Shipments done by Travellers

Well, shipments by sea overall are a pain in the ass! It's even difficult to find anyone responding to you mails at all!

Last April we sent our bikes, a Transalp 600 and an Africa Twin, from Malaysia to Cape Town, South Africa.

1$ (Assir) and Abul are 2 brothers and the contact was very nice, fast and straightforward during the whole proces. 1$ does a lot of adventure traveling himself (www.4x4worldexplorer.com) and is very willing to help others. In Malaysia everything went very well.

We intend to send the bikes to Cape Town, but in South Africa there was a delay from at least 2 weeks and then the bikes would arrive in Durban where it should cost another week to transport them to Cape Town. So we decided to rent a car, drive to Durban and pick the bikes up in Durban ourselves.

Again, it was very difficult to find an agent who could help us to get the bikes out of the docks for a reasonable price (they vary enormous).

Finally we found a good guy whom I also would like to recommend:

Mr. Das Ramsunder
Cosmo Africa Logistics Cc
410 Doone House, 379 Smith Street, Durban, 4001
P.O.Box 489, Durban, 4000
Tel 031 3071266
Fax 031 3071270
Cell 0820536371
E.Mail d...@cosmoafrica.co.za
d...@cosmoafrica.co.za

All in all, it was quite a hassle, but I feel the Malaysian guys helped us all the way. They even helped us with other things, like getting our money back from a bank, which wrote off a cash withdraw from our account which never came out of the ATM (just another story).

So yes, I would use their services again!

If you want to know more or see the whole shipment bill, PM me.

Able cargo is an amazing company with great treatment. Peru and Lima on the other hand is very corrupt. I spent over $700, more than double shipment, to get the bike out. The greedy shipping and receiving companies all want a piece of the arrival (I had to pay four different companies in all). The customs will find any reason they have to extort more money. My crate had my riding gear as well. The customs agent wanted another $200 cash to look the other way, like I was importing something dangerous. I would strongly suggest importing more south in the safer more civilized country of Chile. Peru gave me nothing but headaches during import and after. Every time I was stopped by police they made up some new sort of illegal activity I was doing that required a bribe. One cop said my wife was not allowed on the bike since bikes are only for one person. This was said while 3 Peruvians went by on one bike. The next cop said that it was illegal to have a tank bag and wanted money. If you drive through Peru be ready for hassle! Beautiful people and culture though. Especially when you get up in the Andes!

Martina is effectively a broker. She set me up with Seafair UK Ltd, who use Overseas Brasil as a partner company in Brasil. Martina can probably find you shippers for any country in South America. You could of course contact Overseas Brasil or Searfair UK Ltd direct.

Martina set up the shipping companies quickly and provided a good service.

Overseas Brasil were very nice to me and I think they tried as hard as they could. However, I was their first motorbike being shipped out of Brasil and I think they made some mistakes, which resulted in me paying over the odds. Shipping goods out of Brasil is a nightmare anyway. I had to deliver the bike to the warehouse 4 weeks before it actually left port in a boat because they expected many delays because I was shipping personal items in the crate with the bike. Customs then requested additional copies of documents (after the original submission of paperwork). Then customs took ages to check the bike, which meant I missed the original boat it was booked to sail on.

When it finally arrived in Tilbury, Seafair informed me that the price was more then I had been quoted by Overseas Brasil. To be fair to Seafair, their price was the same as they originally quoted to Martina (4 months previous). It was Overseas Brasil that gave me what they believed to be the new price (once they had processed the bike) which I thought was what I would be paying in the UK. What they do is Overseas Brasil invoice Seafair for the Brasilian bit and then Searfair invoice me for both the Brasilian and UK bit. It always a bit annoying to find out you've got to pay more than you thought. Collecting the bike from the warehouse in the UK was straight forward.

All in all. A bit of a hassle and cost more than I wanted.

Think twice before shipping from Brasil and if you're in a rush go my air not sea.

Read more about it here:
http://www.carno.ltd.uk/greasysprocket/blog/brazil/delivering-my-motorbi...

We wanted to ship two Honda Wave 100cc from the port of Bangkok to the port of Aqaba by sea. The whole process took around two months.

Please find below a quick description of the agents involved in the shipping process :

Shipping agent in Bangkok : we found an agent (ProCarry Logistics) on Chatuchak market that agreed to send our motorbikes to Aqaba. We just brought the motorbikes to his office in the suburbs of Bangkok. His tasks included : finding a shipping company (Maersk) that would take our bikes on board, crating of the two bikes, carrying the crate from his office to the docks, emitting the bill of lading, sending us the bill of lading by DHL (we had left Bangkok when the ship left), clearing the customs in Bangkok. Price : 750$ for the two bikes
The shipping agent is quite professional but have a relatively low command of English, requiring you to be sometimes patient...

Shipping agent in Aqaba. Our agent in Bangkok recommended us a shipping agent in Aqaba (National Shipping Services, located not far from the city center). His tasks included : emitting a delivery order after we gave him the bill of lading, unloading the motorbikes from the ship, recommending a customs clearance agent to us. Price : 250$ for the two bikes
This agent did quite a good job, excepted the fact that the customs clearance agent he recommended was not professional (see below)

Customs clearance agent in Aqaba. To get the motorbikes out of the warehouse, you need a customs clearance agent. His tasks included : helping us to get the temporary import permit (we did not have any carnet de passage), helping us to have the documents necessary to get the motorbikes out of the warehouse, bringing us to the warehouse to go through the final process and finally ride on… Price : 250 $ for the two bikes.
For this last part, we worked with a small company call Hosban Clearance, which we do not recommend, given their very low command of English and above all their lack of professionalism. We spent 10 days in the port of Aqaba before we could finally get the mortorbikes out. We encountered many problems during the process, and although everything was not Hosban’s direct responsibility, they could certainly have been far more efficient to help us solve the problems.

The plan was that they were supposed to hold the bike for a month before shipping, but they simply forgot about it. The temporary importation expired, which required more paperwork before the bike could be exported. Overall, it took 5 months to get the bike home. I was there while the bike was crated, and they did an excellent job, I think this portion of the cost was about $300. I talked with Villa Kunterbundt in Valparaiso. They were not much cheaper, and for some reason, could not arrange for my bike to be shipped to the town where I lived - which is why I chose Ace. Another couple I met on the road were in the process of having their bike shipped to New Zealand by Ace. They seemed to have better luck than me. I think the problem was that they simply forgot about my bike, and the problems just compounded from there. The cost was high, but after the earthquake, I just wanted to get out of there! I heard that it would have been much cheaper to ship from Buenos Aires, but I didn´t really want to ride there. In hindsight, with the dock fees, etc. at this end, I probably would have been better off to just push the bike off a cliff down there. However, I just counted it as part of the cost of doing a year-long trip.