Shipments done by Travellers

There were a lot of companies in Nepal willing to fly my bike, but I chose to use Das. Although I had no problems with Das, my bike did go missing in Bangkok. Still to date I do not know how or why but the same thing has since happened to a friend. Both bikes were recovered without a problem or extra cost only the worry for a week as to the whereabouts of my bike. As bad as this was I don't hold Das responsible. It seems part of a scam with the Bangkok connecting flight. But be warned.

Also at this time in Nepal there were bombs going off! The bike had to be crated for the flight this was done in a morning by Das workers all for 75us and hand made with string to hold the bike in the crate!

Once the bike was in Oz I got an agent to do all the paperwork as Oz is very strict with it's quarantine etc.

The cost as follows; Price in Aus dollars, all costs exclude GST at 10%

Cargo automation fee $10.00
Intl term fee $90.00
Professional indemnity fee $ 5.00
Terminal service fee $45.00
Agency and attendance $135.00
Quarantine fees $100.00 No GST
Obtain quarantine release $28.50
Sundries $90.00
Total inc GST $543.85Aus

"Dear Susan Bit of a shipping horror story for you, although I suppose I should be grateful that it worked out in the end and that I did eventually get my bike back more or less in one piece. Also goes to show the results of ignoring the advice of yourself and others at Horizons Unlimited!

You may remember that I was stuck in Egypt, having failed to obtain a visa for Sudan (still don't know why). I was looking at the various shipping options to Kenya, having decided that I had already lost too much time to get to Ethiopia. You very kindly sent me the details of a shipping agent in Jordan who would be able to ship the bike to Mombassa.

I contacted the agent and got some further details - it would take 3 weeks, but I would have to take a whole container myself, unless I wanted to do it LCL which would involve the bike going to Antwerp, and therefore considerably more time. I had heard from various sources that Mombassa is an absolute nightmare in terms of retrieving cargo which gave me more food for thought. In the end I decided to look again at air options from Egypt, figuring that even if it was going to involve considerable hassle that at least I would get to Kenya with the bike more quickly than if I went by sea.

By this stage I was in Alexandria, and after some asking around, P&O Ned Lloyd put me in touch with a shipping company in Cairo called Inter Freight. Through them we discussed pricing and schedules. The agent Osama Salah said that it would cost $700, and could be arranged in three days, fly with Ethiopian Airlines via Addis Addaba. I thought that sounded very reasonable, especially when I repeatedly questioned the price and he was insistent that it was correct.

I headed to Cairo Airport on a Monday morning where I found the Inter Freight offices and began the process of clearing the bike from Egypt. As you know this is a painfully slow process, getting the stamps and signatures of countless people. In the end we ran out of time and I was told we would have to continue the next day. This wasn't a major problem because the bike was due to go on the Wednesday. The following morning we managed to complete the paper work at the traffic department and then headed back to the office. Inter Freight had told me that we would crate the bike at the office and then take it to customs. However we were running late because customs close at 2 pm so they said we would take it to customs and crate it there. Big mistake because once the bike had gone into customs I wasn't able to go near it again and was unable to supervise the crating which I was keen to do to ensure that the bike was as safe as possible.

We then got in touch with Ethiopian Airlines, who took one look at the bike and said it was too big; the maximum individual load they could take was 100 kg. It turned out that the agent hadn't actually contacted them, just worked out a price from their listings. At this stage I realized that I was going to be in for a tough time and tried to retrieve my bike, planning on going to another agent. As I said before though, with the bike in customs there was nothing I could do, and not only that I no longer had the paperwork to ride the bike in Egypt.

Mr. Salah then said that we could arrange to fly the bike with British Airways on the Saturday, rather ironically via London. Of course this was going to cost more, about $1000, but I didn't have a lot of choice. Unable to do anything, I headed back to Alexandria where at least I could stay with friends. Mr. Salah assured me that he would call to confirm everything, and then on the Sunday when the bike had gone. There then followed 10 days of me trying to get in contact with him and him doing all he could to avoid my calls. Eventually I did manage to get hold of him, at which point he told me that British Airways didn't have a large enough plane to take the bike from London to Nairobi, and that if they were to take the bike, it would have to wait in London until there was a larger plane doing that route - which would depend on what other cargo was going.

