Shipments done by Travellers

Mr. Lim's office is centrally located in Georgetown. He has a boat which goes between Butterworth and Belawan twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays.

The process is easy. Contact Mr. Lim a few days before you want to leave and he will get the paperwork together. The day before the boat leaves, Mr. Lim will accompany you to the customs and port in Butterworth and help you get the carnet processed and your bike loaded on the boat. After this is done, you will ride the ferry back to Penang from Butterworth and wait until the next morning to catch the high speed passenger ferry to Belawan.

The bike will be shipped the night before you leave, but your journey will take about 5 hours on the passenger ferry and the bike will take significantly longer. Try to pick up the bike at Belawan that afternoon, but if you can't you will most likely have to wait until the next morning. The boat your bike will be on is a small "vegetable" boat or "onion" boat.

There will be lots of people wanting to "help" you get your bike, but ignore them unless you want to shell out lots of extra money. These people will be all over you when you get off the ferry. Its easy to get the bike yourself. Everyone at the port will know where your bike is, it will probably be on display somewhere and folks will be checking it out. For this reason, keep your things secured. Mr. Lim gave us a phone number of a person to help us in Belawan, but we could not contact this person as the phone number wouldn't go through.

After we located the bike, we had customs stamp the carnet, no cost for this and customs was friendly and quick. A carnet is the easiest way to get your bike into Indonesia. The port fees took a little while longer. We had to go into town and located the office at the address of the contact Mr. Lim gave us. We would have never found it on our own, one of the guys in the port took us there on his motorcycle, its close to the port, but a bit far to walk. The office gave us a "delivery order" and then we went back to pay the port fees. Make sure you get a receipt for the port fees to avoid being overcharged.

We had heard about registering with the police upon entering Indonesia, however I would NOT do this, police in Indonesia are best avoided as they are very corrupt. We never checked with the police and it was never an issue. The police stopped us three times to check our license while we were in the country.

Belawan is not the best introduction to Indonesia as we found everything overpriced. We stayed at a hotel literally outside the gates of the port terminal and while it was very comfortable, it was overpriced at $20 for a double. This will be your best option, however.

When you leave Belawan, don't use the motorway, motorcycles are banned on motorways in Indonesia. We got on the motorway, but were turned back by the friendly toll workers.

Cost breakdown for one 1989 Honda Transalp:
Shipping 300RM
Butterworth Port Charges 27.20RM
"Looking after the bike" on the boat 10RM
Delivery Order 20,000Rp
Belawan Port Charges 207,000Rp
Total approx $118USD ($1USD = 3.65RM, 9000Rp)

Passenger tickets on the high speed Penang-Belawan Ferry 150RM per person ($41USD).

There was a roll-on, roll-off ferry which used to do this route on a regular basis, but this service had been suspended at the time of shipping.

Sea cargo container from China to Thailand

http://www.partireper.it/eng_2006tappa2.htm

http://www.partireper.it/2006tappa2.htm

Without Mr Fu Hao i couldnt be ale to do anything.

It took me 2 months to find him and after that 1 month for us to find the way out this hard situation.

First of all the custom needed a embassy personal excuse because of my getting in China without the proper permission.

After that i found out everything pretty cheap and for reasonable price. Warehouse has been easily convinced to do not let me pay more than 6 months parking.

The crate wasn t fumigate and costed me 500 RMB (50 euro) and 3 hours wroking of a worker whome charge was 100 RMB (10 euro).

The pick up of my bike in the crate from the tourist custom to he container one costed me 200 RMB and the shipment itself 800RMB.

I had to leave China so my bike staied far from me for 3 months where mr Fu Hao took care of it and sent it to me once i got in bkk where i emailed him to let the bike departs.

It took 12 days from China to Singapore and 3 more days from Singapore to Bkk.

For the long time it took me it has been easier for me to find a job in China and an accomodation than arrange this shipment, so i thought i had been right pay Mr Fu Hao some money to give him back the time and oney he spent to call around and walk around for me around many offies.

I gave him 1000 RMB (130 USD) but he didn t want them.

If you ask him about any other shipment from anyother place in the world to anyother, he mght be able to make you in contact with the right agent.

This is shipping with Lan Cargo from Santiago intl airport. They are located in the cargo area at the airport.

You do not need to book in advance (just two days at the airport). Lan Cargo will tell you three weeks and gave me a quote of US$ 2000 when I contacted them via email so go straight to the airport or contact as above by phone.

