With 1 month to go until I arrive in India, but only 2 weeks until I leave home (Melbourne), it's time to get the blog up and running and the packing list finalised.
With everything packed up already because I'm housesitting, I feel like I'm already living out of a backpack. But I don't mind that too much. At the moment. Give it a couple of months with nothing but what I can carry on a bike and I might be feeling different :)

I'm hoping to create a very practical blog, focussing on the details of life on the road, such as travel times, road distances, fuel/visa/food/accomodation costs and condtions, and paperwork - in the hope that all of this will be useful to would-be travellers.

Here is the basic idea for the trip so far:

Jan 28 - Feb 13: Stopover in Thailand visiting some of my favourites:
Ko Phi Phi

and Ko Chang

Jan 14: Fly into Trichy, India, to meet my travelling buddy Torb, and to buy a bike of some description.

The two options for bikes are: The Royal Enfield:

Or a scooter. I'm still undecided between the two. I'd really love to do my trip on a scooter as I did a trip from Kolkata to Mumbai (via Ooty) in 2005 on a Honda Eterno 150cc and loved every second of it. Well, there must have been some things I didn't enjoy, but I look back on it all fondly now! The small petrol tank may cause me some problems when I hit remote areas of Iran or Africa though.

Apparently they don't manufacture the Eterno any more, but maybe I can talk them into a comeback edition, just for me :P

If all goes to plan I hope to ride through:
India
Nepal
India
Pakistan
Iran
Turkey
Syria
Lebanon
Syria
Jordan
Israel
Jordan
Egypt
Sudan
Kenya
United Republic of Tanzania
Zambia
Zimbabwe
South Africa
Then back to Nepal for some volunteer work in the second half of the year
All of that could look a bit like this (the red lines are by motorbike, the green lines are by aeroplane):

If it turns out the paperwork is too much of a hassle (read: outside my budget) then I may just do India and Nepal.

Next to come is the packing list and cost of pre-departure items (like travel insurance, vaccinations etc...)