The beginning...

First and foremost, thank you for the devoted followers and apologies for not updating as frequently as we would like. 



From Rotterdam, we began from here

The trip began from Amsterdam on Thursday morning, April 12th.  I rushed out of Amsterdam headed to Rotterdam to pick up Harm-Jan to begin the epic journey across Europe and Asia.  When I arrived in Rotterdam, we knew that we were not going to depart that day.  Good thing we didn't as


The first bumper check...this scooter was no match for the Dakar...

I did not have my international driver's license and one can only get it in the home country where the driver's license was provided.  I was also quite ill so a good night sleep was in order before departing.  As a side note, we still did not have our passports back from CIBT.  We were awaiting confirmation that the Turkmenistan embassy accepted the visa applications before departing, which they had confirmed that same Thursday.  We have a long trip in front of us and we need to be sure that we have most things in order.  If we don't, well, we will just have to figure it out on the way...