"A 1000 miles journey begins with first small step." 

We choose Russia due to the closest point in East with good port –Vladivostok.
We had heard there was a section of eastern Siberia where there was no road. The distance varied from 900 Miles to 1200 miles, depending on whom you listened to. This put it into the same category as every other subject concerning Russian travel. Finding up-to-date, accurate information about anything to do with traveling in Russia had proved an elusive task, so the "no road" question simply joined a long list of things we were not clear about.

Apart from psychological scarring major problem with Russia is the road from Vladivostok to Ulan-Ude. This road is 1600 Miles long nothing but hard packed gravel, DUSTY!.. DUSTY!. There are small villages along the way thus we have to camp out in Siberian wilderness full of mosquitoes and other biting insects. People tell me to have at least two tires and ready for minimum 5 punctures. The fastest you can drive is 10-20MPH. This will really test our stamina and patience.

Now need to learn how to read Cyrillic signs.
From Ulan-Ude we will drive to Mongolia- day drive to south.
Time to book a ship to Vladivostok and get the visas. Russian Visas system is weird. For One month tourist visa with double entry cost around $300.00 each. With tourist visa you can only stay there for 30 days. One cannot extend the visa while in Russia. You will have to go out of the country and start again. Despite this you need LOI (Letter of Invitation) from some Russian tourist agency. A the road is bad and not knowing what can happen in custom we decided to upgrade our visa to business visa with double entries –cost $450.00 each. Ouch.

Siberian road :

Today my research showed from bunch of emails to top Chinese travel agency that I may not get the permit which will enable me to drive in China with my own car.

According to Chinese law foreigner with personal vehicle needs a special permit, local drive license, local plates and local guide to accompany throughout the trip.We hired a gentleman named Wayne and submitted all our papers (driver license copy, IDP Copy, Title, pictures of car from different angles, dimensions, VIN number and other papers).

According to Wayne our permit should be arriving by May 15th. “Should be” is the key word here. As we have to start this expedition on May 15th or 20th the latest.Addition to this permit, we still need to apply for Chinese driver licenses and local plates for the car. Not counting the expense of the guide to hang around with us for 16 days –his daily salary, food, accommodation and flight back to the original departure location.

As Time is coming close and we have not heard any specific dates of arrival of permit.

The dilemma we have is booking a shipping company and that's whole new ball game. Shipping company requires month in advance to book and take the vehicle to their warehouse –Los Angeles. Therefore if we don't hear about the status of our permit soon we cannot ship our car.I decided today to cancel the China and adopt for Plan B.

Now the whole process starts again- new research, maps, Visas, car permits and much more.