My connection with Istanbul is a special one. Eight years ago it was the starting point of The Wander Year, my first long-term travels in Asia. I’ve been wandering a lot since then and even though this is my third visit to the city on the Bosphorus, I still enjoy it.

While in Istanbul, we’ve also applied for a visa to Uzbekistan. Unfortunately, it’s not the most helpful consulate here, nor the fastest. Processing time is one week. A bit long, so we’ve asked to forward our application to Tehran where we should be passing through in the next week or so.

Although we’d like to visit the Balkans some day, we’d decided to take a south bound ferry from Venice straight to Greece. It took twenty six hours to sail across the Adriatic Sea to the town of Igoumenitsa, which is actually quite nice to stay for a night. The seafront is lined with fancy restaurants and bars, there’s a long promenade and also a beach. And after sleeping in a chair between snoring truckers last night, a comfy bed was nice too!

Sun is shining, weather is nice, and Venice is not too crowded at this time of year. We spent two days in the floating city, splurging on tasty Italian food and wine in charming osterie. It was our first time in Venice, and we truly enjoyed it.

During the first few days, with so much on our minds, it was nice not having to think about the route much. Simply immer geradeaus on the German autobahn! But once in the Austrian Alps, we took the more scenic secondary roads to Italy.

Note that Anneke is still getting used to being squeezed between her luggage :)

Traveling to Kathmandu on a motorbike has been a long time dream of mine. Following the old hippy trail of the seventies, from Europe to Istanbul and on to Iran, Pakistan and India. Even Afghanistan was still on the map in those days, being a favourite traveller hangout thanks to its hospitable people and cheap supply of the worlds best hash. A true adventure, in times without internet or mobile phones.

Today, politics, terrorist activity and a lot of red tape make traveling through this volatile region difficult. In planning our route a lot of constraints had to be taken into account. Most importantly, we wanted to avoid the dangerous province of Balochistan in western Pakistan, where kidnappings and bomb attacks are daily reality. Secondly, rumour has it that due to the elections in June, the Iranian border might be closed to foreigners. So we wanted to be able to skip Iran if necessary. The resulting route will be longer, more costly and require even more red tape, but it’ll make for a very interesting detour via the silk roads of Central Asia and China, and over the Karakoram Highway into eastern Pakistan.

We plan to reach the Himalaya in June, just in time for the mountain passes to Ladakh to open. After India, we’ll continue to Nepal, where our journey will come to an end in the great city of Kathmandu.