* Time, budget permitting.Note: Due to continuing unrest in the
east of DR Congo and an opportunity to travel with some friends down the West
coast of Africa, our route changed slightly and we are considering doing
the East and Central of Africa after Asia, on our way back to Europe - watch this
space...
As of 1st July 2004
Due to the challenges of driving your own vehicle in China (among
other issues), we have decided to change our route. We are now
planning to travel north through Canada and up to Alaska, then back across
Canada and down to the East coast of the USA. From there we will ship
to South Africa to attend our friends' wedding in Cape Town. Then
drive north through Central and Eastern Africa and ship across to Australia.
Ship up to SE Asia, and then probably around China to Vladivostok, Russia,
where we will drive across Siberia, through Mongolia and continuing
westwards to Europe and the UK. This will mean our trip will be
extended to about October 2005 (30 months in total).
As of 5th
January 2005
For a number of reasons (including cost, time and the fact that we have
already visited the majority of countries on a previous expedition in 1995)
we decided not to ship to South Africa and travel up the east coast of
Africa (as shown above 1st July 2004). We have now shipped our vehicle
from New York, via the Panama Canal to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We are
now in Thailand and intend to travel through Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and Cambodia.
Our route beyond that is dependent upon a number of things:
1)
Whether we can drive or truck-transport Nyathi across Myanmar to India and
then Nepal. Currently we understand foreigners are NOT allowed to take
vehicles into Myanmar from Thailand and India is NOT allowing vehicles in
from the Myanmar borders.
2) If we did manage to get to India and
Nepal overland, we would then have to consider our next steps as
Pakistan/Afghanistan are not looking particularly good at the moment from a
political perspective.
3) Shipping is very expensive, so we need to
minimise it. Currently our options are to ship to India, but we may
then have to ship past Pakistan/Iran.
4) Another option we are
considering is shipping to Turkey and then we can go one of a number of
routes:
(a) through Iran, the Stans, Russia and across Europe
(b) from Turkey into Russia and across Europe
(c) from Turkey
into Greece and across Europe
5) Yet another option is to ship to
Dubai and travel up through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and into Turkey.
For the moment we are keeping our
options open and will see what looks best closer to the time.
As of
May 2005
Our house tenants in Nottingham have not paid us rent
since January. The estate agents we are dealing with have proved to be
ineffective in proceeding with action in our absence, as a result we are
going to have to travel swiftly through Europe to return home and sort out
the problem ourselves. The tenant was issued a notice to quit the
property by 30th April and he and his family are still there!
