Detour to DubaiOnce in the UAE, Dubai customs kept our bike from Midday Thursday when we
arrived to Saturday morning as this is their weekend and customs was closed.
Dubai was so expensive and although very modern, spotlessly clean and had
beautiful beaches, we had to find a way to India to save money and quick.

CRATING FOR INDIA

A sea passage was out of the question yet again so we had our bike crated by
a guy from Sri Lanka who made a good solid crate for $85, it was
containerised and sent by ship by Mumbai(Bombay), India. We flew the two
and half hours to Mumbai. Our ship arrived one week after leaving Dubai.
It took six more days and and unimaginable amount of paperwork to release
the bike from customs plus a huge amount of Baksheesh (back handers and
bribes) to push the whole thing along. We had a customs clearing agent who
knew the system and what it took to get us our bike as quick as possible.
Indian red tape and corruption made us determined never to bring a vehicle
into India this way again and there were times we wished we had gone
through Pakistan after all as it would have been so much cheaper and more
straight forward.

The bike had been fantastic. We have covered 8,000 miles so far. We are
still on the original tyres and constantly getting 300 miles to a tank of
petrol. It has been perfect for the journey so far.

We now have the bike and are about to take on country number 7, India!!!!!