OverlandSphere » Ride Overland

India: Oye Kidaaaaannnn South India!!!

Ride Overland — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 18:35:34 +0000

Tweet The amount of distance that needed to be covered in the South was intimidating! We had to haul some ass and get this trip on the move! Getting out of Goa we headed out into Karnataka. All this time Nick’s thumb was hurting, especially over the combination speed bumps…7 speed breakers in a row? What’s the point??? That little…

Ethiopia: It’s time to get out of Africa!

Ride Overland — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 04:57:04 +0000

It was a big relief to finish the “Road to hell” in one piece. It was mentally and physically challenging, stressful, and just pure survival. Nick was super relieved especially travelling with a wife for obvious reasons of abduction, looting and even murder. 2 days later a British guy was shot dead travelling in a Land Rover and robbed and…

Kenya Part 2: Return to the land of Kalasinghas and what next?

Ride Overland — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 03:20:53 +0000

Again, easy border crossing into Kenya. Instead of going the Kisumu way, we decided on going to Eldoret. It was chilly and started to rain decently hard as we rolled in. Eldoret is kind of a messy city. The roads were a bit tight and bad and with water and silt it was not pretty. We rode around the whole…

Uganda: A lush, green paradise!

Ride Overland — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 02:45:53 +0000

The border crossing into Uganda was simple with the usual road tax charged in these African countries. We decided to ride to Jinja which is where Nile or White Nile supposedly starts…I won’t get into that because it seems people take the location of the Nile source pretty seriously. We ended up camping out at the Adrift Camp which had…

Kenya part 1: Feelin’ the love in East Africa!

Ride Overland — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 02:25:24 +0000

Getting into Kenya was nothing too complicated except for being hounded by Masaai ladies. They kept on pushing their beaded jewelry on me saying it was a free gift from them to me. Saw this trick in Laos We rolled into Nairobi and met up with my Uncle Pili. My Nanaji’s parents (my great-grandparents) and his siblings moved to Kenya…

Tanzania: Tanzania…this is what we’ve been missing!

Ride Overland — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 19:21:53 +0000

Crossing the border into Tanzania was an ordinary affair…usual money changers, customs clearance agents, and insurance agents heckling for your attention and your business…except for one thing. A customs official who actually knew more about the carnet de passage than we do. The Tanzanian customs officer had the knowledge and presence of mind to fill in the middle section of…

Mozambique – Malawi: Mozambique Pit Stop and the Lure of Lake Malawi!

Ride Overland — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 18:39:49 +0000

Mozambique was a short affair. In terms of scenery there wasn’t much in north Mozambique. It was dry and pretty poor. We passed village after village of mud houses and bags full of coal to sell lined up on the road. As with most of the other countries, you had the occasional crowd surrounding the water pump with plastic Jerry…

Zimbabwe: Finally the real Africa!

Ride Overland — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 21:07:03 +0000

We decided to see the Victoria Falls from the Zimbabwe side since we were more interested in getting a frontal view. From Zambia, you are getting a view right on top. We got a bit late crossing into Zimbabwe, but along the way we saw tons of wild elephants taking shade under trees near the road. It was getting a…

Botswana…Plenty of cows…where’s the people?

Ride Overland — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 20:54:54 +0000

Looking back at the Namibia post, I realized that I kept repeating the fact that it was damn hot in Namibia. That’s because it was freakin hot in Namibia. And so was Botswana. We took the Trans-Kalahari border crossing into Botswana and again found dryness. Just flat dryness. Then the dead cows started. Either due to heat, lack of rain,…

Namibia: Welcome to the inferno!

Ride Overland — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 20:27:32 +0000

South Africa had been such an amazing time, we spent a month traveling through and still felt as if there was so much to see. It was time to move on though, so we headed to Namibia. People had told us it was absolutely beautiful. And that there’s few tar roads. We were a bit worried about sand because of…

South Africa: South Africa: Durban, Lesotho(maybe), and the Wild Coast!!

Ride Overland — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 20:05:48 +0000

Halfway to Durban we got the greatest gift…sunshine! We hit the coast around Salt Rock and stopped for an hour to chill and figure out where to stay. An Indian man came up to us and started chatting and suggested a place in Tongaat. We should’ve known that the place would be a little suspect when the guy was continuously…

South Africa: Our second leg begins…AFRICA!

Ride Overland — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 21:00:31 +0000

Tweet Coming to Johannesburg was a surreal experience, I hadn’t seen Nick in a week and considering that we’ve been together 24/7 for a year , that was a long time! Nick had been staying at his friend’s Bhaskar’s house. They both picked me up from the airport. I was a bit zonked out because the trip had been long…

Australia: Finishing our first leg up in Melbourne and a quickie to Houston!

Ride Overland — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 18:50:04 +0000

Tweet Getting out of Sydney was tough! We were leaving behind a familiar bed, it’s so weird how we get used to comforts so quick! But right outside of Sydney, heading south on the coastal road, were amazing views of the ocean and terrain. Really one of the most amazing coastal roads we’ve done so far! Luckily we found an…

Australia: Cairns, Atherton Tablelands revisited, Daintree…and Sydney at last!

