We want to give everybody a short insight on our route. As you know
hitchhiking is not something tightly scheduled or planned, so we might diverge from our track to other places and serendipities from time to time.
Our quest is really tough and we know that some will think:
"What? - from Turkey to India in three weeks and then on to Malaysia?" Let's face it: We will be traveling in mostly developed countries so that the roads should be pretty ok and hitchhiking a fast means of transport. In big cities we try to find
CouchSurfers. At sites of lush nature we camp.
Why are we forced to skip
Pakistan and
Myanmar? It's about political and infrastructural reasons and at the end of the day also our holiday time slot! The idea about this trip emerged six weeks before our departure: It's nuts to think you can get the visa from these four countries in this time frame. See our
post on visas for more. Today the
silkroad is possibly the toughest route you can travel - not in terms of transport but concerning the political circumstances. In plain English: 20 years ago, it would have been easier to travel this route. Over and over again Craig talked with the Pakistan embassy, scanned the Internet for advice and called people who managed to get an overland visa for Pakistan before. The result: If you have loads of time for organizing things (which we don't apparently) and if and only if you have connections with somebody at the Pakistan embassy you might be given a overland visa after weeks. Pakistan only issues visa if you can show a valid return air ticket. Another reason against Pakistan: it had meant five days of desert only! I think now you can understand why we skip Pakistan. Myanmar is another story. This country is essentially locked up for hitchhikers: No borders with Bangladesh or India. Once we have more time we'll come to these nice countries definitely!
"silkroad & highway, desert & rainforest, laid-back village & bustling Megalopolis."
Coming back to our route: We'll stay longer at special places and autostop approximately five hours on hitching days. We hit the road in Germany to thumb it to Stuttgart airport. But only in
Istanbul the project really starts: After some days at the
Bosporus (possibly
Ankara) and camping around
Cappadocia we'll enter
Anatolia ;-) Then crossing the dusty Turkey-Iran border at
Esendere moving towards
Tabriz,
Teheran and then the historic cities of
Isfahan and
Shiraz in a hot desert plain. From there - owed to above reasons - we'll catch a flight to
Delhi. The route for the 1200++ kilometers to
Mumbai is not fixed yet. From India Craig is going to skip Myanmar for Thailand. From there the last leg leads to
Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia through lush rainforests. With approximately 8500 km (shortest route) we're going to cover close to 70% of a true overland route.
"Surfing Iran, hitching Anatolia & camping jungle."
I hope that gives you an idea.
Keep thumbing ...
