- We bought insurance on the border. EUR 28,- for 15 days (minimum)
- TIR parkings (secure overnight parking for lorries) are available about 10 kilometers north of Mukachevo.
- We stayed in Lviv (Lvov) on TIR parking. (N49' 49.608, E23' 56.092). Thanks Gert and Miranda...
- EUR 0.50 for a liter Diesel (cheap!)
- From the 1st September 2005 the Ukraine does no longer require a visa if you are a citizen of the European Union.

Romania:

-Buy a vignette for the roads (weekly or monthly) because they will check at the border when you will leave the country. The price for a week was 8.5 Lei which is about 1.75 GBP

Bulgaria:

-Same for Bulgaria, 4 Euro for a week.
-Great bush camp just north of Nova Zagora (N42' 35.706, E25' 51.895). Beautiful Wolf howling in the night!
-Rila Monastery, stay at Zodiac Campsite. 12 Euro for staying the night including dinner and 2 beers each!

Greece:

- Bushcamp Edessa (N40' 48.602, E22' 03.538)
- Ziro's Lake (N39' 14.452, E20' 51.340). Beautiful scenery and noisy frogs!!
- Camping close to Athens: Harry's Truckstop is just off the slip road if you take exit Aspropyrgos. Nice place with a couple of abandoned English registered ice cream vans left behind by Kiwi backpackers.
- Kavourotrypes (Crab Holes). This is an amazing wild camping spot on the Sithonia peninsula of Halkidiki (N40' 07.603, E23' 57.966))

Albania:

- We stayed at Dorkas aid agency in Korca just opposite customs in Korca. Have a look for more info on www.korca.nl
- We didn't obtain insurance for the Landy in Albania. Didn't seem possible...
- You have to pay EUR 10 per person to get into Albania.

Turkey

- Coming into Turkey at the Ipsala border, we spent 10 Euros each on visa and 43 Euro for insurance for the Landy which is valid for 3 months. No costs for temporarily importing the car (as was previously mentioned by other travellers if you did not use your Carnet de Passage). We did not use our CdP as this is only valid from the 25th May.
- Londra Camping in Istanbul. Nice relaxing place with good connections to the centre of Istanbul. (N40' 59.473, E28' 49.976, go towards airport Ataturk Havalimani after you paid the tolls just before Istanbul coming from the west. Take approx the 4th exit (D100 to 'Bakirkoy/Aksaray', this is immediately after the exit for Edirne). Take the first exit (this is already after about 150 metres) and stay on the slip road for about 350 metres and the campsite is behind the Shell station). The toilets could be cleaner but hey...
- If you need a service done to your Land Rover then go to OTO Mekanik in Istanbul (The owner used to be a mechanic for the Camel Trophy events in Turkey). Take the last exit (Levent) before the Fatih bridge over the Bosphorus and after a couple of miles you will get into a maze area of Istanbul with about 500 car mechanics!! (N41' 07.020, E29' 01.002, Thanks Frank & Staffan (www.designforafrica.com) for this great tip)
- Adana; we camped in the grounds of Motel Cetisnel Tesisleri / Green Club. It turned out to be a very pleasant place with a great swimming pool! (N36' 59.125, E35' 21.619, about 3km East of the centre on the main road to Antakya). We paid YTL 18.
- Murat Camping in Dogubayazit. Place to meet other travellers going or coming from the East.

