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The next morning we were not really early enough getting out of bed so it was gone 10 o clock before we got out to the airport and found the customs office, after we had lost an hour while the customs officer had his lunch, then it was of to another office for more paper work, and then finally to the last office where we could stand and wait for our bikes to come out of the customs shed, finally after what seemed like an age the bikes appeared and we could start to put them back together again, by now it was 4 o clock, It took us about three hours to have all four bikes finished and loaded and ready for the ride into Bangkok. Once we had left customs we stopped and filled up with fuel and finished inflating the tyres before we tried to make our way onto the expressway into Bangkok, unfortunately we were stopped at the toll booth and told that motorcycles were not allowed, (yet another country with annoying rules about motorcycles and decent roads !!! ) We tried to follow the expressway, but this ultimately failed and we got lost, no surprise there then !! |
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Getting the bikes out of customs was not the slam dunk we had hoped it would be. Passing from one office to the next, building to building, upstairs and down, collecting more and more paperwork as we went along, paying $50 a day storage fees, paying helpers to lift the bikes off the pallets, paying mototaxi drivers to take us to the nearest ATM and gas station, and waiting an hour and a half for customs officers to finish their lunch. Finally at 6:30PM we headed back to our hotel. Normally a 40 min drive, but it was dark now, and we learned that motorcycles are not allowed on the Highway (Interstate), it took us a bit longer. With the help of several strangers (or angels as they are sometimes called), plus detours around a Buddhist street festival, in 90 degree heat, with full riding gear on, we arrive at our hotel, a mere three hours later! |
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Things don't improve much the following day when Chris wakes up feeling decidedly unwell and we discover that our bikes did not make the flight to Thailand, but will hopefully do so the next day. At the same time we hear from Tony Chesnaeau (the guy we crossed Pakistan with) that he is in town with his girlfriend Fran so we decide to go in and meet them. It was a great evening despite the fact that we inadvertently ended up on an express non-stop boat-taxi that took us miles down the river. We consoled ourselves with the fact that the trip cost us pennies in stark contrast to the ten pound fare on the tourist boats. Later in the evening (I don't know how we packed it all in) we met up with Paul, a friend of Chris's who has lived here teaching English for over a year. Next day, at 9 am we were back in the Thai customs shed at the airport. Our bikes had arrived but first there were three hours of paperwork to get through. We were helped through it all by a friendly if somewhat infuriating chap who only asked for a small tip at the end of the afternoon. It was a fiver well earned. We had amassed a small dossier of photocopies and documents by 12 noon, just in time to see the customs shed close for lunch. Finally our two crates were delivered to us and we set about rebuilding the bikes under the interested gaze of the custom shed workers. It was a fine moment indeed when leathered up, starving and overheated we kicked them into life and roared out of the shed in the late afternoon. After 15 minutes of traffic mayhem we stopped for a drink at a garage to muster up the courage to face another hour of it. It was with thankful relief that we arrived back at our guest-house - Bangkok is an immensely large and incredibly busy city. . . . We are stopped by a traffic policeman as apparently its illegal for us to be on the highway (news to us !). We argue our case, hot and sweaty in the slow lane of the motorway while buses and trucks roar past us belching out smoky black exhaust fumes. He wants to take us to a local police station but he eventually agrees to let us go. |
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We stayed near the airport for 2 nights so as to be close to the customs/cargo area where we would have to spend at least a day to get our bikes back to normal. It took us the whole day of Tuesday to get our bikes out of the airport. The main problem is not knowing where to start or in what order to proceed. It's quite a frustrating process in that there are many touts outside the customs office only too willing to help but we've heard stories of them requesting 100 pounds after they've done so! In order to avoid the confrontations we decided to do things ourselves. We arrived before 9am and only managed to ride our bikes away at 5pm. The customs procedure is pretty straightforward but it's knowing the sequence of events to follow: 1. First you have to split the airway bill if you have more than one bike shipped together. This is done at the Customer Service Centre, 1km south of the domestic terminal. The original document is provided (we only had a photocopy from our agent) and stapled to some other papers. 2. Then we went to the Personal Effects customs office. Here we had a tout help us but we soon ditched him when he asked for our passports outside at a dodgy looking table. But as he'd shown us where to go we found a customs officer, who willingly asked us to sit in his waiting room while he filled out some paperwork - about 5 pages for each bike! He asked for our passports and carnets. The carnets were only used for the engine and chassis number, they were not stamped at all. This took close to 3 hours sitting in his waiting room as he had to get his superior to approve his work. Among this paperwork was the Thai temporary vehicle import "white paper" (you sign to say that if you do not re-export the bike within the time stated you are liable to pay 500 000 Thai Baht - US $ 12 000 import fee!). 