India to Malaysia Shipping

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Overland by Motorcycle

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India to Malaysia shipping by plane

Flight from Chennai, India to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

For a foreigner to drive their own vehicle through Myanmar (Burma) is nigh on impossible, or at least very expensive. Given that travel in Tibet is almost as difficult, the vehicle must either be shipped or flown across to South-East Asia.

Contact list / Costs as of October 2007

Shipping Agent: ShellAir - M-5, Prince Centre, Pathari Road, 709/710 Anna Salai, Chennai. Tel 2829 7744 shellairmaa@gmail.com. Contact Ramnath on 0484 2359233 or Zenobia.

Dealt with the freight company and charged INR 26,000 for 2 bikes, sent as a single consignment. If the consignment is over 500kg, the rate drops significantly.

Freight Company: Sri Lankan Airways (bike stopped overnight in Colombo)

Customs Agent: Govias & Govias - Catholic Centre Annexe, 108 Armenian Street, Chennai. Tel 2536 2598. gratian@goiasgroup.com

Charged INR 4000 per bike for paperwork, should have charged INR 4000 admin and charged INR 6000 for packing 2 bikes (should have been INR 6000 per bike). They are very efficient and honest!

Collection address at KL Airport:

Sri Lankan Cargo, Lot-309, 3rd Floor, Customer Service Centre, KLAS Cargo Complex, KL International Airport. Tel 00603 87788800.

Cost was just RGT 0.2 per kilo for airport handling charges.

Process:

As early as possible, when arriving in the final departure city, go to the Police Commissioner's office and apply for an NOC (No Objections Certificate). This is confirmation that you have not been involved in any accidents and are not wanted for any offence. You have to fill in a form, and should take along with you copies of passport, carnet and a letter saying where you have travelled in India, where you entered and confirming that you have not been involved in any accidents or incidents. The officer will tell you that it will take a few days to complete, so ask him to sign a copy of the application and stamp it, stating that the NOC request has been received. Apparently, this is good enough for the customs agent to use. Otherwise, give the Commissioner the spiel about your charity trip and how you need the NOC yesterday and they should be able to provide one in a day or so.

Look up any hotel at your destination to provide to various parties with a delivery address. Unless you use an agent at the other end, this address will never be necessary as you will meet the bike at the destination airport.

Find a freight company (either direct or through an agent). I would suggest going to Anna Salai / Mount Road in Chennai and walking up and down, you will find a whole host of cargo companies (near to GPS N13 03.492 E80 15.462). You probably don't need to have booked your bike onto a flight until you get there as they don't start much work or book any space until you provide paperwork. I used an agent and got a discount of listed fares, but it may or may not be cheaper to go direct. Ensure that they understand that the vehicle is DG (dangerous goods). There is a surcharge for this and it is vital that they complete the DG form and that you write a statement confirming that they are dry of flammable fluids (on the Shipper's Declaration for Dangerous Goods, you need code "UN3166 - Vehicle, Flammable liquid powered - Subsidiary risk 9".

Either ask your agent to recommend a customs agent or use Govias, who I would happily recommend. They are honest, and direct for a fair price - not cheap but they did the job in one day.

Either crate the bike yourself or use a packing company. Govias provided materials and facilities for us but I chose to build it myself and give the workmen directions as to how to do each stage. This ensures minimum crate size and therefore cost. They don't check, but it should be empty of fuel, ideally with the fuel line disconnected, empty of engine oil and with the battery disconnected and removed from its compartment. I put mine into a pannier. The tyres should also be deflated. My bike was open crated and tied down to the crate using the BMW tie downs that I carry on the bike anyway. The open crate was to keep weight down and remember that these bikes are pretty tough already. The crate added around 40kg. They have something called a cooling off period of 24 hours for the bike to cool down after last having been stopped. For fitting into a smaller crate, the windscreen, handlebars and front wheel were removed and the panniers tucked in next to the forks.

Take the bike to the airport cargo terminal and meet your customs guy, who, if he is good will have done most things already. Here, the carnet will be stamped out (you keep the document from this point on). Someone from the airline will probably come to see you for a quick bike inspection.

You will be left with

- Airway bill

- Dangerous goods confirmation copy

- A couple of payment receipts.

I suggest that you spend the whole time looking over the agent/freight company's shoulder ensuring that DG and flight timing are as you agreed. I strongly recommend that you don't personally leave until the airline have actually OK'd everything. There were many times when I was told that all was good to go only to receive a call that something else needed to be filled in. I also suggest that on the day of bike departure, you go to the cargo office at the airport for the airline and go in to check that the release form has been stamped by the DG officer. The staff at the airport were on the ball and helpful.

Personal flight booking can be left until the day of departure and was actually quite cheap at just USD 190 one way. Availability was not a problem.

Collection

Details coming soon

Call up the Airline's cargo office in KL, then if the bike has arrived, go around to their offices. They are into super high security here and the front gate will hold your passport, so take a copy with you for the customs people later on.

The airline will take you around to the airport cargo desk then offer you an introduction to a clearing agent, or the option to do it yourself. It only took around an hour and a half of effort, so it's easier to do it yourself.

Take your carnet and waybill to the customs office. This is on the 6th floor of the customs building (not the 3rd which is for if you have no carnet). Get it stamped and signed. They then tell you that you need to bring it back later together with the bike and at this point, they tear off the bottom section of the carnet (I told them that it would take a couple of hours and that the cargo office needed it completed, so they just tore off the bottom section without even a visual inspection!).

Next, head back to the airport cargo area to the Ariport Handling charges desk, where you will pay based on around RGT 0.2 per kilo.

Take the carnet and this receipt back to the main Airport Cargo desk and they will prepare a release form, which you sign and give to security, who get a man with a fork lift to bring out your beloved bike.

From there, get them to put it somewhere quietish where you can put everything back together in peace.

You can get fuel around 3km away (or, if there was a dribble left inside, you could just ride it there). If you emptied the oil, you'd obviously need that too.

Tips:

Don't expect to get anything done at weekends, bear in mind that Malaysia is a Moslem country, so Fridays are not great for clearing. Everyone will try to move their costs, so be sure to ask about taxes, surcharges and get them to write everything down. Allow 3 days for all to be done, ideally starting on a Monday morning. For a couple of days, you won't have too much idea of the day of departure and it will stress you out. Finally, whilst Malaysian Airlines could ship the bikes direct, they only fly on Tuesdays, so if you miss one, you have to wait a week for the next. With Sri Lankan, it arrives later but they fly daily.

Photos:

Packing