Shipments done by Travellers

Flying from Nairobi is easy and relatively cheap:

The best prices at the time of shipping, where Kenya Air Cargo. They have direct flights to India, South Africa, Dubai, Addis Ababa, and Europe.
One must go via an Agent, as Kenya airlines will not deal with a privet person, and you need the Dangerous Goods Declaration. I used ""Pentagon Logistics"", whice is a local run company, from a small cubicall office.
Insist on dealing with Mr. Moses Shihondu. He is by far the best person to get the job done. An old, and respected men, that knows excly what to do. He can also clear spare parts from custom very well. The crate was self made; ask Chris at JJ's where to buy wood (30$), and rent a pickup to take it to the air port (20$).
An alternative is to have it crated at the airport, Moses know them well, they charge about 150$ for making a crate.

The bike flow in the same plane as me. it was a great :-)

India is a bigger challenge.
One needs an agent to do the clearing, and a good agent can get it out in 3 days (!!!), so you don’t pay the 85$ per day storage! So, a fast agent is well worth the money. A friend of mine did it with a cheaper agent, and paid 400$ for storage...
The issuer of your carnet will have to fax/email, confirming that your Carnet was issue by him, and is authentic and not fake.

Good luck!

I shared a container with a german lady from Antwerpen to Buenos Aires. Mafra tours, advertising on this website, was offering a promotion at 899 Euros for a container. He is an agent for Grimaldi ro/ro services.

Once in Anwerpen, stuffing costs were 350 Euros, so the total cost was 1250 Euros/1800 USD for the european part.

Once in Buenos Aires, we were shown by Grimaldi a 1680 USD bill to get the motorcycles out. 1360 USD for the vehicules and 320 USD for an agent. We were willing to do the paperwork by ourselves, but Grimaldi asked for a 5000 USD warranty in CASH to let us do it on our own, so we were pretty much forced to buy the agent services.

One month later, following the adventures of a canadian couple, we found out we paid twice as much they did. They paid a total of 850 USD and were not asked for a cash warranty.

Total bill for us : 3500 USD. It could have cost 2700 USD, were we left the option to do the papers ourselves. We felt we were treated like milk cows and were lied to in Buenos Aires.

Very easy process. We crated and moved the bike to the shippers warehouse which saved a bit of money. Customs inspection on site, then we left the whole thing in their hands.
Crossing is a direct service which runs every two weeks, actual shipping line was Ital.
Receiving in BA was just as easy (after we realised we were doing all the customs clearing ourselves, a little understanding of Spanish would have helped us).
Also we were alloweed to rebuild the bike in the receiving warehouse and left the crate for them to dispose of.
The total cost stated covers all fees for both ends.

We wanted to ship to Malaysia, having heard of the bureaucratic rigmarole in Singapore, but were advised that everything gets trans-shipped in Singapore anyway and to Singapore no crate is required. Cost of crate for 2 bikes 2-300 $US!

Troy was great, even made up a bill of lading 3 days early for us so we could take it with us. Not so good was that the price kept going up from 500 to 700 $. Once we had left Dili we were unable to contact Troy again, which caused us some unease, but the bikes arrived the days he said they would. All soft luggage had been shrink wrapped. Only bad point: the flimsy tax holder on one bike had been destroyed.

Bintang Mas in Singapore were absolutely excellent, trying their best to help us.

39 Neil Rd, Singapore 088823
Ph +65-62240988
Fax +65-62257564
email esther or cecilia @bintangmas.com.sg

Costs and procedures in Singapore:

Documentation fee 86 $S (Bintang Mas).

Go to AAS and LTA for insurance (133 S$ each) and ITP (10 S$ each) and Autopass card (10 S$). AAS also endorses the carnet. (For details on these see previous shipments by others.)

After reading other shipment reports we asked AAS for a quote to transport the bikes to save all the above costs, but they wanted 264 S$ **each bike**!

To enter the port we needed a letter from the shipping co., which they provided for us. Near the main entrance is the port pass office where we got a temp pass for 2 S$ each.

Wharfage 1 S$ for both bikes (passport required).

Riding bikes in the port is forbidden, so BM used their truck. A forklift with some ropes was used to load and unload the bikes.

Customs at the gate was easy, quick numbers check and the carnets stamped and we were off.

Leaving Singapore we had to park up and search around for someone to stamp our carnets out. Customs was closed, but the ICA did it for us. It is important not to miss this step!

Next problem was in Malaysia: on the MY side a toll card (""Touch'n Go"") is now required. We had neither Ringgit nor the card, so got stung double to buy a card to pay the small toll. You can share cards, so I guess you could always try to pay a local biker to use his card.

Contrary to information in other entries insurance in Singapore and Malaysia is only valid in the country where it is bought (unless for local vehicles). Insurance in Malaysia is required, but seems not available at the border, although nobody checked.

Taxi: about 40 S$.

Conclusion: as already pointed out by previous entries it's best to avoid Singapore, if possible. In our case it meant we saved some money and had the bikes a week earlier.

Note: campervans, caravans and similar vehicles are BANNED from Singapore.
Singapore citizens and residents are not allowed to temporarily import foreign registered vehicles.

The rules from the horse's mouth: http://www.lta.gov.sg/motoring_matters/motoring_guide_nonwest_regis.htm

Ok, this was much easier then expected and a very good experience. I was going forward and backward about how to get my bike across to the Americas but cost was the real issue for me and although I was short on time, ten to twelve days didn't seem to much. Flying would have been quicker but probably also more involved. I gave them my measurements, didn't unscrew anything, just left it there and they ride the bike onto the boat and off again. Keys to be left with the bike. Before leaving it in Bremerhaven I got the details for the sailing for the boat and the approximate date of arrival which was spot on. I was advised to take my number plate off since some had gone missing before and I was also told not to pack any personal stuff into my panniers which I didn't (grudgingly). But when I left it I asked whether I could leave my tools in it (I could - his reasoning being, the tools belong to the bike when you buy it) and later on riding it into the customs area for all the stuff to be shipped I chained my helmet to it and am almost sure I could have left more stuff with it like my jacket or such. I Just didn't think. On the other side I got a bill of landing and the invoice for it straight away when I arrived at my hostel which I had given to them as an address in Canada. My canadian Wilhelmson contact was Dean Hanson who handles the clearing kind of stuff I guess and he was very good as well. He went out of his way to come with me to customs and make sure there weren't any surprises before I could go to the other side of the Halifax bay (auto port) to pick the bike up. Perfect. No surprises, no extra charges. In and out.