Actually the guy, whose idea this is, IS an experienced tour guide... so yeah, that might be worth at try! Thanks for the idea, had not thought of this possibility before.

Hey Pecha,
I'm looking into this too. I've got a vague idea of shipping my bike to SE Asia to drive back after my Australian WHV is up in a year or so.

Now I'm a Belgian, living in Sweden for the moment, with a swedish bike. I was also really surprised to see the extortionate amounts they demand; even worse than Singapore which is very draconian when it comes to vehicle paperwork.
However, their site says they will stop issuing them in 2 weeks, August 17, so looks like the whole thing will change a lot. There is no info at all for what or who will replace their service!

However, I could legally export the bike to Belgium with not many issues; there's some downsides and upsides to it. The Belgian AA (RACB) has these rules:
• 100 % of the vehicle value (Argus catalog), with a min of 2000 € (1500 € for motorcycles)
• 100 % of the vehicle value (Argus catalog), with a min of 5000 € (3000 € for motorcycles) for Iran, South-Africa, Egypt, India, Jordan, Pakistan and Kenya.

For my bike, valued around 5-6000, this would be a MUCH better deal, there isn't even any difference between the two options. I almost think it sounds like typo, the difference with Sweden is just so big!

Since I'll only be doing this in a year-ish I won't get any carnet soon, so I'm curious about these centralizing developments. German ADAC deposit amounts are actually very good: For bikes up to 7500 euro in value it's a 3000 euro deposit for the worst case countries (and they dont include Malaysia within those, like Motormannen does).