Long Ride Itinerary

it's been a long time coming out with the final version of just where and when we'll be doing what. after poring over countless maps, forum pages, Lonely Planet guides, it's  not exactly the most interesting route to take I'll admit, but the compromises seem justified; four months is a really short time for this and the routes been tailored  significantly to balance interesting bits to see and do as well as maximal chances of success.  Main considerations are the minimum number of international borders, preferably no need for a Carnet de Passage, friendly officials and cancer centres to visit, no recent outright killing in the streets, (civil unrest permitted).  without these constraints the route would have looked a lot different and a higher chance of never coming back.  of course everybody who has done anything like this before will know that like any battle plan it will all go to pot within three minutes of contact, but it's nice to have something to hang your helmet on.

what this means is no india and pakistan, which means no Karakoram highway, assam highlands, veronasi, darjeerling, and some broken promises to very encouraging indian and Pakistani collaborators.  one of these days we will find time.  on the other hand the need to find other cancer centres  have opened our eyes to not so traditional collaborators in Almaty, Urumqi, Chengdu and other places that hopefully will make up some of what was lost.


now that the route is settled things are starting to swing quite rapidly.  Next week we'll be holding a charity dinner to explain to some very generous donors the aim and rationale of our little ride and what it might be like; the week after as we approach the breast cancer awareness month (traditionally this is October) we go to press to announce the trip and what can come of it, in january the shakedown ride is a 5000km round trip to chiangmai to see what falls off the bike and when we return some fairly intensive afternoons at the mechanics' to get up to speed. then the final change with new oils, chains, suspension, cables, batteries, and off we go.

with everything falling into place the sensation has shifted from not whether or not this is possible - we are convinced that it is - to one of whether we'll manage.  so much has been invested in terms of time and costs, of explaining and cajoling and pleading, that the worst fears are starting to come to mind. something truly inane, indefensible and absurd.  like, right after a gala send off, main fuse blows half way on north south highway and we spend the night in malacca.  stuff like that.  won't look good in the book. on second thoughts, that would look good in the book.
 

	Country	City/ town	Km	Nights	Date (Depart)
			14,043	51	21 Mar 2014, Fri
	Singapore				21 Mar 2014, Fri
1.	Malaysia	Kuala Lumpur	238	2	23 Mar, Sun
2.	Thailand	Hat Yai	530	2	25 Mar, Tues
		Surat Thani	340	1	26 Mar, Wed
		Prachuap Khiri Khan	360	1	27 Mar, Thurs
		Suphan Buri	420	1	28 Mar, Fri
		Lampang	500	1	29 Mar, Sat
		Chiang Mai	106	2	31 Mar, Mon
		Chiang Khong	320	1	1 Apr, Tues
3	Laos	Boten	410	2	3 Apr, Thurs
4	China -    Yunnan	Mohan - Mengla - Jinghong	180	2	5 Apr, Sat
		Kunming	540	1	6 Apr, Sun
	Sichuan	Yibin	585	1	7 Apr, Mon
		Chengdu	275	1	8 Apr, Tue
		Jiuzhaigou	530	2	10 Apr, Thurs
	Gansu	Langmusi	365	1	11 Apr, Fri
		Labrang	185	1	12 Apr, Sat
		Taer	480	1	13 Apr, Sun
		Xining	400	1	14 Apr, Mon
		Zhangye	670	1	15 Apr, Tues
		Dunhuang	595	2	17 Apr, Thurs
	Xinjiang	Hami	480	1	18 Apr, Fri
		Urumqi	600	2	20 Apr, Sun
		Horgas/ Korgas border	650	1	21 Apr, Mon
5	Kazakhstan	Almaty	337	3	24 Apr, Thurs
		Taraz	552	2	26 Apr, Sat
		Tashkent	300	2	28 Apr, Mon
6	Uzbekistan	Samarkand	370	3	1 May, Thurs
		Buxoro (Bukhara)	280	1	2 May, Fri
7	Turkmenistan	Turkmenabat (Farab border)	130	1	3 May, Sat
		Mary	230	1	4 May, Sun
		Ashgabat	300	1	5 May, Mon
8	Iran	Bajgiran (Bagaran)	44	0
		Bojnurd (Bognurd)	220	1	6 May, Tue
		Gonbad-e Qabus	224	2	8 May, Thurs
		Sari	249	0
		Chalus	180	0
		Karaj	216	0
		Zanjan	260	1	9 May, Fri
		Tabriz	350	2	11 May, Sun
		Maku (Iran-Turkey border)	280	0
	Country	City/ town	Km	Nights	Date (Depart)
			6,111	30	21 Mar 2014, Fri
9	Turkey	Dogubayazit	58	1	12 May, Mon
		Kars	240	2	14 May, Wed
		Erzurum	200	2	16 May, Fri
		Malatya	480	3	19 May, Mon
		Capponiciae/ Cappadocia	550	3	22 May, Thurs
		Ankara	275	3	25 May, Sun
		Istanbul	454	1	26 May, Mon
		Edirne (Demirköy Yolu/D535: border to Bulgaria)	271	0
10	Bulgaria	Yambol (from Edirne, Turkey)	66	1	27 May, Tues
		Omurtag	99	0
		Popovo	43	1	28 May, Wed
		Ruse	72	0
11	Romania	Giurgio-Ruse Bridge (Danube Bridge; border)
		Craiova	208	1	29 May, Thurs
		Drobeta-Turnu Severin	112	0
		Timisoara	221	1	30 May, Fri
		Cenad (border to Hungary)	74	0
12	Hungary	Szeged (via Mako)	50	0
		Godollo	184	1	31 May, Sat
13	Slovakia	Zvolen	153	1	1 Jun, Sun
14	Poland	Zwardon (border)	151	0
		Wroclaw	289	1	2 Jun, Mon
15	Germany	Dresden	252	1	3 Jun, Tues
		Hamburg	494	2	5 Jun, Thurs
16	Denmark	Padborg (border)	158	0
		Nyborg (Great Belt bridge)	175	1	6 Jun, Fri
		Øresund Bridge (Peberholm)	136	0
17	Sweden	Jönköping	322	1	7 Jun, Sat
		Karolinska Institute	324	2	9 Jun, Mon
	Malaysia	Kuala Lumpur	Flight	1	10 Jun, Tues
18	Singapore	NUHS			12 Jun, Thurs