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, May 13, 2008

Future steps in our journey

Hi all,

yesterday night we slept over a very important question and this morning we discussed it in length and we decided not to proceed through China. The likelyhood of us getting through without permits (we have visas though) is minimal and the risk of getting caught inside the country with a foreign registered bike and no Chinese driving licence is too high as this would mean an expulsion and potentially a persona ingrata (lifelong ban of entering China), not something we wish to put on our resume when we look for a job (me in HK!). In particular now that the Chinese government is focusing on the olympics.



We had several options (one was doing the return journey using the transiberian but the Russian consulate needs 12 days for a visa!) and we decided to spend more time in Mongolia, ship the bikes home, take the train to Beijing and then fly to HK to end the journey.



We plan to sort out the shipping tomorrow (we already talked to DHL today) and will then head for the Gobi desert.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello les deux warriors!!

Quelle decision dure de renvoyer les motos, mais si vous continuez l'aventure -tant mieux - il faut en profiter!!

Vous avez l'air ultra top dans toutes les situations, les easy riders!!

Gros bisous et que des belles aventures pour vous deux

Tina

Anonymous said...

Quick questions: do you guys walk like cowboys now?

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