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Cruising Nomads on the road

 

Hi man, we are glad to see you on our webpage!

During our journey, which have started in November 2012, we have met many wonderful people and we are used to get usually very similar set of questions. Maybe there is answer also for yours...

 
Or you can see our PHOTOS & VIDEOS on www.google.com/+CruisingNomads 

 

Hi man, how is it going?
Hi, it's going very well! (Of course, we are living our dream.)

Nice rig, I like it…
...thanks I like it too! (I have to, there is no other way)

Did you really visit all those countries?
Yes, we did.

Really? Everything on this single trip?
Yes man, we started from Czech Republic and went through eastern Europe, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan to India. After more than half year in India and Nepal we fortunately managed to arrange permit for crossing Burma to Thailand. (What is not very common because the border between India and Burma is permanently closed even for locals.)
Then we spent another eight months in the southeast Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia) before we shipped our Nomads home to America. On American continent we set off immediatelly across Canada to Alaska where we spent a couple of summer months 2014 being amazed by beauty and width of local landscape and wildlife.

Because we haven't been two years "in winter" and haven't seen the snow, we decided to stay the entire winter in Canada and enjoy incredible skiing there.

How long, did you say, were you in Asia?
In total it was 18 months. It's really easy to travel there with your own motorhome (of any kind). They don't know it. So there are not any rules and any restrictions concerning camping. You can stay everywhere, you can stay in the middle of crossroad and nobody would care, you can go everywhere you can pass thru. Sometimes was difficult to find abandoned place far away from people to take a rest (and in India it is really impossible).

And how did you manage to cross from Asia to America?
We shipped the truck from Singapore to Tacoma in Washington state (USA). We had to use Ro-Ro vessel because we are to big for container. It took 4 weeks that we used to visit Japan as a backpackers. What a "challenge" after traveling by car! We spent also few days in South Korean Seoul. Really nice holiday.

What is your next plan? How long do you want to travel more?
We don't have any exact plan, we want to stay flexible. As we go we are fighting with various types of limitations and restrictions such as border closure, rules concerning traveling by foreign registered vehicle etc., but mostly we are limited by visas. We love to follow recommendation of local people and there is not any schedule that we would be able to follow. And that all is changing our plans almost everyday.
At the beginning we thought we can do it in two or three years. Now (February 2015) we've been traveling for more than two years and we are not even in the middle. So we are expecting a few more years. But who knows…We are very happy because we are limited just by own fun. When we get bored and stop to enjoy the travels we will go directly back home.
But that has not happened yet!

We want to go zigzag through the west and middle west of the USA to Middle America, after that to South America, from there to ship our motorhome to South Africa and across the Africa to go home to Europe to Czech Republic, to Ostrava.

How did you found the idea to go around the world?
Maybe you know the situation when you go for a trip, you reach some point, you want to go farther, you wan to explore more but you have to return. I hate that!
I like the idea to go just forward, not back neither one step. Therefore, we set off from Ostrava to the east and return back from the west.

And how was Iran and Pakistan? Isn't it too risky to go through those states?
This is the "easiest" way how to reach India by road with truck. Iran was amazing. We were so surprised by hospitality of local people. And also the historical sites from the dawn of humanity, as Persepolis is, are very impressive. And finally the deserts with all their sand shapes and camels and just atmophere… it's really worth to visit Iran.

And Pakistan?
… yes, it's danger for tourists at this time, however the majority of local people is peaceful and helpful. When we were in big cities as Quetta and Sukkur are, we were staying on a street in our truck listening the shooting every night and hoping that any missed bullet do not make a ventilation hole to our wall. And also in Quetta there was a bomb attack few hundreds meters far from our place.
On the other side we had police escort to secure us almost all the way which was provided by Pakistani government for free. Guards was changing from district to district. Sometimes it was just one guy with kalaschnikov who traveled with us, sometimes two guys on one small motorbike and sometimes very professional group of 8 people in offroad pick-up who were waiting on the border of district and was changed (car for car) on the go.

….interesting experience!
Which country is your favorite?
Czech Republic, of course! :-)

[lol]

But to be honest the most memories and stories we have probably from India. The Indian culture and mentality is so different and so... ...so Indian. We love it and hate it at the same time. There is a lot what to say but many articles and books about India was written already. I just want to mention one thing that was following us all India - the driving style. It's very "unique". Where in the world you can meet tractor on the highway in the night without any lights in speed lane and in opposite direction!? Or flail harvests by let the cars drive over on a highway!? I confess, driving there made me crazy all the time. Short time after we left India I shared opinion "INDIA - I Never Do It Again". But now I miss it and I'm almost sure I want to go there again.

And what about Southeast Asia?
Burma is still very isolated country because of their political system although you can fly and travel there. It's very poor and very rural country, not impacted by tourism except capital and few more destinations, what make it very exceptional and interesting.

Cambodia is mainly about people who have great sense of humour and are very happy in all situations despite very brutal recent history. Except temples of Angkor in Siem Reap province there are not many historical sites because all was destroyed during Red Khmer reign. We really like this country, not only because they have the best french baguettes in all Asia, but because we have a lot of good and funny memories to local people.

Laos is mainly about beautiful tropical nature. There are many sports occasions… it's good for cycling, you can find a lot of rivers and lakes and also caves where you can swim, there are rock climbing areas, there are mountains for hiking, rivers for canoying… and that all is situated in very beautiful tropical landscape. Our best experience ever from there was Gibbon experience (http://www.gibbonexperience.org/).

About Thailand and Malaysia (we were just on peninsula Malaysia) there is not so much what to say, you can figure everything out from travel agencies offers.

That sounds great! Sorry, I have to go to pack myself now and start own journey… :-D

OK, so keep in your mind our mottos "Not to overplan it" and "Experiences has not to be positive but intensive!"
With those mottos you can not get lost in the world. :-)

 

You can see our PHOTOS & VIDEOS on www.google.com/+CruisingNomads