This offer is a dream came true and after few days thinks about it I accept the offer.
The trip has been decided to be started in March 2014 and that mean I have about 2 months to prepare all the related documentations, preparation, routing, bilateral issues, Visa's and others long list thing to do.
Documentation
The most hectic thing to deal with. Long list item needed from team member for documentation until to machine preparation and spare part list.To be short, documentation for border crossing need to be deal with extra caution since it will be the most important matter while we crossing one country to the others. This process took me until the day we depart. Even during the journey this matter still haunting me. It's really give a headache. I will address this matter from time to time in the coming chapters.
Routing
Most important item since it will be our base while on the road. Few option of routing need to be prepared and this consume lots of time for research and identified the place to visit and stop over. This matter also very much needed especially when we deal with a counties where ground handle is a mandatory for a trip in big group like us. Among the countries that need the routing plan is China, Central Asia & Russia since we are moving with a numbers of vehicle. Lots of email is flying around between the handler and us since the time frame is too short and in the same time I have to manage lots of other matters. At the end after lots of discussion we came to conclusion to travel 12 countries.
Malaysia - Laos - China - Kyrgyzstan - Uzbekistan - Kazakhstan - Russia - Georgia - Turkey - Iraq - Kuwait - Saudi Arabia.
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| Route |
VISA's.
Another item that need lots of time.
For us, Malaysian nationality only 5 countries visa need to be obtain which is China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
To apply the visa for those countries we need to get a "Letter of Invitation" or LOI from origin counties except for Kazakhstan.
The process to get the LOI is quite complicated since we need to deal with the handler and the price need to be agreed between 2 parties and it's not cheap!!!!!!
To be honest the 2 months deadline is not enough to get all 4 visa's.
By the time we depart only 3 Visa's are obtain and the other 2 Visa's will be collected on our way which I will update it in another chapter of this story.
For info out of 12 members, 1 of us who is Edy Sudarmadi or we call him Pak Edy an Indonesian nationality, so for the visa purpose he has to apply it in his country but for Saudi Arabia his visa is apply together with us. Thanks to Malaysian Embassy who make it happen.
As Indonesian nationality, he need to obtain a visa for almost all the counties the we will go thru.
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| Visa's |
Man & machine
8 bike consist of 3 Triumph, 4 BMW's, a Kawasaki and 1 Maxus V80 van act as our mobile workshop.
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| Line of vehicle |
All vehicle are inspect and check with our panel workshop and our on board mechanic to make sure all vehicle is top condition.
The Maxus van is very much handy is serve as our mobile workshop and also our spare part.
We meet all the participant and brief all regarding the journey which will begin soon. Since all the team member we took an opportunity to ride together to Putra Jaya before the D-Day.
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| Finishing some work before the D-Day |
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| In front Putra Jaya Mosque |
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| Having a smoke with by best buddies. |
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| Posing while waiting the important person. |
