Some of the overland safari trucks carrying holiday makers managed india, and it was an ambition of mine to do one of these. There were a lot of problems for girls on these trips with the dress and sleeping arrangements.
Most of these companies have moved out to africa now as travel is less restricted
http://www.india-overland.com/links.html
They suggest flying over pakistan, which sort of defeats the object with a truck
it was just a crazy idea, the shopkeeper is now on about furniture & shop size fridges & freezers from italy so ill keep grilling him cos he knows nothing about shipping or haulage, so maybe something will come of it, cheers for all the comments! trucknet comes through again!
cheers
paul
robinhood_1984:
I remember reading in the trucking mags a long while ago about the adventures of Ralph Davies running to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, do they still do such things? Also I’m sure some will remember the stories of ‘Asia Tom’ from Germany who’s ambition was to drive to Mongolia! Wonder if he’s pulled it off yet?
Ralph pulled out in 1997, Kepstowe and Croome followed suit a year later…
There was a massive boom between 1994 and 1998, and a lot of people made a lot of money, myself included. Then, like the dot-com bubble,it burst.
Other than for specialist operations, (we sent 4 trucks to St Petersburg in June for the Paul McCartney tour), this work has now gone for ever.
Vince
Hi Vince,
I think the work is still there going that far east, just that we dont take it anymore. Have you read the September issue of ‘Trucking’ If so you’ll have read about a Polish company called Auto-Trans who specialise in Poland-Kyrgyzstan and nearly always come back empty. Also isn’t Betz very active in that part of the world? If so that says it all really.
North Africa. Do British and European trucks go to other North African countries other than Morocco? I remember about 10 years ago my dad telling me about a driver he knew who went, or his company went to Egypt occasionally, that was the early 90s though. I know John Mann and Breda Transport are heavily involved (or were the last I heard) in Moroccan work but what about Algeria and Tunisia, do our trucks ever go there on any sort of regular basis?
It seems to me that just as I’ll turn 21 next year pretty much all chance of driving abroad in a British truck will have disapeared, espcially for a new driver like I’ll be and I’d have to make do with the adventures of containers out of Felixtowe or S’ton or trailers from Immingham, definetly not what I had in mind after spending my childhood in my dads truck going all over Europe. Infact I’m already planning on trying companies in my dads native Germany who do international work.
Vince:
[Other than for specialist operations, (we sent 4 trucks to St Petersburg in June for the Paul McCartney tour), this work has now gone for ever.Vince
vince is dead right of course - local firms are sooooo much cheaper for run-of-the-mill cargo, even if some of them are owned by englishmen 
we still manage to do a fair bit, got one loading next thursday for bautino on the caspian in kazakhstan 
jj72:
we still manage to do a fair bit, got one loading next thursday for bautino on the caspian in kazakhstan
Does much oil relation stuff go to that region by road? There is alot of seabourne trade from Britain to the Caspian, mainly to Baku in Azerbaijan thats taken by coaster, always by Russian coasters as the only way to get there is to transit the Volgo-Don canal in Russia and the Russians dont let foreign flagged and crewed ships sail on their internal waterways.
My question is why anybody would want to drive to India■■?
The ‘Longest’ regular trip I can think of was ‘BRS Overland’ who used to be besed in Northampton during the 70’s, their trailers had “Northampton, England to Terhan, Iran … weekly service” on the side.
The thoughts of crossing through deserts in a Leyland Marathon sends shivers down my spine 
Alex … I have no idea why anyone would want to drive there, I once went to Goa (by plane) and that was bad enough
Pat ,dont know if you’ve seen this www.toprun.ch click on dvd and on short clip-Leyland Marathon and 2 140 Scanias going across the desert to the middle-east and I remember one of the truck magazines showing pic of a Guy big J day cab en route for the middle east I drove one in the UK,jesus what a beast!
regards derek
Ten years ago, a mate of mine (who I haven’t seen for ages) used to buy ex-Army 4 tonne Bedfords and drive to India. There, he would load machined parts and smuggle them into Pakistan, then sell the truck! This was about 1994.
This guy was of Apache descent, and therefore, a real nutter! I lived with him briefly in Israel about 18 years ago. He decided one day that he was going to hitch-hike from Israel to South Africa and asked me to join him - I declined! He packed his rucksack and went - took him four months!
Allegedly, he got involved with the bloke who ran the “Magic Bus”. The Magic Bus used to blaze the hippy trail to the far east in the 60s and 70s. The idea was that he was to bring travellers from London and take them to India.
Last I heard about my mate was that his wife had left him because he decided to settle down and become a Trainee Journalist, either in Hitchin or Letchworth.
Was in Ancona, a few months back, waiting for the boat to Patras. This northern bloke turns up in an old knackered E-reg Volvo F10 and flat tandem trailer carrying a steel coil. He was on his way to Kuwait to deliver the steel coil and sell the truck. Reckoned he did the same trip every month and flew back. He said he was on a good earner - he looked as though he was full of the brown stuff!!!
brummie:
Was in Ancona, a few months back, waiting for the boat to Patras. This northern bloke turns up in an old knackered E-reg Volvo F10 and flat tandem trailer carrying a steel coil. He was on his way to Kuwait to deliver the steel coil and sell the truck. Reckoned he did the same trip every month and flew back. He said he was on a good earner - he looked as though he was full of the brown stuff!!!