Eventually the agent came back to me and said that the bike could go with Emirates, but at a cost of $1300. Unfortunately there was very little I could do, other than express my dissatisfaction which I did on numerous occasions, which was pretty much like water off a duck's back. I then had to put up with almost three more weeks of being told that the bike would be going 'tomorrow' - that is when I could get hold of him at all. Finally after almost four weeks I was told that the bike had gone, all that remained was for the Carnet to be signed. Mr. Salah kept telling me that everything would be fine and that I could go ahead and book my ticket for that evening, and come to the office to collect the completed Carnet. Luckily I had absolutely zero faith in him and had to wait a further 3 days until the Carnet was signed.

Finally on the 22nd November I was able to fly out of Egypt to Nairobi, at the cost of an additional $500, ironically with a brief stop in Khartoum! Of course I had been assured by Inter Freight that the bike would already be at Nairobi, but on arrival I was told by Emirates that it was still in Dubai and should be arriving in a couple of days.

Well it did finally arrive, and amazingly it went very smoothly clearing and retrieving the bike from Nairobi customs. The crate was absolutely massive, another reason that I had wanted to supervise it. I could have reduced the size considerably which would have made a huge difference given that they charge by volumetric weight as well.

But as I said, at least I now have the bike and Kenya has been great so far, although unfortunately I am now very short of time in that I must be back in the UK by the middle of January. Ironic that I should have spent 2 months in Egypt, a country I had been to before and wasn't enamored of anyway.

Once again thank you for your help and advice, I'm only sorry that I ignored it!"

Shipment of one BMW R 80 GS with sideboxes, crated. Crate dimensions: 210cm x 101cm x 100cm
Gross weight: 312 kg
Volume-metric weight (chargeable weight): 354 kg
Conversion: 1 cubic meter (cbm) = 167 kg

Breakdown of costs:

Freight and all fees in Sydney: 1975,30 au $
Crating (I did not use the agent's contact): 264 au $
Transport to Dangerous Goods Dep. and to agent's warehouse: 130 au $
Release form in San Francisco: 15 US $ (approx. 30 au $)

The bike went on Korean Airlines via Korea to SFO.
Promised transit time (SYD-SFO): 4 days
Actual transit time (SYD-SFO): 6 days

Reasons why I can not recommend the agent:

1) Measured the crate incorrectly, which would have led to overcharging if I had not measured it myself

2) Lack of transparency in the agent's preliminary assessment of the total costs (what's new ?...)

3) Poor service (for example: The agent didn't reply on e-mails, didn't manage to provide me with an ETA in San Francisco before I had sent numerous reminders, tried to hide "mark ups" in the invoice)

Here as promised the cost for shipping my Triumph Tiger from San Francisco by sea to Singapore:

The costs is based on a crate size of 88 in. X 30 in. X 49 in. - 600 lb. (all in USD):

Sea freight 245.00
Handling 95.00
Dangerous goods fee 95.00
Transfer charges 49.50
Insurance 57.00
TOTAL 541.50

I paid an additional 75 USD for them picking up the crate at my home in San Francisco and trucking it to their location. The company I used is Novo Express (I think you can find them at http://www.novoexpress.com ), my contact there was Mike (not sure about the last name). He provided great help, kept me updated and made sure I got a lot of help once I was in Singapore from their local partner.

In Singapore I had to pay a total of 190 S$ of port charges and some other fees to the local agent (Astro Express, contact there is Richard Leo). I got great help as well, Astro did their best to help me get the bike out of the port and customs ASAP.

Transit time for the bike was 19 days onboard the ship and pickup was 5 days before the ship left - so total transit time of 24 days.

May cost slightly more than DAS Cargo but the crate was much stronger. He was very efficient. Thai Air will sort all paperwork in BKK for you. Released in 4 hrs.