OK. I am really impressed at the travel expertise in this group. Here is my contribution having ridden from South Korea to Spain this fall. Chapter one Getting to and Around Korea. I dont know a thing about shipping a bike from Europe. If your in North America I dont recommend shipping from the USA. The restrictions on bike shipment make it difficult. Motorcycle Express gave up and only ship from Canada. We shipped from Vancouver. We had the local BMW dealer, Pacific Motorsports, pack the bikes. Its best if they use a airfreight pallet, but they were out so my bike was packed in a BMW Motorcycle delivery container. It worked fine. I used lei as the freight forwarder. I strongly recommend them. Now you dont have to, but I strongly recommend having a freight broker person at the receiving end. LEI works with a woman named Wendy Choi for Korea, and Ivan Melnik for Russia. This is not like crossing from El Salvador into Honduras, both are people who make a living moving freight and getting it to clear customs and they charge about $100 bucks flat rate. The airport for Seoul is 27 KMs out of town. Seoul, population 25 million including suburbs, has one of the best subway systems in the world which includes an express train from the airport. But above ground it has the worst gridlock in the world. If you pickup the bike at the airport, assume it will take 4 hours or more to get it into Seoul. Motorcycles can not legally use the freeways in Korea. My recommendation is go to Seoul and do the tourist things you want there using public transit, and then go to the airport and pick up the bike and go anywhere but Seoul. You can arrange to have the bike arrive after you. Korea has about the same standard of living as the west so assume things will cost as they would in the USA. I spent 3 weeks in Korea. I recommend you spend 2 weeks. Go down the east coast. I cant spell it but there is a city that was the capital of Korea in the middle ages. Something like Guanju and it has a sacred mountain nearby called Mt Namsan. That might sound dorky but hike that mountain even if you dont do anything else in Korea. Now to get to Russia you take a ferry from Donghae to Vladivostok. It goes once a week and it books up well before. Get Wendy Choi to book you a couple of months before you go. Its not a great ferry. The water tastes like rust and the food is slop but its just for one night and its also the only way into Russia. Now for timing. It rains a lot in Siberia and the Russian far East in June and July, so think about starting your trip in August. Say the second week. Now the weather in Korea in the summer is really hot and humid. But you can handle it. Also English is widely spoken in Korea. I will talk about Russia next here are some pictures and remarks about riding in Korea. I usually get the lonely planet guide for each country I visit. I got some good advice from them for both Russia and Korea.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 18:06:58 +0000
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