Syria

- Tourist info at border Bab-el-Hawa was very helpful and did not ask for any money to help you with the customs paperwork. The diesel tax was $100, insurance $36 (valid for 1 month which was the minimum but will work out perfect for us on our way back from Jordan), $9 for customs with receipt and 100 syrian pounds ($2) for customs as well (no idea why...)
- In Aleppo we stayed in the Al-Gawaher Hotel as there were no camping facilities in Aleppo. We couldn't find any cash machines accepting foreign cards in Aleppo, although we went to the airport as we heard that there was one there but this was taken away last year. We later have been told by an Australian that he found one in Aleppo after he tried about 15 machines in 2 days.
- Camping Kaboun in Damascus (N33' 32.800, E36' 20.867, hard to find if you don't have GPS but it is about 4km North East of the city behind the Skoda garage). A very nice campsite but they wanted 600 Syrian pounds which we thought was way too much (probably because they had enough custom with the 2 overland trucks in their yard). We headed into the city and stayed 2 nights at the Al-Rabie Hotel which was very conveniently located and plenty of cheerful backpackers to have a chat with. You can stay on the roof for 150 Syrian pounds per person if you want but we stayed in our own room for 700. Parking is possible straight in front of the Hotel although it is a bastard to get to because of tiny little streets and one way systems!
- Sun Hotel in Palmyra offers great hospitality in combination with a clean room for a very cheap price (400 Syrian pounds including breakfast

Jordan

- Visa available at the border for 10JD (7.5 GBP) and insurance for a week was 19.5JD
- Dead Sea, Petra and Wadi Rum are all unmissable!!
- If you go to Aquaba, do go snorkelling in the red sea as the coral reef is amazing!!! The Bedouin Garden Village about 10km south of town towards the Saudi border is a perfect place to stay (perfect to have a swimming pool when it is 42 degrees). You can rent snorkelling gear and start straight off the beach.
- Please note that you have to pay 5JD per person departure tax and 5JD for the car as well.

Iran

- Watch out not to enter Iran with an empty tank! We got our first diesel about 10 km east of Maku, which is about 50/60 km over the border. Due to smuggling of diesel to Turkey there are a lot of fuel stations out of diesel in the northwest of Iran. There is been talk about fuel rationing in Iran for the future. Maybe you should check before you go to Iran with your own vehicle in the future in case this will happen.
- They will inform you at the border to get Iranian number plates in either Tabriz or Tehran. We didn't bother as most overlanders don't. In Mirjaveh (Iranian side of Iran/Pakistan border) they did not even ask about plates. We saved ourselves 350 000 Rials....
- Third party insurance is not compulsory in Iran as they tell you that your carnet is sufficient. We still got third party insurance ( 410 000 Rials) via the Kahn brothers at the tourist office in Tabriz. It is possible to get it at the border but it is two and half times the price of Tabriz.
- Stay at El Goli park in Tabriz!! You can camp (N38' 01 261, E46' 21 900) for free as thousands of Iranians do. (We thought they were all 'bonkers'...) They will undoubtedly invite you for some food and for a friendly chat.
- Mashhad hotel in Tehran (N35' 41 171, E51' 25 563). 60 000 rials (approx $7) and secure car park approx 250 meters away. (Next day was a little bit of an issue to get our Landy back as it seemed to be also a compound for cars impounded by the police....)
- Amir Kabir hostel in Esfahan (N32' 39 830, E51' 40 193). Central and secure carpark about 400 meters away. Run by a little bit too business-like brothers (Good place to meet people, but watch out ordering coffee instead of tea with breakfast. You will get charged an extra 5000 rials...)
- Top tip (!): Stay at the Silk Road Hotel in Yazd as it is a very chilled out place and you can park your vehicle, without any problems, outside. A dorm bed (if you are on a tight budget) is only 40000 rials. Very nice to re-charge your Iran-battery for another couple of weeks of hearing: "Hello, where you from...?"
- Kerman; the Akhavan Hotel where you can stay for $1 a night (camping at the back)
- Akbars Guesthouse (N29' 05.425, E58' 21.764) in Bam. Mr Akbar is building a new guesthouse but meanwhile you can stay in simple but sufficient rooms.
- Make sure you fill up with diesel in Bam, and keep up topping up a long the way. We managed to fill up again after about 200km after Bam and got about 20 liters in Mirjaveh again (so full into Pakistan) but it was a lot of hassle as the fuelstation in Mirjaveh did not want to give any diesel, so Roel had to speak to the local mafia boss who runs the diesel supply in the area.

