Shipments done by Travellers

Amy fell in Bolivia and wacked her knee pretty good, so her trip is over for now. We had to send her bike to her parents place from Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Other freight forwarders were quoting around $1500 - $2000 for this same trip. Brought the bike to the airport and drained the gas. They also wanted to remove the oil, so I took 1L out of the upper hold (apparently the only benefit to that tank on the F650!). Also had to remove most of the air from the tires, and disconnect both cables from the battery.
Packed the bike in a borrowed crate, and got it weighed, 285kg, this was also the weight they used for shipping costs.

Patrick (LAB) speaks great english, very helpful and also gave me a tour of one of the cargo jets!

With the Airwaybill filled out, I had to go get a Dangerous Goods form filled out at a frieght forwarders. I ended up on the other side of the city at Inbolpack for this. $75 and 8 hours to process. There is a customs office at the cargo section of the airport, but since I was late last night (8pm) I went to the office in the terminal building. They did not have much experience with the carnet. No charges for customs.
An odd requirement here is the narcotic check. The package must be checked no more than 5 hours before the flight leaves for drugs by the police, and the crate cannot be sealed until this is done. So at 5:30am this morning I arrived to get this done. They have dogs there on site, but didn`t use them with our box.

To complete this process, I send the carnet and other docs by DHL to Amy in the US ($30, not included in shipping charges above).

Experience much the same as Simon McCarthy 2 years ago - NOTE THAT IT'S MR.ASAUMI at Nippon Express, *NOT* ASUAMI, and the email address is as above. I scrounged a pallet from Flat BMW in Tokyo (one for a K1200LT) and had a local man-with-a-van deliver it to the warehouse.

The warehouse chaps were very helpful, providing hammers and nails, and a forklift to support the front of the bike while I removed the front wheel (strap under steering head).

Helpful man at the warehouse (OHI No.2) is Mr.Murakani.

In Bangkok, again they were very helpful. The Nippon Express office is in the Boss building on Rama IV. Getting out to the container depot at Lad Krabang is a 300bt (GBP4, oh how dreadful) taxi ride (they won't do it on the meter). A gofer was assigned to take me to Customs and help with the paperwork.

They don't recognise the carnet as such, but waving it at them spurs them into the right sort of action. They even produced copies of Simon McCarthy's paperwork as a cribsheet and offered to let me do my email on their PCs. Instead of the carnet you sign an indemnity that you'll export the bike by such-and-such a date. All pretty straightforward.

At the cargoterminal in Panama you first have to go to the Panavia office which is upstairs. That

Mostly as the others found it, with the following updates and differences.

Irena has taken over from Diana, and is also very helpful.

The Rus sails on Mondays and the Antonina Nezhdanova on Saturdays - they both go to Japan empty except for Russian used-car salesmen (they come back full of used Japanese cars).

My fare was $210, which included 3 meals a day - and as a Western female I ended up with a 1st-class 4-berth cabin to myself. The voyage should be around 48 hours, but we were delayed by a typhoon, which is why the Captain declined to charge me for the bike when we got to Japan.

Irena is very helpful, and did all the Customs stuff for me (don't try this without a carnet). She ferried me around at high speed in her white Pajero (no nervous passengers, please) and extracted a few roubles from time to time. Her 'fixing' fee was $100, and she was worth every cent.

At the Japanese end the Customs chaps were very helpful, as it was a rather excruciating procedure. I had to take a taxi (total cost around $100) from the port to the Japan Auto Federation office (via a bank) to have the carnet validated, then back to Customs, then finally to the ship to have the bike unloaded. The Customs chap on the ship explained to the taxi driver where I was to go and everything so my complete lack of Japanese wasn't a problem. However, once all the papers had been seen and stamped all was fine, the bike was unloaded, and off I rode. I think a mistake was made, though, as I didn't have to pay anyone anything, so I think I was uninsured all the time in Japan.

Cheap, but very nasty. After quite some difficulties finding a freight agent at all we bumped into this terrible guy. He really gave us a hard time, arguing about the formerly confirmed price again and again. And the prices he came up with were just outrageously. It didn