Hi
Has any one out there been through East Timor and into indonesia with out a carnet and if so which way did you go and how did you manage it, I want to leave Darwin as soon as possable, customs here is not a problem but i've been told i may not be able to get the bike out of East Timor customs, any one have any idears Skip

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Do the best you can with what you have,
A stranger in a strange land now heading North South East West to.....

Theres a travel report in gt-rider dot com about a guy going to Sumatra, and he didnt have a carnet. Spent about 2 days banging his head against the wall with the customs, though...

And I went to Indonesia from Malaysia at the end of January this year, and I believe they officially do require the carnet. You may find a way to work around this, but its definitely not guaranteed, and expect it to be a big hassle.

I do not mean to depress you, but during our stay in Indonesia we met several people, who had big problems getting their bike into the country - even though they HAD all the papers, including the carnet!!

There was a German, who´d flown his bike to Jakarta airport, where it had then been stuck for 2 weeks. And another Italian who lives in Bali, and was trying to bring his bike in, only to find out they will not let it through the customs in Surabaya port.

The German had been asked to produce a letter from the United Nations, otherwise the bike will not be allowed entry, thats how ridiculous it can get.

Also heard there may be severe problems, if going from Melaka in Malaysia to Dumai, Sumatra, so at the time the only port to use was Belawan, near Medan. There everything worked real smooth (with the carnet, and I dont know how it wouldve been without it, probably much harder!) The Italian guy actually said he´s going to ship it now from Surabaya to Singapore and then try to enter the country from the same port that we did.

We planned to proceed all the way to East Timor, but then decided we had to ship to Australia from Bali, so I dont know how it will be over there. Did hear, though, that the land border from West to East Timor is one where you can NOT get a visa-on-arrival, so you have to arrange it beforehand. And 30 days that it gives you is not enough for Indonesia, anyway.

Still, its definitely worth going, if you can manage to get your bike in! It seems more like a lottery, whether or not you will get trouble with the customs, so who knows if you might get lucky.

Thank you for that informative report. I am planning on shipping from Singapore to Indonesia too.

Re shipping from Bali to Darwin, is this a regular (scheduled) shipping company and do you think they could carry a (largish) truck?

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Fastship, at the time we were there (end of January) the only place to ship between Malaysia and Indonesia seemed to be from Penang. There´s the Cakra shipping small cargo boat, you dont have to crate the bike, but you must take another boat, a fast boat, to go meet the bike in Belawan.

All other possible routes, I heard big big problems, like for example in Dumai, they´ve got problems with smugglers in that province, so the cops just dont like the idea of foreigners entering with their vehicles there. In Belawan we had no problems whatsoever (except for some rip-off guesthouses that were true ratholes, maybe!)... after what I heard in Indonesia, that would definitely be the only port I would use at the moment. But sure things will change quickly over there, so you have to keep that in mind, too.

So if I were you, I would rather go to Penang (the road is excellent, can easily do it in a day or 2) and ship from there.

(Sorry, I just noticed you have a truck... that might make things a bit more complicated, as you probably have to find a real cargo-ship to send it. I was only referring to bikes here.)

And Bali-Australia was done by Qantas airfreight, and hugely expensive, over 1000 euros to Perth, it had to be routed via Melbourne. Probably cant do that with a truck.. but I did find out that there are freight ships going from Surabaya (or maybe they go via Jakarta or something) to Australia. No direct ships from Bali. There´s also the Perkins shipping line, Singapore-Dili (East Timor)-Darwin that several travellers have used.

Thanks for the info it looks like i will have to try and find the money for a Carnet, any one got a fake..... joking aside how would it work if you have say a carnet from Australia RAC with an Australian bike but were never planing to return to Australia with the bike could you just get the Carnet stamped at the last country that required the Carnet and then just send it back to the Australia RAC ? any ideas. Skip

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Do the best you can with what you have,
A stranger in a strange land now heading North South East West to.....

CHeers for that pecha. I'll play it by ear when I get there. I think I'll Island hop down to Dili if it's still possible when I get there then ship to Darwin.

You hear so little about Indonesia which makes me want to go there all the more.

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talking about bikes in our case....we used Perkins to go from Darwin to East Timor and hads real Carnets. Hve met people who have go away with fakes ones in other parts of the world though. With a carnet customs was easy in Timor and Indonesia.
But check out the cost of passenger flights from Darwin to Dilli. They used to cost an arm and a leg. Could be better now but I doubt it. Not so many 'tourists'....mostly Govt and NGO's so they dont question the flight charges.

Thanks for all the info got a carnet on its way, i just have to wait for it to arrive. Cheers again Skip

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Do the best you can with what you have,
A stranger in a strange land now heading North South East West to.....

Hi there,

I have been doing quite a bit of work on Darwin/Dili/Indonesia. The people at Perkins shipping are absolutely sensational - website is Perkins Shipping Group - Home one of the drop down boxes has the shipping times (by ship) and where from. Person I have been dealing with is Karen Ison email address is karen dot ison"at"perkins"DOTcom"dot"au. shipping time from Dili to Darwin is about 2 days, note that you dont need to crate the bikes. They are cargoe vessels only and dont take passengers. Cost for advance airfare from Dili is around Aud$300. Sure that truck can go on as gargoe, but check with them..Quick look at schedule shows they go into Indon and Singapore. Note that you will need 100 points of ID to import - passport, licence etc, carnet or import documents. Hope that this helps

Bill

Thanks for that helpful info, Bill. However, to avoid the sensational people at Perkins receiving sensational amounts of spam in their mailbox, please edit your post to fudge the email address, perhaps like this:

karen.ison at perkins dot com dot au

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Cheers,
Peter.

Europe to NZ 2006-10