Ride Overland — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 17:08:16 +0000

Tweet In Cairns our big thing was to get an oil change since it was overdue and we also had some oil leakage. Turns out the BMW Motorrad there isn’t too friendly and they weren’t really willing to help us or answer any questions. After running around to almost every store on the main street, we found the Castrol Power…

Australia: Australia at last but bittersweet…

Ride Overland — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 16:33:19 +0000

Touching down in Darwin, Australia was bittersweet. Being in Australiameant that we had finished our first leg of our trip, and we would be back to a somewhat US-like environment. But that also meant being done with Asia. I wouldn’t call it being back in “civilization” because that’s just degrading. It really gets under our skin when other people say…

East Timor: Timor/ East Timor and shipping to Australia

Ride Overland — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 16:20:07 +0000

It was still dark when the ferry reached Kupang 15 hours from when we started. It was around 4am! We tried to find some place to stay but since check out time was around 12pm, it was kinda tough to find a place. We decided to wait a bit and have a think over coffee. Although we got decent sleep,…

Indonesia-East Timor: Flores/Kupang/East Timor

Ride Overland — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 15:46:23 +0000

Flores is probably the best place to go visit the Komodos orRincaIsland. We checked out quite a few of the places that booked tours and found one that seemed willing to negotiate the price a bit better. We were told that during the time we went (June/July) it was better to go to Rinca. I think the other deal with…

Indonesia : Lombok/Gili T./Flores

Ride Overland — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 15:20:14 +0000

Before we could head out ofBali, we had two very big decisions to make. Should we change our tires? We were running on the same TKC we had put on in Kolkata but we had to change our rear TKC to a Karoo in Malaysia since it had run down and we knew we might have to do deal with…

Beautiful Bali!!

Ride Overland — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 14:44:16 +0000

Again we boarded a ferry to head to another island…Bali! And to be honest, the ferry system has really impressed us. Yes, it’s not luxury but the crew is used to bikes, they’re pretty nice and help out with securing the bike. And the ferry’s have air con seating or nice seating outside although it’s plastic chairs. There’s food available…

Yogyakarta, Mt. Bromo….BALI !!!

Ride Overland — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 12:39:00 +0000

We set out for Yogyakarta…orJogjakarta…which is how the locals pronounce it…that would totally throw us off! After shaking off a few chasers and racers (just likeIndia), we got there in the evening and headed towards the area we knew we could find cheaper accommodation. After finding a good value place, we started to settle in. While Nick was with the…

Java-Jakarta, Bogor/Cibodas

Ride Overland — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 12:55:19 +0000

The next morning we were relaxed and with the sun out we headed out to BMW. We ended up spending most of our day at BMW Motorrad, just getting brake pads, low beam buld, topping up oils etc and one of the guy’s, Tomi, helped up big time by helping us make plates to fix and reinforce both of our…

The beach at last, Padang, Muko-Muko, Ferry on to Java, Jakarta!

Ride Overland — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 12:42:51 +0000

After Maninjau, we headed out and again rode through beautiful, green rainforest. We were itching to see the legendary Sumatera coast since it was so popular with surfers. After a couple of hours of riding through the rainforest covered mountains, the elevation was gone and rice paddies faded into the ocean! Finally, the beach! The amazing part was that we…

Bad luck begins…Lake Toba

Ride Overland — Thu, 24 May 2012 11:47:29 +0000

Lake Toba is a huge volcanic crater lake that almost seems like an ocean. It’s really huge—you can’t see the end of it. The next day we recovered a bit had a breakfast of banana pancake which would be a staple in Indonesia. The place we stayed at was cheap and a good surprise from Malaysia, how long would it…

Selamat Datang di Indonesia

Ride Overland — Tue, 22 May 2012 03:09:32 +0000

Tweet We docked at Tanjung Balai around 3am. We waited for all the other passengers to unload until we got the bike off. Surprisingly crew members stuck around and knew exactly what they had to do. But before then, they wanted to negotiate a price to take the bike off the ferry. The week before our fellow bikers had negotiated…

Ahh the frustration…trying to get to Indonesia

Ride Overland — Mon, 21 May 2012 02:54:28 +0000

Getting up bright and early, we felt reluctant to leave Malaysia. We had made so many great friends that we felt so much at home! Tuesday had rolled around and no word from Hakim. We decided…! We were getting on that ferry on our own with or without Hakim. As we decided this, I still had a weird feeling inside. …

Back to Malaysia…on to Indonesia?

Ride Overland — Sat, 19 May 2012 01:58:39 +0000

We had been in touch with a German couple, Sascha and Kerstin since we got into Malaysia. While we were in Singapore, we got a message from them that they were going to be heading to Indonesia on Wednesday. For bikers, shipping to Indonesia was posing a huge problem. Shipping in the first place is a pain in the ass…the…

From jungles to the highrises…From Taman Negara to Singapore

Ride Overland — Mon, 14 May 2012 00:40:12 +0000

Finally we got ourselves to snap out of it and head to Taman Negara. We wanted to be in Singapore for the weekend to visit one of Nick’s school buddies and other friends. Taman Negara is a national park full of 130 million year old rainforest separated by the main town of Kuala Tahan by a muddy brown river. When…

Langkawi, Penang, Cameron Highlands

Ride Overland — Tue, 08 May 2012 23:05:57 +0000

To get to Langkawai we had to take a ferry, but we couldn’t take the bike. We left the bike in Alor Setar and boarded a cramped, freezing ferry to the island. We had heard a lot about Langkawai, people raved and raved about it. When we got there it was a real let down. The area with the budget…

The Andaman Coast & Getting to Malyasia

Ride Overland — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:48:22 +0000

It didn’t take us too long to get to Krabi, but when we did, we were so happy! We found a decent place with air con, showered and got settled in. Felt good to not be sandy and sweaty (at least for a little bit!). After taking all the coastal roads and spending the night on the beach, the sea…

Heading through south Thailand…one month later!

Ride Overland — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:00:50 +0000

We started on time, not really knowing how far we’d get! It always takes a couple of hours to get out of Bangkok…no matter how hard we try it’s just too confusing and trying to avoid the damn Motorway is a serious task! Taking the highway is really no fun so we decided to take the coastal roads. We passed…