For 200KG (price in US$)

700 Bike (3.50/KG up to 300KG)
10 AWB (Airway bill Number)
70 Fuel Surcharge (0.35 but varies)

For 300KG out of curiosity

900 Bike (3.00/KG)
10 AWB
105 Fuel Surcharge

Plus volume charge for the bike. When we went to do this they first told us that it would cost US$2100 because of the volume charge but Natalio talked to someone and got the price down to US$1300. So the volume charge worked out to roughly US$550

Known additonal charges

Storage in Santiago .....
Customs agent, not necessary if you say your bike is worth less than US$900 which was advised by Natalio

You can pay by Credit card for Lan part and have to pay in cash for the Teisa part (Teisa are a frieght handling company in the cargo area at the airport).

These are the steps.
1 - Get Airway bill number
2 - Get reservation (two days advance notice required)
3 - Take bike to Teisa for weighing and storage (one day before flight)
4 - Go to Lan Cargo further along in Cargo area at airport. Pay for airway bill and shipping for bike.
5 - Get customs work done

I think Visa payments cannot be processed after 5pm.

Cheers Geoff

QAC are the only dangerous goods certified carrier in Khartoum so there was no choice.

However, Hassan was very helpful and knowldegable but unfortunately didnt tick the 'can fly on passenger aircraft' box on the dgc so my bike was delayed.

it got shipped because i spent $80 on hotel phone calls to Doha - QACs head office creating a fuss.

the box maker - i used the one recommenede was charming and completely ripped me off but i had to use him. $250 for a box in Khartoum!

I would use them agian.

The information already on HU was great, I just followed!
Carolina Deazza is fantastic, (she only speaks only a little english tho') my email first contact was answered instantly!
Girag is one of many freight companies in a long building on the main airport road, avenida el dorado. Just before the airport is a huge roundabout, (you go straight on for the passenger terminals, next day, in your taxi) for carga, swing around like you're returning to the city, you'll see Girag and the big freight place, veer across to your right, turn off and work your way back to the gate, Girag is almost straight ahead, check with the security chica ((drivers licence or passport required) then up to the 2nd floor and ask for Carolina. She will bounce out, all smiles, and walk you thru' the process.
She will help get some planks so you can ride up the stairs and thru into the freight bay, then ride up onto the scales, my 1150GS was 309 kgs, then out on the tarmac and into the next freight bay.
I figured I had less than a litre of gas and made a token effort to siphon the last bit with plastic tube I'd bought the day before, it's still in the freight bay if you need it, also a plastic coke bottle to collect the gas. As it was I couldn't get anything and they accepted it was empty! Then take the mirrors off and pack them away with the boots, armour, helmet etc in the panniers.
With Carolina's paperwork, walk right across to the other side of the avenida where you'll see DIAN, the customs office, up the stairs, another chica does about 30 mins of paper shuffling, walks back with me to the bike and checks the numbers.
Then walk right down the end of the freight buildings and get the cops OK, then back to the bike where the security guy and a cop have a look at the bike. ( I had to wait about 30 mins while the cop guy opened 20 boxes of cards, broke open packs and sniffed at them!) Then a very cursory look in the panniers, more curiosity and chit chat about the bike, the trip etc...handy if you speak espanol.
Back to Carolina to pay, ONLY CASH, no plastic, but either dollars or pesos, if pesos, she'll make the conversion on the day.
(price seemed to be a standard $350 regardless of weight) I thought at first it was price by Kilos as Carolina first quoted me $350 when I said it weighed 350 kgs, but at the weigh-in it was 309 kgs and the price was still $350, go figure!
Whole exercise, about 3 and a half hours, the earlier you start, the quicker it will be!

Guaranteed over-nighter to Panama. I flew 10.30am next day, arrive Panama 12 noon. Get a cab to the freight terminal or "aeropuerto viejo" about 20 mins away, show papers at the checkpoint to get in, find the Girag office, its around to your right. Friendly again, and you can leave your bags and get into your shorts, it's sweaty!, pay $25 for something, take papers to quarantine, customs and then the long hike right back to the front gate! for the cops stamp. Then back to girag and get the bike. Put the mirrors back on and hopefully you have enough gas to get to the servo close to the front gate, not far at all. Nobody looked at the bike at all!!

I was in Panama city in my hotel (the Marbella on Calle D) by 3pm.

In summary, I had no problems and the service was excellent, some waiting and walking but that's expected. Highly recommended. Thanks to previous rider for the guidelines, I hope this helps the next ones.