South-East Asia to Americas by air
 

My wife and I have been on the road for several months (rtw) and now find ourselves in South-East Asia, Thailand to be specific. We plan on being in the region for another 3 months at which time we want to continue onto South America.

We want to ship by air and are flexible as to where we ship from and to. Where we are less flexible is the cost and what little information I could find on the site is very dated and seems to indicate that we might expect to pay about 4000 USD to get the bike to just about anywhere in the Americas (!!!).

Options include flying from Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur or Singapore and possible destinations would be anywhere in South-America or as a second option to anywhere in Central America. It all depends on the cheapest flying option.

So...Does anybody have any recent info on flying their bike from South-East Asia to the Americas that they could share with us? Shipping agents or the best place to ship from (or to)? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hi Brian, Hi Marie

How you doing? No long time from when you were here and you are so far???
The 4000 USD sounds like very expensive, I ask Sandra to enquire from this end for you. I will let you know by email soon.
Hope all are going well.
Regards

4000 USD does sound a bit steep. In April -08, I was quoted somewhere around 1800-2000 euros for flying our Vstrom from Sydney to Helsinki (we chose seafreight instead). It is a long way across the Pacific, but so is this, and it would´ve probably needed to change the plane twice.

I arranged myself to fly from Phnom Phen to Korea. For the create, customs, a helper and the flight for my bike was around the 600-700$ USD.

I flew my bike with Thai, they arranged it to be flown as spare parts. I wasn't allowed to have my battery, fuel or oil in my bike. But I taped up the battery terminals and when created it was completely hidden by the create.

I can give better details on who / where to go to make it easier if you require. (and I know a place to stay that's bike friendly in Phnom Phen)

Hello there Javier!

All is going well with us. What can I say, we move fast! Besides, it is very hard to find good steak and good (inexpensive) wine once you leave Argentina so we are both dying to get back there (it seems 5 months was not enough!). Besides, we missed a few countries in South-America that we want to go to (Brazil, Guyanas, etc) on our way up.

The problem with the info on costs is that the most recent dates to 2 years ago and there is very little out there. But it does seem like Valparaiso might be a good place to ship to or BA.

On our end we will try Trans Air Cargo in Bangkok. Somebody referred to them as being good so we will check it out. And if Sandra can find something out that would be great too.

Cheers and please say hi to her for us!

I agree that it sounds steep. We were expecting to pay about 2000 USD when we did our budget a while back. One thing is for sure, we will post here on the hubb once we find out the costs.

This could turn out to be usefull info for us. At least it might provide an alternative place to ship from for an extra 600 to 700 USD if need be. And I never would have thought it possible to ship from Phnom Phen. Thanks!

A great place to stay is Okay Guess house, they have a large place to park your bike
11.559727, 104.934046 - Google Maps

Just down the road is Thai air Cargo in the Hong Kong Centre. They speak really good English - remember to say you want to send it as spare parts.
11.557272, 104.933263 - Google Maps

Just up the road is a company I got to make my create and one of the guys helped me out to do the paper work on the day ( I gave him a small tip - but that's up to you)
You will need him, as its pretty confusing and unless you get someone to help you there you will have no idea which door to go through, when to take your shoes off etc etc...
11.561261, 104.934030 - Google Maps

If you go the export guy here (see link) he will help you do up a letter address to him ( I may have a copy of this some where) and you will need to get it stamped.
This process normally takes Khmer people about a week, but this guy loves travellers so he does it for you in a day.
11.574158, 104.922813 - Google Maps

Let me know if you need to know something else.

Here is a little update. We made our way to KL and have decided to try to fly the bike from here. Initial estimates are not good so I doubt we will be flying our bike anywhere from here.

We first contacted Maskargo (the cargo division of Malaysian Airlines) and received an initial quote of 39 ringgit per KG to fly from KL to Buenos Aires. The airline flies this route twice per week, their only flight to South-America from what I could gather. Our bike with crate weights 370 kg so this works out to about 4400 USD :eek3: and would exclude any fees in BA.

Then we contacted a shipping agent to see the difference in price. He quoted us approx. 4800 USD :eek3::eek3:.

Looks like our bike will be sailing once again unless Trans Air Cargo in Bangkok can do better. Will try contacting Kittima once again tomorrow and post results here.