The Raid MAP

After the successful outcome of Marco Polo Motoraid 2005 from Venice to Beijing, we thought such great trip would have at least "calmed down” the fever of long bike riding that poison us; the desire of long rides through little battered tracks and roads, searching for places and populations far away from the traditional tourist’s routes. We were wrong !!

This damned and wonderful passion to see the world through the helmet’s visor, riding the saddle of such uncomfortable but incredibly exciting vehicle that is a motorbike, has just hit us again only few months from our return from Beijing. The desire for new raids is overbearing alive.

It was a matter of some phone calls between the three of us to assess that we are still poisoned by the fever and Maurizio nurtured never than before the challenge to arrive in Japan by road: cards were on the table ! The Transiberian Motoraid 2007 had just born.
We will start this remarkable adventure from Venice in August 2007 to reach Hiroshima after 20.000 km, a journey across places like the inhospitable Siberia, the mysterious Mongolia, the fascinating Japan.

The route we are planing to travel includes cities with evocative atmosphere such as Prague, Warsaw, Minsk, and cities full of symbols like those in the area hit by the disaster of Chernobyl, to enter in Russia and reach Moscow.

From Moscow we will follow the mythical Tran-Siberian Railway route, the world’s greatest and most famous railroad (9289 km.), then we will cross Siberia through rivers, forests, steppes, bloomed taiga and desolated tundra. In the route we will visit cities full of mystery and fascination, like Tobolsk, worth remembering Siberian city with its splendid Kremlin, wood houses and beautiful churches.

Next on the route we will touch Novosibirsk, founded around 1890 and today the most important Tran-Siberian railway junction. Continuing the route we will arrive in Tomsk, a city established in 1600, with a variety of great wood buildings, splendid centenarian palaces which architecture remained substantially unchanged.

Siberia evokes images of mysterious, cold, far and desolated lands, still today only few travellers risk themselves in those areas. This geography of deserts and cold poses one spectacular scenario for our raid, an inspirational scenario for insightful observers.

We will continue with our bikes by the side of the Baikal Lake, the "pearl of the Siberia" with its crystalline waters. It is the deepest lake of the world, one of the most ancient, located nearly the centre of Asia in a huge stone bowl 445 m above the sea level, surrounded by mountains and typical villages with wooden houses.

At that point we will turn south, crossing the Altay mounts to enter in Mongolia, the mythical Genghis Khan land, still inhabited by nomadic shepherds and proud knights.
A country of plateau and desert, Mongolia is a place rather for travellers than for tourists; the asphalt roads are limited to a single mainstream from east to west, transport vehicles are rare in certain areas and only horses are reliable transport, like centuries ago.

With two million inhabitants, in great part nomads, scattered between steppes and deserts as big as five times Italy, Mongolia preserves the inheritance of the greatest world empire and its most brilliant leader, Genghis Khan.

Then we will cross extended grasslands and hills with our “steel horses”, until reaching the borders of the Gobi desert: this is the region of Khongoriin Els, a waved and spectacular dune cord, extending beyond a hundred kilometres.

Through panoramic mountain roads, we will arrive to Kharkorum, the ancient capital of the Mongolian empire back to the 13th century; observing extraordinary natural parks, hidden monasteries like Erdene Zuu, enclosed by long white walls interrupted by 108 "suburga" (stupe), as many as the number of the Buddhist rosary bead.

The route will continue towards east, through off road and steppes, until reaching to Ulaan Baatar, the capital of Mongolia. In old maps it is named Urga, an important place in the caravan route from lake Baikal to China. Today it displays the sterile delights of Soviet architecture and hides many interesting things for travellers, such as the museum with enormous dinosaurs skeletons found in the Gobi desert.

We will divert route towards north to re-enter Russia and ride through Siberia and Russian far east, crossing tracks in the marshes east of Chita, passing into immense pine forests, to finally reach the island of Sakhalin, just in front of Hokkaido coast.

Once in Japan, our raid will continue through particular routes and tracks.

Japan is a nation that evokes images between tradition and high technology, a place where it is possible to feel like in the future while crossing the roads of Tokyo, and going back to the past while visiting traditional places such as the Matsumoto castle located between the Japanese Alps and the ancient Japanese capital of Nara and Kyoto.

We will dip into the open air thermal baths, lodge in the traditional Japanese riokan ( inns), we will meet the fishermen of Tomo-no-ura to observe the fish processing work.
Our bikes will lead us into the natural wonders of the Levant Sun country between the mountains and valleys of the Japanese Alps, the Fuji mount, the Sandan-kyo canyon.
At this point we will end the raid symbolically at Hiroshima, to get the example of this people who grown and innovate themselves keeping the memory of the enormous tragedy.