Just to get away from the crowds and have some time to deal with my insurance issues, I booked a hotel in the mountains south of Parma, in a small town called Vezzano sul Crostolo, I hadn’t really looked at the pictures, so I assumed it was a normal small hotel. However, when I arrived I realized it was simply an older couple’s home and some of the rooms on the 2nd floor were rooms for booking. It was a very cozy and homey stay, AND they had an old sweet dog! I got to park my motorcycle behind their locked gate and the dog was surely protecting it - I made sure to give the dogs lots of pets for watching over my motorcycle and keeping it safe.

Getting into Italy was a cold drive through the Alps with lots of rain and fog. The entire way from Munich to the Italian border was pouring rain and barely above freezing temperatures. Along the way I got soaked through two rain jackets and the starter button on my motorcycle broke off - it can still start, don’t worry. It wasn’t the drive through the Alps I had hoped for, but prehaps the one I deserved with the weather being so good all the way before that.

I knew from the start that my tires, chain and sprokets were quite worn, but I didn’t want to fix it in Denmark because it is quite expensive. I had originally planned on getting it fixed in Croatia, since I assumed it would be fairly cheap. However, on the way to Munich I spottet cracks in my tire and figure I’d rather have it fixed sooner rather than later - it would suck to have a broken tire somewhere in the alp. Since the cracks were on the side of the tire, if it broke it couldn’t be repair easily, despite me having a tire-kit with me, it can only fix punctures on the tread, not the sides.

The long drive to India has begun! And wow, did nothing go as planned the last few weeks before I left. I encountered a lot of issues right before leaving such as the mechanic telling me that the bridge holding my front suspension on was snapped and needed to be replaces before I could leave. He wasn’t able to order it in time so I had to order it from germany myself. There was also a problem when I moved, as I could not move my address to my mom’s place temporarely as I had planned, which ended up taking a few days of talking to the government housing department and my insurance for the millionth time in a month. As well as so many other smaller issues I never saw coming, most of which had to be resolved before I departed.

Before my trip I made sure to plan out the trip to have a good idea of how long the trip would be, an estimated cost and to find cool locations to visit on the way. Check out the world map for an interactive map.

As you can see, the route is pretty long. I also made a spreadsheet with some places to visit and popular tourist spots, as well as looking up required documents. One of the documents I need is the Carnet de Passage, which is a temporary vehicle import.