Shipments done by Travellers

Panavia seems to handle 90% of the shipping to Ecuador. Going below $400 will be quite difficult as the owner is a bitter old man. Shipping is quite easy, you don't even need to drain the tank if it is low. Just disconnect the battery and you're on your way. You DO NOT need a carnet de passaporte, but definitely contact Ricardo Rocco for assistance on the Ecuadorian side. Our bikes did come up with some nasty scratches on the front side panel, but no other problems.

This information could be useful to people like us who are crossing Africa overland and get stuck in Ndjamena because the border with Sudan is closed.

There are two airline companies that can get you out of Ndjamena.

- Sudan Airlines with 1 or 2 weekly flights to Khartoum (Saturday for sure + maybe Wednesday). These flights are using an Airbus 340 which is large enough to load your bike(s) as cargo.

- Ethiopian Airlines with 2 weekly flights to Addis Ababa, on Tuesday and Friday. The problem is that they have a plane big enough to load a bike only twice a month in average and always on a Tuesday. Besides, they never can tell for sure if they'll have a big plane the next Tuesday.

Whatever solution you choose, the price and formalities will be approximately the same:

- Go to Air Afrique Cargo at the airport to weigh the bike and order a crate. They'll charge you around $100 for a crate and $100 for the paperwork.

- Go to the airline, get your tickets (around $530 each) and negociate a price for your bike (we got it at $2.50/kilo).

- The day before your flight, go back to Air Afrique Cargo to charge your bike in the crate. While they work on it, go with a guide to fill out the paperwork (it will cost you an extra $30 in gifts). When all is done, pay Air Afrique for the shipping.

Everything must be paid cash in CFA, Euro or US$, although Ethiopian Airlines should accept Visa payment for the passenger tickets. We don't know about landing in Addis Ababa but the word was that it should be straightforward (it certainly was for entering by land). We experienced however the custom clearance process in Khartoum, Sudan. It was the first time apparently they had seen a couple of bikes arriving by air so...

- The customs treated us as if we wanted to actually import the bikes in Sudan and sell them there (regardless of our Carnets de Passage).

- The custom clearance agent dfid everything to squeeze as much money out of us, by keeping the paperwork in ransom and asking us always for higher amounts of money. We ended up getting our bikes and paperwork thanks to a second customs clearance agent. If you land in Khartoum, avoid absolutely Cannata International Company. Watch out because they have many recuiters at the airport. If you want to read more about our problems, go to http://www.photobiker.com/people/cannata.html

We recommend you to deal with the following company. They said it should have cost us $250 maximum to get the bikes back. Maybe you can work it out at $200.

Their contact information is:
Company: MTS
Manager: Mortada M. Idris Email: mmid...@hotmail.com Phone: +249-11-568929 (or 568929 when in Khartoum)
Cell: 012354276

Total to fly to Sudan: 200 Air Afrique 530
Sudan Airlines passenger ticket 750
Sudan Airlines cargo fare (for a 300kg bike) 250 MTS
Custom Clearance in Khartoum ------- 1730

Oh, and don't worry if after boarding the plane from Ndjamena to Khartoum, you first land in Niamey...

In Malaysia everything was easy and organized by Freight Logistics. The partner office in Tokyo told me the cost there is about $300.In Tokyo I went first to this partner office and figured out most of the cost is for service or whatever I don't need. I could do everything by myself easily.

I only had to travel a little bit around in Tokyo, but the people was very helpful and always explained me the way to my next destination. At the partner office I had to pay 17.000 Yen and got the arrival note, with that I went to the office of the shipping line. There I got the delivery order. With that and the documents of JAF I went to the customs.

Finally, I went to the warehouse with a stamp in my carnet to pick up my bike. They didn't like that I wanted to unpack my bike. I should pay $50 for leaving the trash of my crate there, so I packed everything on my bike. The workers around were helpful again and lend me some tools.

IMPORTANT : The document 'Dangerous Good Fees' was obtained in 3 days! May be you can get it earlier with some dollars?

We have been to the cargo airport and went to Thai cargo Offices. They wanted us to contact an agent to do all the work and had to insist to do the paper ourselves. They gave us a paper for Dangerous Good fees that we had to give to the Security office at the international airport. This document was delivered in 3 days.

We contacted then a crate company which did the two crates in 3h. Very good job! We can recommend them.
PT air-Sea Packing, contact : Virat Puangthong - tel 01 8158166 - pt_p...@hotmail.com about 10 min from the airport. (Make sure they give you a quotation before to do the work) They took the crates to the cargo terminal. The people of Thai were really helpful. For the custom it was a bit harder as nobody knew what to do and in which office we had to go!!! But after 1h30 we got all the papers. (you will find the cost below).

In Katmandu we had to go to Thai Cargo office (close to the international airport) and then to the cargo terminal. There we had to take an agent because all the papers are in Nepali. As we had no CARNET DE PASSAGE they didn't want to let our scooters out. We saw all the custom chiefs but NO WAY! There was one solution but we had to pay round 50 or 100 us$ for one month.

We decided to wait and make the carnet in France as after we are going to India which seems even more regarding on this bloody CARNET. After 1 month we received the Carnet.

At the terminal cargo they wanted to charge us for the warehouse cost. We had to negotiate not to be charged! It took us 5h to take our scooters out (it was the meeting day for them...).

Dimensions of the crates: - 2 crates ( 1.99 x 1.25 x 0.7 ) 80us$ ' => 578Kg equivalent to volume (2* 1.99*1.25*0.7 / 6000000000)'

Cost in BKK (1Us$ = 42Baths)
- Freight : 57 Bath/Kg
- Fuel : 3 Bath/Kg
- Insurance : 2 Bath/Kg
- Documentation Bkk : 180 Baths
- Documentation Katmandu : 0.86 Bath/Kg
- customs in Bkk : 0 Cost in Katmandu (1us$ = 75Roupis):
- custom form : 25 Rupees
- Handling cost : 190 Rupees
- People who helped us opening the crate : 100 Rupees
- Custom Broker : 200 Rupees

I ended up getting Bruno's name and phone number from Lufthansa Cargo in Los Angeles. I called and spoke to someone at MID and gave them all the info on the bike and what dates we were looking for. They said they would have someone call me back by 3:00 that afternoon and they did !! Quote of $1475 Canadian for Air Transat and $2400 Canadian for Lufthansa. Bruno has shipped about 8 bikes last year through Air Transat and said he had no problem with that air line. He has shipped about 30 bikes over the last few years.

We are trying to ship the last week of May so we will be booking by the 2nd week of March. Bruno said to book at least a month before you want to go. He needs the bike to be delivered the day before, clean and less than a gallon of gas. He needs the registration papers for the bike and a copy of the registered owners passport as well. Bruno has back packed through the Middle East so he is a fellow traveller and was very helpful.

This is the best quote we have gotten and of course paying in Canadian has saved us as both Motorcycle Express and Knoff Tours are in U.S. dollars. We will still be using Knoff Tours for the green card insurance as I found the customer service Stephan gives is excellent.