3. Then it's off to the Manifest Dept. Don't ask me what they do but there was some stamping and signing of our paperwork. 4. The final step is to pay the airline for the clearance fee and service. This amounted to TB 545 (about US $ 13) for each bike. You get 3 days free storage, which we hadn't exceeded but it's about US $ 100 per day if you do store a bike there for longer than that. 5. Once the customs official had re-approved all this paperwork, we headed for the warehouse located a further 1km south of the customs offices. You can catch a motorcycle taxi for about TB 10 (US $ 0.25) but have your wits about you! 6. Outside the warehouse we visited the office and presented our paperwork. This is again approved by their officials then passed onto someone who takes it into another office located inside the actual warehouse. Here it is delegated to one of the many forklift drivers cruising about the place. 7. In the meantime we handed in our passports in exchange for a security pass and entered the warehouse to find our long lost bikes! 8. Once they were delivered by forklift, to a nice spacious area within the warehouse, we started the uncrating process. The local workers there were really good and when we needed some extra help lifting the bikes up to assemble the front wheels they were only too keen. Eventually we rode our bikes out of the airport with smiles on our faces! The whole process is a longwinded one but with a little patience it's not too bad. The airport staff, whether working for the airline we used (Thai Air) or the government (customs) were very helpful and never once complained or held out their hands for money. After this taxing day we had an early night and then on Wednesday we moved into central Bangkok. The simple 20 something kilometres into the centre took us almost 3 hours to cover as the Expressways don't allow motorcycles on them. In order to find the equivalent roads taking you in takes some time, a lot of patience and a compass! We didn't have a decent map so it was guesswork but we eventually found a great place to stay with safe parking for the bikes. It's in northern Banglampoo close to the river next to the infamous Shanti Lodge, Sawadee Guest House. |
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We flew into Bangkok from Kathmandu on the same flight as the bikes. Unfortunately it was a Sunday which meant that the cargo and custom offices were closed, so we headed straight into Bangkok to the famous Khao San Road. We'd been to Bangkok before and weren't surprised to find nothing much had changed in this part of town! . . . First thing next day we returned to the airport to unpack the bikes. Having fought off the expected paperwork 'touts' - many of whom were demanding up to $100 for their services (and seemed to have no more idea of the system than we did!) - we located and opened up our crates. The next couple of hours was spent re-assembling the bikes - the freighting agency in Kathmandu had asked us to remove the wheels and handle bars in order to lower the height (and the cost) of the crates. Our ride back into Bangkok took us up onto the city's elevated tollway. Approaching the toll booths the price signs didn't list motorbikes - must be free, I told myself, suspecting that motorbikes probably weren't permitted. I received a somewhat bewildered look from the cashier as I sailed past with Dave and George in tow. Ten or so K's down the road the same stunt had whistles blowing and staff shouting after us. But we pressed on hoping to get away with it - no such luck. As we took the slip road back down into the city, three traffic cops had organised a small reception for us, a fourth actually rode alongside Dave and flicked his ignition off. Fortunately the language barrier and our well practised 'dumb tourist' act saved us from any real strife. Within fifteen minutes - having relieved us of a few Baht of course - the same cops were directing us (avoiding the tollway) back to Khao San Rd, cheers guys! |
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We landed in Bangkok as the sun was setting and stepped out into the most unbelieveable heat and humidity. We didn't have many budget accommodation options near the airport but it made no sense to head into the city only to come all the way back out in the morning. The first hotel we tried was full and the next one was pretty unfriendly but we were out of options so we settled on a room for the three of us to keep the cost down. ... We were all relieved when morning finally came and we could get up and do something productive. Back at the airport we went straight to the Thai Airways office who helped us start the whole process of clearing our bikes. I never really know what takes such a long time - but these things always seem to. It took a couple of hours for customs to process our carnets and passports - in which they wrote the following, "Warning - Upon the importer's failure to re-export subject vehicle, payment of compensation according to the contract of suretyship shall be effected, and the importer shall simultaneously become liable to either a fine or an imprisonment or both for violation of Thai Customs Laws." I guess we can consider ourselves warned! The contract in question is a document signed by us guaranteeing that we will pay just over eight thousand pounds each if we fail to re-export our bikes by the expiry date of our visas - such things sure help focus the mind. Then there was much photocopying and stapling and form-filling going