This is the travelblog of Cyril Ducau and Niccolo Manno on their adventure from London (Cyril), Munich (Niccolo) to Hong Kong on motorbikes.
It took us short of 3 months to do 20,000km on bikes, trains and planes. We crossed the following countries together:

Austria - Italy - Slovenia - Croatia - Serbia - Bulgaria - Turkey - Georgia - Azerbaijan - Turkmenistan - Uzbekistan - Kyrgyzstan - Kazakhstan - Russia - Mongolia - China - Hong Kong

On this site you will find some info on both of us, our bikes, some of our friendly helpers in Hong Kong and London and loads of pictures on our trip. 

Latest top picture

Latest top picture
Thanks for watching our blog - Enjoy as we did it!

Our path

Our path
Click picture to download Google Earth kmz file !

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

This is it!

This is it!
The adventure has started. I left my work yesterday amidst a lot of encouragement from my team. The closer we get to the starting date, the more excited and scared we are. Scared of the unknown that is expecting us.
Manon brought me to the airport for the final goodbye, she is really the best and nicest one. After leaving her at the airport, I realised this is the first time I will have such a long break away from Manon since I know her (nearly 10 years now). I was quite sentimental and as you can imagine I wasn't able to talk a lot in the mins after saying goodbye. I promised that time will fly and I will be back in 2 days...aiya, that might be a bit stretched.
During my flight I started my logbook and realised that the plane is taking a mere 12h15 for HK-MUC and it is going to take us the best part of 3 months to do exactly the same journey back!
I landed at 5h and am waiting at the airport for a few hours before the BMW dealer opens to pick-up my bike. I hope it opens at 9h and not 10h.
So I had a bit of time to stroll through the press shop here, what a great place, full of maps etc...that I wasn't able to find in Hong Kong.
If the bike is ready and it doesn't take me too much time to have the discussions with the mechanics and get to know the bike, I will head-off to Austria this afternoon.
I'll hope to write more tomorrow with a picture of my bike.
See you

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A BIG THANK YOU TO:

Cyril:
- Maddy, the head of our "London HQ", special technical and weather advisor, and because she is simply the best and has been so supportive over the last few months
- My family and friends for their understanding and moral support
- Robert Roe (alias Bob) from Motoselect Franham for preparing the bike with such good care
- Anastasia from thevisacompany for helping me deal with so much red tape
- Claudio von Planta for sharing his valuable experience on Long-way Round and Long-way Down and answering so many of our questions
- Ronnie, Emmanuel and Benjamin for their enthusiast support and precious advise
- The Techtransalp team for their excellent website and advertising our adventure

Niccolo:
- clearly Manon as she has always been supportive of this trip even though this means 3 months without me
- My mother for not giving up on me, for receiving all the parcels at home in Austria and for not freaking out!
- Amy and Steve for pushing over several months to keep focus on the organisation
- Xavier, for trusting me to be in France in June and be his best man at his wedding
- Cyril, for posting our tracks on the blog
- Louis, for looking into getting Continental to sponsor us
- Romain, for getting us the Turkmen visas
- My friends for all telling me "DO IT"!
- Claudio von Planta, Sambor and Maciej for sharing their great experiences on their numerous motorbike trips
- Henry, Yau and Tan from BMW HK for their support with the bike, the preparation and the bike sale
- Yasser, Mark, Michael and Christoph from BMW Munich for their help with all the accessories and the last minute bike purchase
- Bertrand and Alice for your help with the tyres in Almaty