Shipments done by Travellers

It was a little bit difficult to get the two bikes in the ship - they are not used to transport bikes. but we convinced the captain, gave him 190 USD for the bikes and everything went well.
we paid for eah passenger 110,- USD, including three meals a day.
two nights we spent on sea at the MF Caledonia.

if you ask a tourist-information in istanbul they may tell you that there is no ship to odessa - that's not true!!!
in doubt contact ur-ferries directly!

ride on!
Carsten & Alex

First, BTI have had a lot of staff changes and are now very recommendable. The main contact, Mark Christmas, is extremely helpful.

To fly the bike you have to crate it, drain fuel and engine oil, and jettison the battery; this is because a bike is classed as hazardous cargo and may go on the rampage attacking the passengers.

The BMW dealer in Sydney was very helpful - Tom Byrne M/C, contact Peter Kelly Tel: (02) 9557 1610 sal...@tombyrnemotorcycles.com.au. They sorted a crate, and did the work for Aus$200, and provided the letter certifying that the fuel/oil/battery thing had been done. BTI collected the crate that afternoon, and arranged the Customs visit (be warned, they wanted the panniers and everything emptied so I almost had to dismantle the crate again). Customs is free at the shipping warehouse but Aus$150 to do it before crating at the dealer.

Mark Christmas was very helpful indeed (and they take credit cards). He even managed to arrange that the bike was on the same plane as me.

In Santiago, Mark took the trouble to text me that the bike had indeed arrived and was in the warehouse at the airport. I emailed to LanChile cargo (having failed to find an English-speaker telephonically), and a helpful lady called Ninoschka (Tel: 565 3925) rang me at my hotel and explained in detail the procedure. This was:

1. Go to the airport to the AirFast (warehouse 5) customer service office to get the Airway Bill ($10).

2. Walk 100m to Customs to have the bike verified (checking frame and engine numbers).

3. Use the airport circular bus to go to the Customs office on the airside of International Arrivals to
obtain the temporary import permit (they use the carnet merely as a cribsheet).

4. Go back to the warehouse to pay for the dangerous
cargo/storage/etc. stuff (35,000 pesos = $60-ish).

5. They uncrate the bike and you reassemble it. Easy.

The whole thing was really very simple if labyrinthine. What made it rather easier for me was that I hired a driver for the day who spoke some English. This cost me 40,000 pesos ($70-ish) (and included stuff not documented here because it's not relevant). Worth every penny.

Cakra Shipping have a boat that goes from Penang Port to Belawan Port (near Medan) on Mondays and Thursdays.

We spoke to Mr Lim a few days before sending them, just to confirm there was enough space available for 2 bikes.

On the morning that they were leaving, we followed Mr Lim to the port, left the bikes in the warehouse and got customs to stamp our Carnets. Mr Lim took us to all the right places.

In Belawan, we got a delivery document from the Agent in town (Mr Lim will give you the address) then went to the port, got the Carnets stamped, paid the port fees and headed on our way.

Here is a breakdown of the total cost above in local currency:

250 Malaysian Ringit Shipping fee per bike
3 Malaysian Ringit Port fees per bike
115,000 Indonesia Rupiah Port fees per bike

We paid the boat crew 10 Ringit as a special "looking after the bikes" fee (requested by Mr Lim)

We also paid 90 Ringit per person (one way) on the passenger ferry.

We air freighted 2 Honda Shadow Cruiser Bikes.
All prices are written in Australian Dollars.
Joy arranged for the carpenter to meet us at her depot and he measured the bikes for the crates. These were then bought back to the depot the next day ready for us to pack the bikes into. By the way, the depot is not that far from Kao San Road...home for most backpackers and budget travellers The carpenter stayed and helped us pack and then sealed the lids onto the crates. The crates cost $233 for the two of them.
Joy then had her 'boys' load the bikes onto their truck and we all went to the airport where they were weighted and measured at the cargo terminal and the 'boys' had the bikes and carnets cleared by customs. We did nothing more than get in their way really.
Joy (or Sita cargo) charged us $276 in total for the two bikes.
The air freight ( BInman Airlines) charged us $997 for the two bikes to be air freighted.
Collecting the bikes in Bangladesh was not as bad as we had expected it to be. we did not use an agent, although plenty were available....just thought we would try it ourselves first.Took about 4 hours to clear customs and do all the paperwork. They wanted to charge us $142 for all sorts of things like customs charges, airport storage and all that nonsense. David told them that he only had $31 Australian ( 1500 taka their money) so that was all he could pay. They accepted that!
We then paid 500 taka...or $10.50 Aus to have the crates bought around to the loading area of the warehouse and it was here that we dismantled the crates and put the bikes back together. We only put the bikes together good enough to ride them to our guest house as there were way too many 'helpers' and David was loosing his cool....usually that is my job....he hardly ever looses his cool.....but it really was difficult working in a public area.
All in all the freight of our bikes was too easy and we would be happy to use Joy and her company again. She can freight to other destinations.
Bangladesh is not to be totally ignored as an interesting place to ride..........we are glad we did the bit we did......rather wished we had spent more time exploring the country actually. So do consider it.
The freight for Binman Air was calculated at $1.50 Aus times 665 kgs.One bike was 326 kgs the other 339 kgs. I dont have the actual size of the crates with me but if you want/need to know send us an e mail.

Don't bother emailing as I did. Over two weeks I sent countless emails and made many phone calls and accomplished nothing. When I arrived at Variglog, right before the passenger terminal at GIG, we negotiated the price which started at $2400.00 and ended at $750. Because there was no agent used, there is more running around from office to office; two full days, but ends up being cheaper. Miguel was unbelievably helpful and followed up on every detail; even calling Miami to make sure all went well at that end. I had instructions emailed to me on what I had to do and where I had to go once in Miami. It also went smoothly. I flew in at 11:00 am, took a taxi to Variglog cargo, checked out of customs, and was on my way out of Miami, on my bike, at 2:00 pm. The people at Variglog in Miami and customs were helpful and nice. They were all very interested in my trip.