Dear fellow travellers,

We are Dave and Marly and driving 2 Honda NX 250 motorbikes from Amsterdam to Cape Town. For more details visit: travelin.tk

But now we have a question to you experienced motorcycle travellers:

Marly's bike quite urgently needs a new chain, but with Honda Jordan in Amman it was a schocking 270 JD (300E), because of import taxes.

A fitting DID 520VX chain is only 75-100E in The Netherlands, so we didn't buy it.

We called Honda Egypt and they can order the chain for around 100 US$, but the time to order is somewhere between 1 and 2 months (from the time of down payment, so we first have to be in Cairo first, before the clock starts ticking!) and we don't plan in being/don't want to be in Egypt that long.

We have now ordered the chain in Holland and want to send it (by parcel mail) to Egypt (our next country), but now we hear it can be difficult, might take a long time and the import tax is high. But maybe sending it to Jordan is cheaper and faster? We could hang around in Jordan for 2 weeks more...

Does anyone have any experience with sending motorcycle parts to these countries?

Would it be easier/cheaper to send it to Jordan or Egypt?

Or do we just need to pull our wallet and buy the chain on offer in Jordan, for way too much money?

Any ideas would be appreciated! Thanks!

I am not sure which would be the best country to send it to but make sure the sender values it as cheaply as possible, find out the price of the cheapest chain and use that price on the customs declaration.

Fellow travelers,

Eventually we realised that Aqaba in the South of Jordan is a free trade zone, so no import duties when shipping stuff to this place!

We asked the automobile association if they could send us the parts. They bought a chain for us in Holland for 130 euro (a bit more expensive than the normal price of 90-100 euro), but shipping it to us for free (because we have an insurance with them for worldwide assistance). It took only 3 days before the chain arrived in Jordan, very fast!

In Aqaba we didn't have to pay duties. We had to pay handling and storage costs (we picked up the part 3 days after it arrived) for a total of 60 euros.

We have the chain now and can continue our journey!

(And now we have learned to replace the chain and sprockets before going on such a journey, even when the chain is not worn yet before you set off. A brand new-chain will always have more mileage on it than a almost new chain.)

Thanks, Mark, for your suggestion!

Greetings,

Dave and Marly
travelin.tk

Yep, that´s a good tip. And to add to that: especially if I had two similar bikes, then I´d carry an extra chain and sprocket set on a trip like this. I think I´d actually do it even if going solo.

Yeah they weigh something, but not so much afterall (esp. when you can divide between two bikes). That way you are pretty much guaranteed not to have a headache with anything regarding the secondary drive, because you can change the whole set in the bushes, if you need to - that´s one of the advantages of a chain.

Not meaning to sound like a smartass (even though I probably did, but honestly no offense to anyone)... and good to hear you´ve now got it sorted.