He does and he is true in what he says, if you are going down there with a flatbed tandem on springs its worth good money, more than you would get for tri axle on air, and he is a nice bloke, on the level, lot of work down to the middle east is done by ‘sellers’ tho the rate is less than if you are round tripin it,
sdj
This is the site for a friend of a friend
They go into mongolia (click on interactive map)
Not been through the whole site myself yet but friend’s friend is Yves.
Paul,
I ran to India in 1965 in a 1956 AEC Marshall coach owned by two blokes from South London and a bunch of back packers. The cost to Delhi was about £70 but I went free for sharing the driving. There were actually 3 owners, one stayed at home to organise the next trip. Of the two I was with one was called John something and the other nicknamed ‘Wish’ because he was a spit for the small wiskery cook Wishbone in Rawhide. He was the real driver of the two. We used to change drivers on the run which was a good thing because John panicked at the wheel after losing all his brakes going down a mountain in Turkey. Wish eased him out and took over, riding it all the way down till we came to a stop on a (fortunately empty) truck park down on the level.
The route after that was south through Syria, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Although I went all the way and carried on to Australia, the bus only made it to the Pak/India border. They had just had or were about to have another war and the border was closed. Several of us continued to Delhi but I don’t know if the others got a discount for the short trip.
The route and road was, and probably still is, feasible for trucks. We saw many although none British except unaccompanied trailers, but politically as others have said it would be out of the question.
Not very safe either 
Salut, David.
Someone mentioned Africa and it reminded me of when I worked for Ian Cheverall in Luton. We used to pull white tilt trailers emblazoned in large letters ‘UKWAL - UK West Africa Line’ and ‘This truck goes direct to Nigeria’
Earned us a lot of kudos round the country but in fact we never went further than the docks to put them on a ship for - Nigeria!
Salut, David.
Bummer
AlexxInNY:
My question is why anybody would want to drive to India■■?
I suppose the answer to this is “some drivers prefer to do long-haul”
In my younger days, before the kids came along, I would have leapt at the chance…
Vince
ill second that vince, under different circumstances id have loved to go
david i salute you sir, tell us more about your travels
rgds jon
I also drove a coach from London to India in 1968 and as Bondi did, went on to Australia from Delhi. The vehicle was a 1948 Maudsley with a Leyland engine and a four speed crash box and vacuum brakes. In those days almost 2000 (in total) miles of dirt road had to be covered of the whole distance, starting after Skopye in Yugoslavia and on and off through northern Greece, Turkey and Iran.
Afghanistan roads were concrete to Kandahar then tarmac to the Pakistan border and from there to Delhi. I did this on and off until 1977, by then all the dirt roads had been gradually upgraded and it got easier every year. In the early 70’s the international truck traffic picked up a lot, Asian Transport (Astran) artics and drawbars were to be seen, I remember one of their drivers who was coming back from Lahore, Pakistan after delivering personal property for a British Consular Official to the Embassy out there. That was the furthest I ever heard of them going to.
In the 70’s another company who did a lot was ICC (Iran Container Company), they ran Macks, double manned from Tehran to Germany and back and hardly ever stopped. The trailers had belly tanks from the leading axle to the landing legs, not surprising when diesel in Iran used to be about 13 or 14 gallons for a quid. A couple of other Iranian firms were Marand and Shams Express, they both ran up to eastern Europe.
Technically it has never been easier to drive from the UK to India but all the road improvements have been negated by international politics. The fastest I ever did the trip was late 1971, Delhi to London, in 27 days in a 1959 AEC Reliance bus, with no co-driver.
Somebody has asked the question “Who on earth would want to drive to India?”. If somebody else said to me, “Would you like to go back and do it all again?” then there would no hesitation about taking up the offer. Driving a lorry here is hardly an adventure, I would rather queue at an Asian border now and again rather than UK distribution centres or docks every day.
This is not a trip for someone who has domestic shackles, or who expects to make financial gain in these times. The weather in winter is hard to believe after the mild British climate. Apart from the summer heat the real killer is a Turkish/Iranian winter, when it can drop to -40C in the mountains at well over 7000 feet and all the usual problems that come with that, like fitting and using snowchains, freezing fuel and so on. There were times when the engine was left running all night, otherwise the whole lot froze solid, let alone the diesel.
But don’t be put off by all this, do one trip if possible and report back.
I agree with Vince and JonBoy, it would be a great trip and why wouldn’t anyone want to do it? 
David and Sheeter lets hear some more details about your trips please, it’s fascinating stuff.
My greatest regret is that I missed the heyday of the Middle-East run. I`ve driven to Istanbul, and parked at the Londracamp, which is a very famous parking area from the old days. There were other Brits there, in the most incredibly delapidated tractor units, going a lot further than I was.
Jealous? Just a little!
I am resigned now to spending the rest of my days being bored brainless on UK work, and pining for the “old days”.
Vince