Pakistan

- The Balochistan desert in the south east of Iran and the west of Pakistan is the bit of our trip that the Foreign Office explicitly warns against. They only recommend strictly necessary travel in these parts of the world as there are bandits operating in this area. The Baluchistan people have troubles with the central government in Islamabad and want some sort of independence. It is also very close to the Afghanistan border which doesn't help. Check your medical insurance if this covers you for areas where the Foreign Office advises against travel! Our insurance company (navigatortravel.co.uk) could not guarantee if the underwriters (Lloyds of London) would help us if something happened.....
- In Dalbandin, we stayed at the police station (N58' 53.274, E64' 24.366). We had a guard guiding us to a little restaurant and the prisoners were in the cells looking at us while putting up our roof tent! Great fun.
- Insurance for the Landy we bought at East-West Insurance on the Jinnah road. It was 1200 rupees (about GBP 10.50) for 45 days.
- Bloom Star Hotel in Quetta (N30' 11.358, E67' 00.293) where you can relax in the garden and park your car (and camp, if you want...). Hotel room was 600 rupees (about GBP 5).
- Sukkur; we stayed at the the Forum Inn, which was overpriced. But hey...we were tired and it was HOT and especially humid, so we needed air conditioning.
- The Sindbad Hotel in Multan was very pleasant but not very cheap (again...). But as temperatures reached over 42 degrees and the humidity getting seriously silly we could not be tempted to camp....
- Tourist campsite in Islamabad (N33' 42.303, E73' 05.313). Popular place with overlanders. We stayed at a friends house in Islamabad with free airconditioning, free internet and free laundry. This was a little bit more tempting than the humidity (again) and the mosquitos, but still we met some very nice overlanders in the couple of times we visited the campsite.
- To extend your visa for Pakistan you can visit the District Commissioner in Gilgit (or many other places). In Gilgit it was very easy. We got 2 months extra on our visa without any trouble in about 5 minutes time (we could have got 3 months but we said that 2 months for us was sufficient). This was all for no charge!
- Sigma motors in Islamabad (N33' 39.025, E73' 02.339) is the only Land Rover garage which has sufficient equipment and knowledge in the whole of Pakistan and in India (we've been told). Therefore we want to make sure that our Landy is 100% before we enter India. We replaced front brake discs as they were due for replacement and for the rest a normal service. (After our tour through the Northern Areas, we did an overhaul of the power steering box at Sigma for a good price as this was leaking ATF oil. For the people without a GPS; the address of Sigma is: Street 9, sector I-10/3. This road is a dead end so you should have no problem finding it...)
- For overland travellers in an Unimog, Iveco or MAN it seems rather difficult to get spare parts beyond Turkey. From Alex and Juergen who we met in Islamabad we heard that there is an army supply depot in Rawalpindi who supplies all (!) parts for these vehicles. The address is: Indus Automobiles (Mr Malik Mohammad Akhter), Sadar Bazaar, Rawalpindi (opposite the 'Avanti Hotel' to the left hand side)

