Shipments done by Travellers

Dealt with Tony White at WW directly. Very straightforward. Paper work required: copies of passport photo page, UK registration document,proof of ownership(purchase invoice)I emailed these in advance.Took bike to docks three days before, bike has to be reasonably clean and with 1/4 tank of fuel as it is ridden on and off ferry. Payment has to be by cash or cheque only.WW recommend that no personal belongings are left on bike, but I sent my bulky riding gear over on the bike with no problems.Bike arrived in perfect condition, took about 3 hours for me to clear it through US customs and ride away.

We flew 2 BMW F650GS from London to Bogota (via Miami).
On the UK side it all went very smoothly. We exchanged few emails to organise the whole thing, with Simon who was very helpful and informative.

On the 4th of May we took the 2 bikes to the packers near Heathrow and left them there with a pile of luggage, helmets etc on the floor...

We only removed windscreens and mirrors from the bikes and had to disconnect the batteries. We could not remove the front wheels to reduce size as the packers needed to wheel the bikes into the purpose built crates later on. I dont think the savings would have been significant anyway.

The bikes arrived earlier than expected at Bogota. On that end, we dealt with a company called Cielos de Peru Airlines. Again on Colombian side, all went very smoothly.

The process is very slow and bureaucratic and take several hours, going from one office to the other to queue and get some paper done. Total cost on Colombian side (to add to the GBP2500) is about USD 150, half for the cargo company, half for customs. Note all costs are for 2 bikes! SO divide by 2 if you only fly 1 bike!
There were no worries at all at any time. All went very well on both sides and we were very happy with the whole process.

Definitely recommend them.

Ah I forgot to say: the crates were superb, the packing of fragile stuff like helmets etc was very carefully done. The bikes were fine. No damage at all. They started straight away! Impressive!

**** Summary **** Note: all the customs info below assumes the case that you are the owner of the bike. I think the export information below would be identical if you were shipping from Japan to any S.E. Asian country with a reasonable developed economy (e.g. vietnam, malaysia, singapore). Similarily I think the import information would be perfectly valid when entering Thailand from any country that has good customs governance. Documentation that you will require: * Passport (preferably with visa of the country you're going to after Thailand already inside) * IDP (International driver's permit) * Vehicle registration document from your country of residence. * [A CPD (Carnet de Passage Douanes) is not technically required for Thailand, but it's very helpful.] Important documents that will be created in the process: * Waybill * Delivery Order * A temporary vehicle import document for Thailand (English-translation title: "Simplified customs declaration form (for motor car and and motor cycle temporarily imported or exported)"). Note: I took sea freight because the japanese freight companies are overcharging the kilogram-per-air-kilometre rate at a ratio of 2 or more. E.g. USD 5,000 to air freight from Tokyo to Bangkok. (A economy ticket is typically USD 600 on that route.) *** Japan-side processing **** Nippon Express offer a cheap service to ship bikes in surplus container space to several S.E. Asian destination such as Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore. To make a booking contact the office below, which is five minutes walk from the Ohsaki station on the central Yamanote loop train line in Tokyo. (N.B. the office moved from a nearby address recently, i.e. not exactly the same address you might see in earlier posts). Nippon Express Co. Ltd, Tokyo International Transport Branch (N.B. really this mean the surface freight division) Estage Osaki Bldg, 2F, Osaki 3-5-2 Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, 141-0032 (GPS Co-ords: 35