on, interrupted by an hour's lunch break when everything ground to a halt, until finally we exchanged our passports for warehouse passes and just before two o'clock got within touching distance of our bikes. It was an absolutely scorching day with such high humidity that we were all sweating even before we got started on our bikes. The air is so hot and the humidity saps your energy and makes you sweat and then keep sweating. Everyone seemed lovely and friendly with big smiles all around, including a man with a hammer who got to work dismantling the crates that had taken so long to build. There was a lot of interest in us and our bikes, but not the scores of people standing around gawping that we have got so used to, but people stopping to smile and say hello as they passed by doing their jobs. They are used to bikes and Westerners here and we were interesting but not aliens from another planet. Harvey put our bikes back together while I pumped up all four tyres with our little hand pump (we had to let all the air out of our tyres, disconnect our batteries and empty our fuel tanks before the airline would agree to fly our bikes) . Every time Harvey glanced around I was in a different position trying to get comfortable and trying to stop my arms and legs hurting - it took such a long time and every few minutes someone else would walk passed and give me a sympathetic "clearly the woman is insane" look. Harvey was sweating so much that he had to tie a bandana (not very BMW!) around his forehead to try to stem the flow. It was incredibly hard work but finally we had three bikes each with two wheels, batteries re-connected, brake and clutch levers attached and hand-guards re-fitted. No one had bothered to check our fuel tanks in Kathmandu so Harvey and I had left a couple of litres in each of our bikes and had enough to give Graeme some and save one of us having to go out in search of fuel. There was some mention of a customs inspection of our bikes and luggage but none materialised and we were cleared to leave. |
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The flight to Bangkok was full. We departed [from Katmandu] around midday and arrived in Bangkok after a 3 hour flight and immediately felt the high humidity of the Thai climate as we left the air-conditioned airport! After collecting our panniers, which we had sent as luggage, we took a taxi to the Banglamphu area of Bangkok, the area most budget travellers stay. We were surprised after travelling through India and the Middle East to find that Bangkok was a clean and orderly city. Although there was a large amount of traffic, car drivers waited patiently in line without pushing-in or blaring their car horns. The road network has ground level 'free-ways' with overhead toll road and sky-trains. Motorcycles are not allowed to use the toll roads and can be fined $20 for doing so. The following day we made our way back to the cargo area of the airport, with Ben and Dianne, to collect our motorcycles. The procedure was straightforward and within 6 hours we had finalised all the paperwork, taken the bikes out of their crates, re-assembled them and were ready to ride off into the hot and humid Thailand atmosphere. |
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We fly from Kathmandu to Bangkok (Thailand) and the motorbikes come with the same plane. The next morning we go to the cargo department. Some smart guys come to us and want for customs clearing, handling fee and 3 day storage fee US$ 140! No way dudes. We ignore these guys and go to the custom information office and they help us to find the right offices. After 6 hours, 7 different offices, 20 stamps and much more signatures the bikes are released. We only paid 1000 Baht (22 US$) for 2 bikes for customs clearing. |
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Picked up the bikes from the airport cargo yesterday, took about 8 hours to sort all the paperwork out etc. but was apparently straight forward ( I of course sat around the pool, no place for a Rachie these cargo bays!). Only cost about 7 pound fifty to release, so that was good also. |
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Bangkok was steamy and hot in contrast to the dry heat of India. Getting the bike out of customs was a marathon effort and Bangkok airport cargo on a Monday morning would have to be one of the busiest we have seen. Connor's story of releasing the bike taking a day without an agent had us engaging one, hoping this would speed things up. No such luck and we departed the cargo terminal at 5pm charging into the peak hour traffic. This was after negotiating a substantial reduction in our fees, 3,800 Thai Baht to 1,500 Thai Baht. Avoiding the freeways we lost ourselves and extended our journey back to the hotel by over an hour and several kms. Sight seeing around Bangkok was fun using the local buses we visited a few Buddist Temples. Our hotel, New World Guest House was surrounded by sidewalk restaurants where the food was superb and we tried almost everything. After purchasing a new rear tyre, we headed to Kanchanaburi or the famous bridge over the river Kwae. This was not our day as we left Bangkok, we missed a turn and ended up on a freeway, a no go area for motorcycles. We were chased by a motorcycle cop who promptly demanded a 1,000 Baht donation. After much discussion, the policeman, after a very deft move, absconded with our map and compass. We gave chase. This was a ploy to get us back to the station where he had moral support. He was out numbered three to one on the freeway. A disscussion was had for several minutes (loud) with our apprehender leaving in disgust as his superior gave us the benefit of the doubt and said 'go'. The chant of 'money, money, money' still rings in our ears as we leave. I might add it was Carol's negotiating skills and determination that saved the day. |
