Our new mascot TukTuk in all it's beauty. Here as a real Indian toy.

As all of you know, our expedition was postponed due to financial reason(hopefully for the beginning of year 2015). Meanwhile we had a lot of time to think how it will proceed and so there came a new plan. We will go home by TukTuk and along the route we will pick up and drive locals :o)

    Maybe I should explain it a bit. When we discussed in pub what and how, there was a question, what we will do when our Vespa conks out. So what, we will come home then by a TukTuk, which is the most common Asian taxi. I really started to like that idea more and more and so it came to joining two ideas. We will buy a TukTuk and drive it home. But the real fun is in the thing that we will work as proper taxi, and along the way we will pick up locals and drive them for our and their amusement. Of course we won't work totally like a taxi and so we won't drive people on order (that way we wouldn't reach our home ever), but we will drive them along our planned route. In return I will now and then make portraits of our passengers and possibly of their jobs, houses, simply whatever opportunity will offer. After the end of our journey I will arrange those pictures into an electronic book and publish it on internet. As a second means of transport and support vehicle will serve Vespa to us, whom we simply refuse to give up :o)

One more In something similar we want to drive, just not in wooden one and bigger :o)

   Thanks to this plan we need to adjust also our route. In Vietnam there is no TukTuks  and so our starting point is capital city of Thailand - Bangkok. This place is swarming with those little buggers. Paradoxically it have some advantages for us, mainly in the fact, that we won't hopefully have to fight that strong bureaucracy as in Vietnam. But not to shorten the route too much, we will make a digression to Cambodia and Laos, which were on the original route.

   The only question which bothers me is - what should be the name for it? VespTuk Expedition? The best idea I came across is similar to the name of some fairytale  - Vespa and TukTuk drives home. For now just for organizational reasons I'm keeping original title. The internet address will remain the same in any case, as to not have you searching the recesses of the internet too much.

As my next traveling destination I chose South India. I have visited India already and so some people were wondering why I'm going over there again. There are more reasons, but among the main ones counts that I love this country and that the first time I saw only a small part of it. Last time I went to the north, this time to the south. India is really huge and on its territory is used not only several languages, but also several scripts, not at all similar to each other. Just on the notes the value is written in 15 languages ​​and 8 scripts.

Even after the my few trips that I've realized, I still have a problem to pack up. The scenario looks like this: I have already everything in my backpack and I start to go through those things as what do I need and what don't. It seems to me as always that my backpack is too big. I'm going there for 6 weeks – one t-shirt a day that means 42 t-shirts is it enough? I know myself, I'm a piggy, I will stain myself and then I will have to walk half day around in dirty t-shirt. I'd rather add 10. Good. Two pair of underpants. Isn't it a bit too much? Last time I brought one pair back clean and I've been abroad for longer time. I'll leave one pair here, I don't want to break my back with that backpack. This way I go through all the stuff and suddenly half of the content changes. Now I'm finally here and so according an old saying:"What you don't have, you don't need" I'm fully equipped.

Mumbai train station Architectural gem - scene of big railway station disaster

Mumbai. This city is sort of exceptional by its lot of architectural treasures of past times as well as present. From the time of colonization is for example whole trainstation Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), nicknamed by us locals as Victoria. Supposedly it is the busiest railway station in Asia. And there is something to it. As soon as the local train arrives to the station, the platform is instantly crowded and it is coming like a wave. It is getting closer and so there is no other choice than to make use of my knowledge from sea swimming and just in front of the wave dive and swim. When the wave flow past, I open my eyes a discover, that I'm doing strokes on the sidewalk in front of trainstation. For Krishna's sake what was that?! Aha, to the trainstation arrived two trains at once – it was bigger wave than I expected and so I dived too little. This reminds me of what I read on a plaque outside. Great railway accident of 1985. Thanks to poor traffic management happened that to the trainstation arrived trains to all of its platforms at the same time. People got off. The subsequent tsunami completely blew the whole lower part of the hall. Remains of the building are to this day scattered to a distance of several kilometers from the station. In the opposite building is still jammed old turnstile which they failed to pull out. These, for security reasons, never returned back and according to new rules there is allowed to arrive max. 5 trains altogether. Those two were enough for me, even now I'm trying to get Indians out of my ear.

Flood of passengers Smallish wave - after arrival of one train

The fact that India is a country of flavors and tastes knows everyone, but I would like to give you an idea of other senses. For example hearing. I won't discuss yelling of market sellers and rickshaw drivers, but there is a lot lot of sounds which are perfectly normal for locals and they go along with them. For instance shoe shining guys don't shout at all. They just sit by their boxes and when they are unoccupied they just start to beat at the box with a wooden stick. Customers really go along with the sound and when they wait in the queue for shining(which is quite common over here) and hear the beating they go directly to that unoccupied guy. Another sound is jingle bells fastened to the wheel of the sugar cane press, where is made delicious juice. From far away you can guess where to find this stall. It is possible basically to walk with your eyes closed, but it needs training. When I tried to follow the jingle bells I found just a flock of sheep with bells. Everyone can imagine what kind of juice they prepared for me.

