Dear all,

After four months of traveling, yesterday me and my girlfriend arrived in Amsterdam with our motorbike from Kuala Lumpur and would like to share our experience here.

Firstly we were planning on shipping the bike by boat but it was hard to find a good (affordable) agent and we were affraid to get a lot of additional charges ones the bike arrives in Europe.

We contacted MAScargo (cargo department of Malaysia Airlines) just to see what the prices would be for flying our motorbike with us. They calculated around 1200 euro for 350 kg of freight exclusive crating the bike and custom services which would have involved an agent.

We decided to drive to MAScargo ourselves (as it was difficult to get answers to our questions by e-mail) and try to arrange everything directly with them without using an additional agent. The people of MAScargo were extremely helpful and clear about the total procedure. The same day we reserved a place for our motorbike on the same flight as ours (they ask for appr. weight and dimensions).

On the day of our flight we went to MAScargo and followed the following steps which took us around 3 hours:
- Get a day pass to enter the cargo section of the airport. The motorbike needs to be delivered at least 8 hours before the departure of the flight and you need to make sure the gastank is less than one quarter full.
- Weighing the motorbike. The costs of cargo at MAScargo are calculated by weight only. We took away the top box and tank bag. The weight of our motorbike (inclusive luggage) was 236 kg's (pretty good for 2up!).
- Paid MAScargo around 950 Euro for a weight of 250 kg's (as the price per kg is dropping over 250 kg's it turned out to be cheaper).
- Went to customs for custom clearence.
- Went back to MAScargo, attached the topbox to the bike (as we could still add 14 kg to the shipment), disconnected the battery, wrapped plastic around the motorbike (did it myself, plastic was provided by MAScargo).

Picking up the motorbike (which took us around 2,5 hours):
- Arriving in Amsterdam we went to the Cargo section of the airport where the motorbike was waiting for us.
- We went to customs where they completed the last page of the carnet (the motorbike is registered in Lithuania but as it is part of the EU it seems not to matter in which EU country you do this).
- Back to Cargo we paid 75,08 Euro for handling fees, took the wrapping off the motorbike, connected the battery, took on our riding gear and drove out.

We're glad that we took the motorbike with us in the plane, didn't use any agent and didn't crate our motorbike when shipping it from Kuala Lumpur to Amsterdam. It saved us a lot of time and money.

Hope this writing will inspire or help people while making decisions on transporting their motorbike.

Johan & Milda
2up2far.blogspot.com