India

- Watch the ceremony at the Wagah border as it is hilarious with military doing all an impression of the 'minister of silly walks'
- We got insurance at the Oriental Insurance company (on your left hand side about 2 kilometers from Mrs Bhandari's towards Amritsar centre/Golden Temple, N31' 38.331, E74' 51.941). It was RS 998 (approx GBP 12) for 1 year third party insurance including Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. Probably does not help a lot in case of an accident
- Mrs Bhandari's Guesthouse in Amritsar (N31' 38.513, E74' 50.943); very pleasant camping spot (with swimming pool!!!), but not a bargain.
- Mc Leod-Ganj; Pause Dwelling Hotel (N32' 13.985, E76' 19.571) has parking facilities and a double room for RS 250. Very cheap.
- In Rishikesh we stayed in the 'New Bhandari Swiss Cottage' which has seriously excellent food!! Highly recommended!
- Agra; Tourist Rest House (GPS N27' 10.071, E78' 00. 881) is a great place to chill out. Parking for Landy was available but your vehicle should not be higher than 2.40m.
- In Varanasi we stayed at Hotel Surya (GPS N25' 20.310, E82' 58.783) which is a beautiful place with swimming pool, steambath and massages. Camping is possible but too humid for us...
- You can't take a vehicle into India for a longer period than 6 months. There is a possibility to extend it for another 6 months and we were told by other travellers that this is possible to achieve with a lot of bureaucracy at customs in Amritsar and Vasco da Gama (there are probably more places but these customs houses seem to have done it before). Officially you have to take your vehicle after a maximum of 6 months in India, out of India for 6 months. Although this seems to be less of a problem as we heard again from experienced India-overlanders that if you only take it out for a week or so to Nepal or Pakistan you can enter without any problem and your car will not get confiscated on your exit.
- In Udaipur we stayed at 'Tiger', which was a brand new hotel owned by the same Germann chap who ownes cafe Edelweiss and restaurant Savage garden. all really nice places!
- 'Lamuella' guesthouse was run by an Israeli guy who doesn't like Israeli's. It is a really nice little place in Arambol in Northern Goa, but Arambol itself was a little too busy for us (and it was not even high season...). They serve the best salads!
- Agonda beach. This is THE overlanders beach in Goa. Agonda itself is a great place. Just enough places to eat and just enough tourists to have a chat with. Great sea to swim in and we couldn't drag ourselves away, so we stayed for 2 weeks.
- In Kerala you have to do the famous backwater cruise. We can highly recommend the boat owned by Cherukara Nest Guesthouse, which was also a great place to stay and leave the Landy behind secure gates.

Shipping:
We used 'Interfreight' Services PVT Ltd as our agent for shipping the Landy from Chennai to Fremantle (Perth). They were recommended by our overlander-friends Mark and Amy of hectorsadventures.com. We have had a great experience with them as everything seems to have worked out very smooth. One day initial paperwork, another day loading and fumigation and a third day of picking up paperwork. The costs for us involved were as follows:
Ocean Freight Chennai-Fremantle: $ 1200
Terminal handling:                        RS 3800
CFS:                                           RS 2500
Lashing and packing:                   RS 5000
Customs Docs:                           RS 2000
Examination:                               RS 2000
Conveyance:                               RS 1500
Container transport:                     RS 5500
Lift on/Lift off                                RS 1750
Fumigation:                                 RS 2800
Agency:                                      RS 5000 (+12.24%)
All in all it was a simple and painless experience for us and we can highly recommend them. Other travellers have used them before us and Interfreight was recommended on www.horizonsunlimited.com as well.
The contact details are:
Mr I.P. Prasanna Kumar (great guy!)
Interfreight Services PVT Ltd
Sivakami Complex, New no 318 (Old 174)
Thambu Chetty Street
Chennai 600001
Tel 044 252 43605
Mob 098 40050147 (Mr Prasanna Kumar)
E mail: seaexport@interfreightindia.com (They experienced some problems with recieving e- mail from my hotmail account so don't let this discourage you from using them. You can always send a fax on 044 52161501)
website: www.interfreightindia.com

