Sebastian: We leave Uchisar as usual a little bit late but and decide to take a little detour to visit the Erciyes Dagi volcano (3.891m). On the way there the flat sand and grass underground next to the street make me want to go off-road. I cant hold it and I tell Martin, that I will take a short timeout and do a couple of 100 m alongside the road. Its beautiful, the ground is soft and easy to ride and the bike has no problems whatsoever to control the terrain – even fully loaded.

Martin: We leave Istanbul behind us and take the highway to Ankara – Cappadocia we`re coming! Even though some guys told us that there is nothing interesting between Istanbul and Nevsehir, which is the main city in the Cappadocia region, we are amazed as the road takes us first through beautiful undulating terrain and later changes to a mountain range covered by forest on the left and right side of the highway. We drive a couple of hours and as the sun starts to set, we decide to take an exit and drive somewhere up the mountains to find some place to sleep.

Sebastian: We wake up a little bit later than planned (no wonder after the consumption of the day before) but get ready quite fast – not always an easy task… After a short pit stop at the most expensive gas station so far (1,70/l). The highway is nothing but straight and at 150km/h we empty our tanks faster than expected which leads once again to a delicate “lack of gas situation” that we handle with care (rolling down the hills as usual) and success. The wind also picks up and driving as straight as the street is build turns out a real challenge. After a while we cross the greek border and enter

Martin: We pack our bikes and at about 2pm we hit the road. Stage of the day: Tirana, Albania! Before we leave Sebas manages to loose his glasses and finds someone who refills his oil for the bike by spilling half of it over the bike. All this happened in about 15 minutes, while I was waiting for him at the exit of Budva. You just can´t leave this guy alone 🙂 We feel sorry to leave Budva, an incredible city with many small beaches surrounded by a spectacular mountain scenery. 

Sebastian: Finally we have made it and are on the road!

First destination was Jeruzalem in Slovenia which is located on top of a vineyard giving you an amazing view over the area. The first beautiful sunset was ours! I visited my aunt Titi while Martin stayed with a colleague and a friend of his. After all the preparation and the relaxing after having left we felt horribly tired but still didnt go to bed too early.

  Martin: There is one word that describes the last 10 days before our departure: Chaos!

Everything went smoothly until Wednesday, 22nd June. We picked up the visa for Iran and were on the way to the Indian embassy to apply for the visa. On the way we got a call from KTM that we can pick up the papers for the bikes, which we needed for the insurance and to issue of the Carnet de Passage, a document for customs we need in some countries. So far so good..

Thanks a lot to everyone for showing up and having a farewell drink with us (admittedly at a very short notice :-))! Not only had the weather not been very cooperative, also the hosts showed up with one hour delay… and this not because of airs and graces but because we got stuck at KTM in Mattighofen, where a storm came up… really! 🙂

It was a pleasure seeing all of you again, toasting with you on our project and spending some time with you!

After a little more than 3,5 years in Paris I quit my live there for this journey.

I quit my job, my apartment and left lots of great friends behind me for the moment.

This time was surely a highlight in my life and had to be celebrated in a decent way with a tasty party! Here you go with some impressions of a great night with great people 🙂 You can have a guess what was the “dresscode” of the evening!

The time has come: after months of hard work our homepage eastbound.at is finally online! At this point we would like say a big  thank you to all our helpers! Without a single grumble (they had reason enough…) they helped us to make this homepage something special.

Not all content is ready yet, so please don”t be surprised if some categories or links are empty. From now on we will place new content as regularly as possible. So get ready for exciting stories, fascinating photos and one or another video!

Of course we”ll keep you updated until our departure!

There”s one date you can already block in you calendar: who has time and feels like, our official departure will be on Sunday, July 3rd from the SOS Children Village in Hinterbrühl. Meeting time is 9:30 a.m., departure at around 11:00. We invite all who want to drive the first track section to Kalte Kuchl with us! So get your bikes ready and tag along!