SOUTH EAST ASIA

At the end of 2019 I sold my business. A motorcycle tour and adventure business on the scale of Motorrad Tours is an all-consuming occupation and I wanted more time for Karen and I to travel for ourselves. In 2009 we had been lucky enough to ride from Alaska to Argentina over five months and a big adventure was calling us again. As the old adage says, “Man plans, God laughs”

- Richard Millington

The pandemic put paid to any plans for 2020 and 2021 while I remained heavily involved in the business helping the new owner to transition through Covid. In 2022 and 2023 travel in far flung places was still really difficult as less developed parts of the world completed vaccination programs and slowly, so slowly, travel restrictions started to ease. So came 2024 and the opportunity to plan and prepare so that in 2025 plans that were now over five years in the making came to fruition.

THE PLAN:

I love South East Asia, or Indochina if you are of that age. I have been fortunate enough to recce and lead many tours there over the past decade. Karen had ridden with me in Thailand twice - once on a recent recce and once more than 15 years ago when we first rode there, but she had never been to Laos, Cambodia or Vietnam. She had, however, been forced to listen to me raving about them endlessly each time I returned from a tour. So, a plan formed; to explore each country further and for Karen to experience and share the wonder I already enjoyed.

Draft one started with two key elements. Firstly, all the knowledge, routes and sites that I had already accumulated and, secondly, half a dozen versions of Top Ten must do/must see lists for each country. This produced a wish list of places to repeat or discover and a lot of seemingly random dots on a map.

There were some fixed points we had to accommodate. As with all route planning, the seasons and weather play a major part, so we knew we were going to travel in their winter. This would mean some cool days in the far north but would avoid the oppressive summer heat and the rainy season. Even so we could expect plenty of sunny days with the temperature gauge above 30°C. The other major fixed point was Vietnam.