mongolia) to the eastern end of Russia & ship my bike from there to South East Asia. Well, why not India. Because I had figured that getting a foreign bike to India is paying a hell lot of money as import duty. Now my plan was no more to bring the bike to India. Rather use it to go around the world. I had covered substantial part of Europe. So this year, I decided to cover a good amount of Central Asia & Russia, then ship the bike to SEA & continue SEA ride through the winters.
Since I decided to ride through Russia from West to East, I thought I would as well do it on the Trans-Siberian highway, the longest road that goes through one single country from Saint Petersburg (near Europe) to Vladivostok (near Japan & South Korea). After completing Pamir, I road through prominent Uzbek cities (Samarkand, Bukhara & Khiva) before entering into West Kazakhstan, known for some very unique terrains similar to how Charyn Canyon close to Almaty looks like. Then I headed to Moscow & after brief visit to Saint Petersburg on a train, I started riding east on the Trans-Siberian highway.
I had great time with Russian biker hospitality. Anna a biker I had during my last year ride, hosted me at her home, inspite of she being in hospital due to bike accident. Andrey, a cyclist from Moscow whom I had hosted in India, hosted me in Moscow. Anton, a Vstrom enthusiast in Moscow, spent a long time to get my bike's chain sprocket replaced in his own garage. He suggested me to meet Artem in Yekaterinburg who, in his garage, figured my front wheel ball bearing need changing & changed them pretty much instantly. I got hosted for free at Izhevsk Bike Post. Russia has this concept of Bike Post which are hostels for traveling bikers hosted by biker community of the city. Ilya, a biker in Tyumen hosted me. I got another Bike Post stay in Tatarsk on the way. I again got hosted by Igor, a biker in Novosibirisk, capital of Siberia. Igor suggested to take the Altai route to Mongolia & I am glad I took the route. In Mongolian border town Olgii, I met Edwin, a Malaysian biker whom I had met in Dushanbe before start of my Pamir ride. Both of us rode the route to Ulan Bator together.
In our second stopover town in Mongolia, I figured I am missing my passport purse. I called Indian Embassy in Ulan Bator, capital of Mongolia & they said they should be able to issue me a temporary passport (also called Emergency Certificate) once I reach there. Thankfully, in Mongolia, people were NOT as strict as in Russia when it comes to checking passport & I could made it without much issues to Ulan Bator. We had to face heavy snowfall once on the way. Losing passport (& bike documents along with it) meant that my plan of continuing back to Russia from Mongolia had to be shelved. I was planning to ride to Yakutsk, the coldest town in the world & I was looking forward to it, as it was start of winters. But guess that plan had to wait.
Getting the emergency certificate was not that difficult, considering I got help from Tejasvi Surya office (Memeber of Parliament from my constituency). Mr Aravind from Tejasvi Surya office, with whom I was in touch (thanks to Deepak Kamath sir who introduced us), promptly wrote to the Embassy in Mongolia. They sent one person with me who helped getting a report for my lost passport. Later, when the airlines in Ulan Bator airport denied me boarding as my stop over fligth was from Almaty & they were not sure if I would be allowed to continue from Almaty due to my 'weird' travel document, the embassy intervened but I could not still board the flight the day & I had to rebook my flight after 2 days. After successfully boarding flight in Ulan Bator, I had to struggle a bit crossing in Almaty. Since I did not have a valid passport & my connecting flight was after 10 hours, I was asked to wait at the chairs opposite the transfer desk at Almaty airport. Thanks to Mr Nilanjan Bora sir who was posted in Indian Embassy Almaty, to whom when I reached for help, was able to channelise the Indigo airlines folks who promptly issued me boarding pass which helped me come out of the 'airport arrest' :).
London to Kyrigistan path that I originally planned to take via Scandanavia, Georgia, Russia, Kazakhistan. Google map does not show route in China so could not map it all the way to India. Its 10k miles (15k kms) till Kyrgistan but should reach 20k mark till India. Google Map link of the path in detail
At the time of writing this post, I ended up chaging the path quite a bit. The notable detour is avoiding west Kazakhstan in favour of Russia, primarily to avoid the heat. I was scared that if I broke down in 40+ deg heat, it may become fatal for me.
The actual path I took spanning 22,000 kms in 150 days (5 months) Complete map link
As visible from the path, I have not completed the ride. My bike is parked at Almaty, Kazakhstan & I have come to India (more details on my instagram post). As of now, my plan is to go back next summers & complete the ride. As usual, on the road, I wrote blog post of my experience. I got a lot of help from unknown people including some police guys in Kazakhstan giving me money :).
I had done very little preparation & planning for the trip. Spent like a week buying a cheap motorcycle & another week, getting all the accessories. Not to mention, I got my Schengen visa first. But then all other visas I figured on the way. All the details are covered in the blog posts below. I had lost (actually forgotten) my waist pouch in Kazakhstan & I have not written post after that. So there should be more posts that would follow.