Nepal

- $30 each for a visa for 60 days (available at the border). Border crossing at Banbassa (West-Nepal) was painless and easy. Car does not get stamped into your passport, so you can leave the car in Nepal and you can fly out if you want. Theoretically this has not been possible since Turkey as the car details always had been put in Roel's passport so if you want to leave the country you have to go to customs first. (Although we've been told by several people that this no problem in India if you want to fly home or so...)
- In Pokhara we stayed at the 'Butterfly Lodge' but there are many good places to stay or camp. There is a free camping site at central Lakeside but no facilities. There is also a 'overlanders-camping' which is nice but unfortunately 6km out of town (keep on following the road next to the lake, which will turn into a dirt track. It is sign posted. If you want peace and quiet after India this is maybe something for you).
- Kathmandu has many great places to stay but we definitely recommend 'Hotel Ganesh Himal' (GPS N27' 42.609, E85' 18.405). It has very friendly Tibetan staff and possibilities to leave your car safe with them (for free) if you go rafting, trekking or even 2 weeks to Tibet (this is what Frank and Martine did...). Again your car can't be a lot higher than 2.45m.
- In Kathmandu there is Janashakti Workshop (hard to find without GPS; GPS N27' 39.735, E85' 19.664) run by Irwin who has been working on overland trucks from companies such as Dragoman and Exodus for many years. He also has worked on the Land Rover of the only people we know who have gone through to Myanmar (2003, www.ziguin.de). We had an oil change and general greasing and cleaning done with him for very little money!
- Kevin (nohorizons.net) who we've met in Syria and in Kathmandu again was determined to check if Myanmar overland was possible and therefore went to the Myanmar embassy in Kathmandu. The answer from them was a polite but firm 'NO' as they told Kevin that foreigners were not allowed into Myanmar via a road border since last 2 years anymore. This is just for your info as you were thinking to enter Myanmar from the Indian side. This is not the only problem; The eastern part of India (Manipur) does hardly give out any travel permits and the route east of Imphal is completely closed for foreigners...
A shame as it would be great to drive to South East Asia overland without the expensive transit through China (which is still possible but very expensive)

Australia

- use an agent to import a vehicle on Carnet de Passage!!! We've heard horror stories of people who didn't. We used:

I.O.S.A. (Indian Ocean Shipping Agencies)
contact Craig Rowan
'Old Police station'
opposite shed D
Victoria Quay
Fremantle WA 6160
E mail: c.rowan@indianoceansa.com.au
Tel: +61 8 9430 6266
(Mobile: +61 411596645)

As it was coming up to Christmas it was very busy in the port of Fremantle. Because of the good contacts which Craig had we had our Landy back in 3 and half working days (which is quick for Australian 'bureaucratic' standards. 1 day unloading of ship, 1 day waiting for the container to go from the docks to the customs/quarantine depot, and 1 day of unpacking and (extra) cleaning of the Landy. All in all not a cheap exercise, so you should count on a total costs of AUD1600. This includes AUD 250 for the ageny, AUD 500 for the transport from the docks, customs was AUD 50 and Quarantine charges a minimum of AUD 113) We had some problems with quarantine so extra cleaning was required which cost an additional AUD200 (=GBP 80). It's only money.....

- After you are finished with customs and quarantine (Make sure that the vehicle is a clean as new as quarantine is especially picky with mud underneath) you are in free to go onto the Australian roads. (This is weird compared to other countries where they will make sure you have insurance. Australian customs don't seem to be worried about that although obviously it's a legal requirement. We've heard stories from overlanders who exactly did this and hit the Australian roads without insurance and inspections of vehicles) In principle it goes as follows in WA (Western Australia) as Australian law requires that you register an temporarily import of a foreign vehicle: First you have to phone the vehicle licensing centre on telephone number 13 11 56, where a very friendly lady told me that you can get a 48hr permit (read; third party insurance) so you legally can drive from customs depot to the vehicle licensing centre. This will cost you AUD 15.80 and you can organise this over the telephone and pay by credit card. Then you can drive legally to vehicle licensing and inspection centre. We went to the one on the corner of Leach Highway and Stock road in Willagee (as this is the closest one to the port of Fremantle) who seemed to be familiar with temporary imports on Carnet de Passage. You actually have to get the vehicle through a mini MOT test which is done a little bit south of the licensing centre (S32'03.475, E115'47.574). Make sure that you are there at 07.30AM as they are understaffed and will take about 4 hours to do 10 vehicles!!

After this vehicle test (they check the lights and drive around for a minute to check if the brakes are working) which takes 5 minutes but the paperwork takes a long time, you can go to the licensing centre itself to get the registration organised (Australia is the only foreign country we will visit, and the only country we know, where they actually test a foreign vehicle for road worthiness). You will get also the compulsory third party insurance which is only valid for injury not for property. This means that if you hit an expensive Mercedes with your Landy you will still have to pay the costs to the third party in case of an accident. In WA the registration has no minimum cover period but the maximum is 12 months or the expiry date of the carnet. If you want to stay longer then the expiry date of the carnet you will have to get a new carnet send to you and re-register your car in the state you will be driving at that time. I've been told that they will also only register to the expire date of your visa, so make sure your visa is valid for long enough (although they didn't ask us)

This registering costs us AUD 116.80 and because we wanted also third party insurance for property we went to the RAC in Booragoon and we got a years third party insurance for property for AUD132.75

- top tip: Use the internet for FREE at most public libaries in Australia!

