Beetrax: Singapore to Istanbul

Mr Rehab

Traveller
Hi Folks

I've been enjoying this website and forums for several years and thought it time to give a little back.

In Feb 2013 my wife and I embarked on an 8 month overland journey from Singapore to Istanbul in our Isuzu/ ATW camper. Our intention is to leave the truck in Istanbul around October while we return to Australia for a break from travelling, returning May 2014 to tour Western Europe/North Africa. My wife has been keeping a blog of our travels at www.beetrax.com. You may notice photo definition is not high - we deliberately loaded low res pics to better cope with poor Internet speeds.

The blog is intended to be a journal of our travels for family, friends and ourselves and so doesn't contain a lot of 'technical' info related to the truck or border crossings, country reqs etc. There are a number of blogs/sites available that cover those aspects well enough but I'm happy to respond to any questions you may have regarding truck/camper issues or if you're after recent info on particular countries.

Our truck is based on a Euro IV version of the Isuzu NPS (4wd 6 tonne truck) complete with Diesel Particulate Filter. I spent months pre-departure trying unsuccessfully to have the DPF removed to avoid anticipated problems with HS diesel but these problems haven't been realised; the DPF/regen process does however cause problems at altitude and this puts some limitations on travel options eg no Tibet or Pamirs.

The other imagined issues of corrupt police and border officials or petty theft also haven't eventuated......except for the Kazakhstan Traffic Police who rate a dishonourable mention! People have been overwhelmingly generous, good natured and curious especially in the poorer countries of Central and SE Asia.

We shipped our truck by container from Brisbane, Australia along with several travelling companions, also from Brisbane. All these couples are keeping their own blogs, links to which are available on our beetrax site. Jon and Jude's web page http://lost-and-found-adventures.com/ stands out as a good read as these two are more active than most.

Enjoy.
 
Last edited:

Happycamper

Adventurer
Good work Mr Rehab, have been following along with great interest. It is no small thing that you have undertaken here and I am soaking it all up. Subscribed.

Rosco
 

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