1. It’s all in the preparation…

So here's the plan. 
After three years living and working in Kuwait (with the previous five years similarly spent in Dubai) the contract is up, continuing job prospects in the region are bleak and it looks like our little Middle East adventure is over.   It's time to head back to UK.  Sometime after the end of March, 2010.  But, while my lovely wife Sharon will hop on the BA 157 out of Kuwait International for the five and a half hour flight back to Blighty, and our furniture will take the long container ship route via Suez (Somali pirates allowing), I plan to go overland, on my motorbike.
As long as my employers play ball, I aim to take about a month to ride from Kuwait City to Aberdeen in Scotland - which is where I hail from though home is now in London.  So, 20 countries and something in the region of 11000 kms / 6800 miles.  This will take me from Kuwait through Saudi, Jordan and Syria, a possible side step into Lebanon then back into Syria and on to Turkey.  Bulgaria and Greece follow, then up through the Balkans from Albania to Macedonia, Kosovo, a little bit of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Slovenia then across northern Italy to France and into UK.
The outline route can be seen in full at the Google maps link here if anyone's that interested, but the emphasis here is on the word 'outline' as I have no intention of being tied to a particular track and timetable.   This notional routing was plotted more to provide some idea of the overall mileage to be covered across the countries I wanted to include, and to get a grasp of the time that might be required for the trip.   I've already altered it to include the likes of Dubrovnik and Mostar while plotting a course through the Balkans, and still regret not taking in Sarajevo, but I have to stop adding places or I'll never get home.
But I reckon a month, 30 days give or take, should be enough.  I know a couple of Kuwaiti bikers who've done Scotland to Kuwait in 12 days, but they had a deadline to meet.  I don't want to be slave to clock or even calendar.  I want to be able to take in the sights, sounds and smells of the places I pass through and if something really interesting turns up, I'd like to be able to give it time.  We've also spoken about Sharon joining me for a spell if I pitch up somewhere particularly attractive that she hasn't seen before (so that'll be in the Balkans then, since she's been everywhere else on the route already - apart from Saudi, obviously).  Perhaps I should explain that Sharon gracefully indulges, but unfortunately does not share, my passion for bikes and is treating the whole notion of this road trip in the same way, bless her.  Similarly, my three daughters, all sensible girls, look rather askance at their crazy Dad, but understand (I think) why I'm doing it.
And then there's the unforeseen.  Those unplanned interruptions that are inevitable on a trip of this nature.  But, as Ted Simon famously noted in 'Jupiter's Travels', the book of his epic round the world trip in the 70s: "The interruptions ARE the journey".
Of course riding across 20 countries also means negotiating 19 borders, most of which, particularly in the early stages, mean shed-loads of bureaucracy and endless forms, stamping and signatures.  I've read enough online bike forum ride reports and watched and read the 'Long Way Round / Long Way Down / Up / Over and Out' sagas enough times to know borders need lots of two things – patience and paperwork.  Patience I think I have and it's the paperwork – visas, carnet and insurances – that I'm concentrating on now.  The end of March approaches…