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 !

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Still stuck close to Rijeka + Cyril is ill

We had a great plan yesterday night, wake up very early and drive all the way to Dubrovnik in one go. So we woke up this morning at 6h and made our way to the motorway just to discover that the wind that held us back yesterday was blowing even stronger, so we came to exactly the same point as yesterday talked to the policeman that was warning people of ice and high winds and quickly were discouraged. If already cars were having accidents, lorries weren t allowed with these conditions, we would have been completely mad to pursue on going on.
So, we reversed and came back to Rijeka for a nice breakfast at which Cyril was completely sick...poor cleaning lady. We decided to go back a little (15km) to spend the day in Opatija, a nice little "aristocratic" (as the lonely planet says) beach resort. Whilst it being winter, there are many more hotels and the scenery is much nicer than being in industrial Rijeka. I found us a very nice hotel in an old villa (since Cyril is ill and needs a warm and nice place to rest). Cyril has spent most of the day either in the bathroom or in his bed. He has some fever and some stomach aches. Good that I thought of taking all the medikit on the trip (thanks Manon, my pharmacist for indicating what is used when).
I hope he will feel better tomorrow.

Since the wind is not likely to change tomorrow we decided to drive back to Ljubljana and then from there to Zagreb, Belgrad, Sofia and Istanbul instead of going along the coast. This way is faster and hence we shouldn t loose any time on our schedule (bloody Turkmen visa which is only valid for 5 precise days). Unfortunately for us, this means missing out on the beautiful Croatian cost, Dubrovnik, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia and Greece. That ll be on another trip then.

Pictures to come in the next days.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi guys,

Started following your trip after seeing reference to it on ADVRider.
Although the coastal route is now scrambled which now looks like a real bummer, I can assure you other pleasant surprises are in front of you. Hint, hint...Belgrade!

All the best!

Anonymous said...

Nous vous suivons tous les jours, merci de nous tenir au courant grace à ce blog.
On a l'impréssion de vivre le voyage avec vous ( sans les intempéries )
On est de tout coeur avec vous, ainsi que toute la famille.
Bon courage et bon rétablissement pour Cyril.

Valérie et Lionel de Bordeaux

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