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Most motorcycle travelers enter Thailand with their motorcycles through air cargo at the Bangkok airport, so Customs officials there know what a Carnet de Passage is and how to process it. Gone are demands for bribes from various Customs officials like in India. It is a simple process to get the motorcycle cleared and on the road, where speeds are back closer to 120 kph and seldom is a horn heard unless you have made a mistake. One couple was able to fly their fully loaded BMW R80 G/S from New Delhi to Bangkok for just over $200.00 USD, one of the world's best air cargo bargains for moving motorcycles across water. I think it would be foolish to ride a motorcycle to an Indian seaport and ship it by boat to Thailand. The horror stories of boats and bikes into and out of India abound like jokes about blondes. By air cargo, for $200.00 your motorcycle is out of India and on the road in Thailand, where the only blondes seen are foreign tourists. Bangkok is motorcycle friendly, until you find yourself riding in a designated bus lane or on one of the "No Motorcycle" expressways. I never figured out how to determine where I was not to ride because the signs were in Thai or non-existent. One motorcyclist from Ireland got tagged for $20.00 USD by a bike cop for being on the expressway, while two others travelers I met talked (cried) their way out of having to pay. I got stopped twice, could not work up the tears to fake a cry or conjure up some good Texas dummy-talk, but did manage to avoid the roadside tax by showing the cops all I had was an American Express Card (expired) and some Pesos from Mexico (in my fake wallet-I carry two, one real and one a fake filled with expired junk and business cards.) The roadside cops around Bangkok ask for payment on the spot, do not write a ticket and want cash. I have a feeling they got their training from the bike cops in Panama. Once you get away from Bangkok these cop problems seem to fade like smoke. |
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Finally, the bikes arrived from Kathmandu. It has been over two weeks since we have been on them, and we are all hanging out to get going again. Sam with his BMW R1100GS in the foreground. Peter, a Dutchman who happened to be picking up his Yamaha Super Tenere at the same time, in the background. |
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We landed at 6:15pm local time, breezed through passport control, and gathered our bags in record time. We hopped on the airport-bus to downtown Bangkok for 140bhat($4), and we were dropped off at the entrance to the Siam Intercontinental Hotel -- Mom and dad were already checked in. My parent's were on a 3+ week holiday in SE Asia, and they wanted to treat us to a bit of luxury. Tuesday morning, we dragged ourselves through the hot and humid air into a taxi back to the airport -- We missed Nepal already! We got the bikes imported in one day (much better than India which took 3 days), but it was still a long day. We could have hired an import agent, but the process was simple enough and the customs people were very friendly/helpful. I also enjoy the process of working/dealing with the local people -- it gives me a good perspective of what's to come. We arrived at the airport around 9:45am and finished with customs around 2:00pm. It then took just under 2 hours to open the crates and rebuild the bikes. Aside from the Carnet and a stamp in our passports for guarantee, we paid 567bhat/bike (about $16.50 each) for processing. There was a petrol station just outside the airport where we tanked up and headed back to our air-conditioned room. One important note: Motorbikes are not allowed on the Toll-Highway between the airport and downtown Bangkok. This proved to be a hassle as the highway was empty and the local roads were filled with rush-hour traffic. |
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On the next morning it takes us also to the airport. We want to try to get our motorcycles from the inch. They should have arrived tags before with us in the same airplane from Kathmandu. After a breakfast at the air port we begin around approx. 9,00 o'clock with the Thai air with the investigations. There we get indicated that the motorcycles actually already are in Bangkok. Use last second one had inserted smaller airplane in Kathmandu still another and was not not safe we us whether the motorcycles had also on board gone as promised. From the Thai cargo switch out went it then loosely, which had customs papers is completed. In order to make the thing short: We and the customs officers fill out many, many forms on this day, make some copies of our passports, run from a Office in the next. But cash hardly costs the whole. Only for the handling of the crates in stocks us a fee of 25 becomes, - DM per motorcycle calculates. All involved ones are extraordinarily friendly and helpful. Everyone seems to know that two Motrraeder arrived at crates, because everyone us sees, asks us: are you the two with the motorcycles? In the late afternoon at 17.00 o'clock we get then finally the crates with the motorcycles on the parking lot inch-resound placed. During the following assembly approx. 25 spectators appear themselves, who interest the happening pursue. If we need assistance, in order to place e.g. the motorcycles without front wheel on the front column, someone always is to the place, which without many words simply with touches. End the conclusion Michael shows us still, where we had had to lower sprit to seize to be able and the tire pressure again to increase be able, these we for safety reasons before the flight strongly. |