and riding in from Taiwan....

At The Overland Event in the summer we were pleased to welcome riders who arrived overland from Singapore, Malaysia and India, all of which were a first for us. But for the Winter Warmer in January we're delighted to say that we'll be joined by Bing Ang, our first Taiwanese visitor!

Known online as AdvBing, he's been on the road for 11 months so far, and is now in Europe, having recently got to Bulgaria. He's certainly determined, and up for a challenge, exploring Europe through the winter, but we know everyone will give him an extra warm welcome at The Overland Winter Warmer at the end of January.

The 29-year-old former software engineer is riding his Yamaha Tenere 700 from Malaysia toward Oxford — 39,000 km so far.

It's funny how these big trips start though. For some people it's a visit to Overland that inspires them to head off, in Bing's case it was a 2-week solo ride/holiday in Laos two years ago. He says it just suddenly showed him what true freedom was, so he started to plan something bigger. Central to those bigger plans was a bigger bike though, because until he got the 700 Tenere he'd been using 150cc scooters.

Bing says "Everything I know, I learned on the Tenere. This journey is a huge challenge, and a deep exploration. I avoid highways, love villages and trails, so I move slowly. I like to ride to places tourists rarely go. I like to go to boring places to see the real country instead of a touristic place." We hope Oxford is too touristic!

His planned route was: Malaysia → Thailand → Laos → China → Nepal → India → Pakistan → Afghanistan → Iran → Türkiye → and into Europe. Because the India-Pakistan border was closed due to the recent conflict flare-up, he shipped the bike to Dubai, then rode north through Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, and into Türkiye.

We look foward to welcoming you to the UK Bing, and hearing all about your trip sp far!