- As our carnet was only valid until the 25th May, we had to get a new one send over from the ADAC in Germany. Karina Stephani was very helpfull with this and we picked up the new carnet from DHL in Darwin. As Roel had phoned Darwin customs a couple of weeks before and explained the situation we went to a customs officer called Bill and all was done in less then 10 minutes, free of charge. He stamped the old carnet and opened the new one and all was done.
Officially Australian customs is not allowed to extend your old carnet so they require a new carnet from your own country (in our case not our own country but Germany), although we've heard that Adelaide customs seems to be very easy and will still extend your old carnet for 3 months. Perth definitely not.

- In Exmouth we had to extend our Australian registration. This is a legal requirement in Australia. The lady at the department for planning and infrastructure in Exmouth had never dealed with a foreign vehicle but was very very helpfull and we extended our registration for 1 month (normally only possible for 6 or 12 months but as I explained we would ship out the car on the end of June she extended it for 1 month only). The costs were only $22

SOUTH AFRICA

- We used Federal Clearing Forwarding Co. for clearing the Landy into SA. It was an easy and painless exercise. Andrew and Chris of FCF were very helpfull. We basically had the Landy back the working day after the ship had arrived in the port. For details; look at www.fedclear.co.za or e mail andrew@fedclear.co.za. All in all the shipping has cost us about EUR1650 which was approximately the same as from India to Oz.

- When we recieved the Landy back we made an appointment with Jim Newbigging, who is a Land Rover specialist. This native Scotsman serviced and prepared the Landy properly for our long journey home. A new timingbelt was installed and several other things. Jim really knows where he is talking about. Although not cheap, we would definitely use him again!!
contact detalils:
Fraser Automobiles (Jim Newbigging, a one man Land Rover specialist)
3 Geneva Road
Muizenberg (Cape Town)
tel : +27 21 788 5576
bigjim@worldonline.co.za

Namibia, Botswana

-Visa for free at the border
- Botswana has the cheapest fuel in Southern Africa (GBP 0.42)

Zambia

- please note that there is a 150000 Kwacha (depending on your vehicle) Carbon Tax to be paid on the border. (5500 Kwacha is 1 Euro, or 8000 to the English pound).
- You also have to 10000 Kwacha council levy.
- The ferry should be $25 but we got away without paying this. Just get your passports stamped, carnet stamped, pay council levy and carbon tax and drive to the exit gate of the border. At the exit gate they only ask for Carbon Tax and council levy reciept.
- All Irish passport holders don't have to pay for a visa. Brits have to pay $65 and all other nationalities pay $25. There is a so called waiver visa system which means that you book some accomodation at for example Jollyboys (2 nights and you get 2 meals for free and a beer all for $25, so very attractive for Britisch passport holders) in Livingstone they will organise that you get a free visa on the border. bear in mind that this visa is only valid for 14 days, therefore we didn't organise this as we were not sure if we wanted to stay longer in Zambia
- VERY expensive fuel. At the moment 6000 for 1 liter in Livingstone.
- Jollyboys is a nice enough place although very noisy as you sleep in the carpark. But it's by far the cheapest in Livingstone ($4 pppn)
- We organised our Comesa Yellow card insurance (which is valid for Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Sudan) at Zambia State Insurance company on the main road in Livingstone (200 m to the right of the post office). We had to buy local insurance first as the Comeas is an extension of the local insurance. We could only buy the local Zambia insurance for 1, 3 or 6 months but the Comesa you can buy per month. We had no option to buy 6 months Zambia insurance (157000 Kwacha) and the Comesa for 4 months was only $30.