I encountered first intestinal problems and I do suddenly recall that with those t-shirts and underpants it was supposed to be the other way around. My only underpants are "stained" and I've a backpack full of clean t-shirts. The thing that you can use the t-shirt as underpants I've seen already and for this case it's got a lot of advantages(you don't have to remove it at all), but it's got also some bugs and even swarms of them. Fortunately, local tailors are really skilled, so I think that they can make for me some shirtpants with no problems.

Many places here have a name which reminds me of some dish washing detergent (Nagpur, Jaipur) whereas others suggest some connection with bathroom or spa (Hyderabad, Firozabad). My ways head into one such - Aurangabad. More than anything else, it is a strategic place to visit two archaeological sites Ellora and Ajanta. But I'd better leave that for next time.

PS: during map examination, I found out that the way there is going through Badapur-coincidentally the largest manufacturer of bath foam in India.

    We made new media connection. Server Novinky.cz will publish 3-4 articles during our journey. First one is due to come out when we will start. Also the advertising possibilities are very good - every article will contain approx. 5 pictures, 2 of them can be with our motobikes on it and by this way also the logos of sponsoring companies.

     Novinky.cz is one of the most widely read journal servers on Czech internet - articles are displayed on homepage of the main Czech search engine Seznam.cz. We appreciate this cooperation very much and we thank for it.

We've made it between finalist of Grant program of company RockPoint for the year 2014. There is 6 of us in total. Next week we're going to defend our expedition in front of commission successfully. Keep your fingers crossed for us again. We do it ourselves so much, that I have difficulties to write anything at all, right now :o)

Thanks to the company Outdoor Concept for this opportunity.
Odkaz: www.rockpoint.cz/www/grantovy-program-2014/

Since we decided to start this project at full blast we also started to make some research on the things necessary for our journey. We obtained interesting contacts and information. First of all I would like to thank one guy directly to Vietnam. It is a Czech man, living currently in Saigon and thanks to him we have lot of interesting information about trying to arrange something as a foreigner in Vietnam.

    First interesting finding is, that all of it maybe isn't worth the problems. And so we will leave it and we don't give a quit on it. Or rather not :o) We won't give up so easily.

So there are some interesting things which can somebody find useful

1. in Vietnam is valid only and exclusively Vietnamese driver's license. It can be obtained after getting through some tests and tons of paperwork. Article with detailed description can be found here http://jeffkozloff.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/driver-license-in-vietnam/
2. some countries demands so called "carnet CPD" -it is customs bond, which guarantee, that the thing on which you arrived to that country won't stay there(or as in our case, they will have the money to dispose of the wreckage :o). This document is obtained in the country, which issued a registration document of your vehicle. It works the way that you pay for the bond(ca 6000kč=300$) and then you buy a certain number of the documents. In every country, which demands that carnet you leave then one. Thanks to this you don't need to pay customs bond in every such country. The bond you will get back after coming back to the country where it was issued. So in our case it is never or on another expedition, which can lead the opposite direction :o)
3. Myanmar opened lot of new border crossings, but unfortunately official communication is at standstill somehow and so we have no idea whether is is possible for us to pass. Although Vespa's are equipped with tin plating on the front, which according to official sources serves also as a protection against the pieces falling off the borderline bar. So all it takes is to duck and accelerate :o)

There is more of the findings, but they are not so interesting, so I will leave it for the next time.

cheerio to Vespas Martin

At present time we're dealing with new potential sponsor. Which is company Domos s.r.o. - company which focuses on maintaining residential and non-residential premises and real estate activity. At pressent it maintains circa 6000 residential and 150 non-residential units in possesion of city Mladá Boleslav and private owners.

    For now everything seems, that our negotiations will be fruitfull, so cross your fingers for us.

We've gained our first sponsor. Company Roman Šedivý - wiring - it's main business activity is mounting, repairing, maintaining and inspections of electric devices all over Czech republic. At present time it widened it's activity also to earthwork. You can find it in Úštěk.

Many thanks for support. We wish just more like this :o)

To the support of our project, I made calendars from my last travel - southeast Asia. Calendars were originally in two versions, but in the end I stayed with just one. Calendar Asian moments 2014 is still available. I offer it for 250 kč + postage. It's made with czech names of moths and our holidays, but if someone despite all this is interested in it, then you can contact me on Facebook, or by e-mailu: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

We are receiving great support from Vespa Club ČR. We have article on their website and we agreed that in future we will host there a photo serial from the trip.
Many Thanks

Link to the article:
http://www.vespa.cz/clanky/vespa-expedition-2014-saigon-horni-repcice

Sometimes it happens to me that some people call me a traveller. I recalled one quote: "The only difference between traveller and tourist is, that traveller stinks more" - Oscar Wilde.
Well, according to this quote I'm really good traveller :o) How could I not, when my ideal is one of my friends, which was such a big traveller, that in one country he was thrown out of bus. I have still a lot to catch up ;o)