Tenth wedding anniversary and an upcoming ride to Bhutan - the happiest country


The Tiger's nest in Bhutan


We always wanted to celebrate the 10th with a bike ride....a bigger ride that we had never attempted. Just the two of us. Our Leh ride was with two friends, the Rann of Kutch ride was with my cousins...but wanted to be just us for this one.

Choosing the destination took 7 months
The first choice was Bhutan - our 60% of the plan was ready in 2012. But then I conceived, and Ovee was born in 2013, and the Bhutan plan remained unfinished.

We revisited the plan in July last year and realized that almost half of Bhutan, mostly eastern Bhutan, is off-limits for bikers. Only tourists who hire Bhutanese cars are issued permits to select places in eastern Bhutan. And so we started exploring other destinations.

Our next and most exciting choice was India-Myanmar-Thailand - riding on the Asian Highway. We found contacts of a couple of riders who attempted this route all to way up to London. The more we talked to these riders, the more we got disappointed:

- Bikers have to hire an escort car (that includes the car, its driver, and a navigator) - both in Myanmar and Thailand. The escort car ensures that you stick by the route mentioned in your e-visa and do not wander anywhere else. And, of course, you have to pay for the escort car.

- Both these countries charge the Carnet, a tax for your vehicle to pass through the country. The Carnet is 20 times of your vehicle's current market value.

- We intended to ride back from Thailand to India, so this would be twice the amount. Optionally, we could ship the bike to India from Thailand. However, since, we were not travelling in a group, we would have to pay an entire shipping container's price for our bike.

By February 2019, we were still evaluating our priorities and options:
* Join a biker's group to go to Thailand, travel the set route, see the usual destinations, and return. (An absolute no-no for us)
* Fly to Thailand, hire a bike, and explore. (Did not want that, because hiring a bike has it's own risks)
* Change the destination. (Yes, please!)

Bhutan it is!
Frustrated that we hadn't yet zeroed in on the destination, we reopened the Bhutan OneDrive sheet. Back to square one, we found people who had rode to Bhutan, even wrote to the Travel Council of Bhutan to check if we will be issued permits to the restricted eastern country.

However due to past misbehavior by tourists, the area is indeed restricted. So we made peace with it and decided to go ahead with riding to places in Western Bhutan.

We don't have a TV in our bedroom - only maps!
The left map shows the high altitude passes in Bhutan. The right one is the political map. 



Watch this space for subsequent blogs about the ride. 

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