I need to leave my bike in Thialand
 

Hi,

I did to leave my bike in Thialand for a Month or so any ideas, to return to the UK?

Ride Free, Ride Safe, Ride one more mile,


Rik & changeling (R80Tic BMW)

Hi

Not easy. As I understand it, you must leave the country with your bike and the carnet stamped before your visa expires.

If, however, you glue the pages of your passport together so that the customs people can't see that the bike is stamped in your passport, leave the bike at Mr Yut's lock up in Bangkok, fly out, fly back before your original visa and carnet expires, ride out of the country to one of the smaller Cambodian borders for a day, ride back in and hey presto, fresh paperwork.

I, of course, could not reccmmend this and neither could a certain travelling companion who had to return home last Xmas for a few weeks.




------------------
Sean

If I remember rightly Thailand does not use carnets. They have their own system where you have to sign a form saying that you will take the bike out of the country within a month or pay 11000 US dollars or go to prison. Cambodia also does not use carnets either although last autum they allowed me to use mine and said that I would be the last one! Not a concern though as instead that just do as Thailand does and have their own paperwork making sure you will take the bike with you.

Not sure how you want to play it but do consider the fact that even for overtsyaing your visa you can end up in jail in Thailand.

Malaysia on the other hand is not so strict! http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/wink.gif

You could probably ride your bike into Malaysia without a carnet at all. I rode mine in three times .. once from thailand, twice from Singapore (both border crossings) and no one checked. I even forgot to get my passport stamped from Singapore to Malaysia the last time and had to ride back! When I shipped from port Klang (near KL) they had to sort my carnet out as it was suppsed yo be stamped. This eas easily doen as apparently.. no many people gets their carnets stamped at the borders as the customs forget/don't bother.

Cheers
Dave

You just get a stamp in your passport, if you come into Thailand via Airport ect. You can go down to Malasia and back to Thailand and no one is interested in your bike, same between Laos and Thailand. This spring a met a swiss couple who done it and leaved the bike for 6 month in Bangkok. Anyway, when I flew out of Bangkok, no one was interested in this stamp in my passport, there was no stamp that I brought my bike out of the country already. They didn't asked for the carnet or whatever!
Katharina

Hi

Just to add that my friend spent most of a day at Bangkok customs pleading his case and they were absolutely adamant that it wasn't legal to leave the country without the vehicle. Of course, if you are lucky and your particular customs guy doesn't check or care, then...

------------------
Sean

We needed to leave our two bikes in Thailand while we flew home to Australia for a funeral. Both bikes had been in Thailand on our carnets, even though they are not valid in Thailand, when we came out of Cambodia.Previous to that they were in Thailand on a customs paper issued at the Malay Thai border. We left the bikea at Chaing Mai when we flew out and had no problems at all. This was in March 2001.

Hi Rik,
Seans idea does work,however if you are only going home for 30 days you can ride to the laos or cambodian borders in a day from Bangkok and get a new "white paper" which is valid for 30 days then, upon your return in 29 days repeat the process and you will be legal,we had to do this for our Christmas stay last year.
Or if you are travelling under a Carnet you can just hand in your old "white paper" at the boder when you leave and B.S. the border guys if they notice the overdue date...
Cheers, Cameron

------------------

I got quite a big stamp in my passport with a piece of card attached to it indicating my motorcycle and it's registration, engine size etc. I flew in from Kathmandu and flew the bike in by cargo. Each time I left Thailand with the bike (never left without the bike) customs checked my 'white paper' and asked for it when I didn't offer it right away. I left and entered 3 times Oct 2002. As said already though, you can get yourself a new 30 days 'white paper' each time you enter Thailand.