tiger2asia 2012

The Plan

Just a quick stroll to asia in a 1988 Volkswagen Vanagon. Almost.
The Master’s thesis is on it’s way (let’s say it should be… :)) and this is the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: Go, start working as an engineer, or… or take off for an adventure just before reality catches up with you. So we decided to take off.

Since the political situation in Norther Africa is not quite tourist friendly at the moment, the possibility of traveling the African continent didn’t seem to be an appropriate option these days. Near and Middle east have always been a little uneasy and probably won’t change very much in the near future, but at least countries like Iran and Pakistan seem to be somewhat predictable. That’s far from safe but talking to other travellers we agreed, that a transit to India was is most certainly not a problem.

So getting into India is one thing – Nepal shouldn’t be a problem, but the way to Southeast-Asia is another. As of now there has been absolutely no way traveling in your own car through Myanmar to Thailand. Simply impossible. Things seem to change daily, but there is absolutely no guarantee, that we might get the chance to transit into Thailand without shipping directly from India. So the best option is what most overlanders chose on their way to Australia: Shipping the car from India (e.g. Chennai, Madras) to Malaysia (Port Kelang). After that we’ll simply travel via Thailand to Laos, maybe even to Vietnam and Cambodia.

Laos will be the entrance to China, which is another “problem”. There is a 99.9% chance, that traveling in China is possible only with the help of a registered travel agency and a native guide – in your car. The longer you stay, the more you pay. Since China isn’t the everyday holiday destination, we want to see ans experience it somewhat thouroughly. Since that will be very expensive, we will team up with another guy, whom we have found on the internet – namely Heinz from Switzerland. His car is even big anough to take that local guide, which would have been impossible in out small vanagon!

Via Tibet and the Taklamakhan desert we’ll enter Mongolia, skip over to Lake Baikal and Sibiria. The way back we be just the standard route via Russia and the Baltic states, or – the second option – via Kazakhstan and the Ukraine. Either way, we’ll get back home.

Some 50000kms and around 300 days of time.

The idea hasn’t been born in a single minute, but gracefully evolved from several nights of reading in the bathtub :) We are very proud to have found a fair amount of sponsors and supporters, which make this idea a little easier to realize. Btw, ANYONE can support us!