HE HAD to handle the harsh climate. And minor road accidents. Often he had to spend the night in the open.

But Mr Chuah Sun Soon, a Singapore Management University (SMU) undergraduate, rode a motorcycle from India to Russia.

Mr Chuah, 24, went to Moscow for an exchange programme after an internship stint in New Delhi.

The 12,000km trip took him through 14 countries - including Pakistan, Iran, Greece and several Eastern European countries - in 11/2 months.

In April, Mr Chuah, a second-year business management student, went to New Delhi for a three-month internship stint with Scope Plus, a non-profitable organisation.

About two months into the internship, he found out from SMU that he had been accepted for an international exchange programme with the Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics in Moscow.

He had applied for the programme when he was still in Singapore.

Dream

Mr Chuah had always dreamt of taking a road trip on a motorcycle, and decided that this was the time to do it.

'I bought a motorbike around mid-June so I could test it out before the real trip,' he said. 'I rode it to and from work when I was in India.'

He paid less than $1,500 for bike. He got so attached to the bike that he lovingly calls it 'my baby'.

On 8 Jul, his road trip began.

Pakistan was the first stop.

'To be honest, during the first leg of the journey, I would purposely not find a motel to sleep in but wait for the locals to invite me to their homes,' Mr Chuah recalled.

Luckily for him, he was invited to more than seven homes in Pakistan alone.

Mr Chuah said: 'Once, the owner of a petrol station offered me a place to sleep for the night. He also showed me around town on his motorbike.'

He described his trip as a 'people's journey' staying with locals and learning about their way of life. The best part of his trip was meeting new people and gaining new perspectives on the world, he said.

Though many people in most of the countries he travelled to do not speak English, Mr Chuah said communication was never much of a problem.

'We communicated through the most original form of human communication - body language,' he added.

The problems he faced had to do with the physical environment. He met with three minor accidents along the way and there were also times that he had to spend the night out in the open.

'I got into accidents in Iran and Pakistan because of the rough roads and my city bike,' he recalled.

'And as I moved nearer to Europe, home stays became fewer, so I had to sleep in parks and at petrol stations.'

His biggest obstacle was the harsh weather conditions. Iran had the most rapid weather changes, he said.

'The weather could change within a few kilometres.' he said.

'The road conditions were rough too. It would be fine and smooth, then suddenly you're travelling in the desert.'

Still, Mr Chuah enjoyed his trip for the most part as he 're-learnt how to live simply and enjoy the simple things in life'.

Next year, he will be trying a different mode of transport. As part of his return journey to Singapore in January, he plans to take the Trans-Siberian railway.

Jovita Chua, newsroom intern

This article was first published in The New Paper.