Bike Transportation
As I had to commence our ride from Bishkek, the toughest challenge was to take our bikes to Bishkek. Initially I had planned to ride from India to UK but owing to time constraints and difficulties in crossing China, I had decided to start my ride from Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek).
The options available to me was sea, land or air route. Kyrgyzstan being land locked country, sea route would have bikes going to a designated port (Iran or China) and then by road or train. This would be cheaper option but would require more time and booking of full container. LCL (loose container load) option is available but is not safe with minimum assurance from transporters. movement completely by road is time consuming and has problems of no assured time slot for delivery. By air is the tougher option with first identifying a carrier and then negotiating a decent price.
Finally I homed onto two companies which showed a bit of interest in transporting our bikes from India to Bishkek. I decided on the Delhi based company which I found better in rates and more confident in my dealings. Jyotsna was very helpful and decided to help in our transportation just for the thrill of the expedition.
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| Bubble Wrap on the Bike |
The whole deal works with another trunk load of paperwork. Indian bureaucracy at it's best. I now believe my British friend who told me 'We invented bureaucracy but you guys have perfected it'.
The bikes would be booked based on volume of the complete package. Bikes were taken for pelleting (crating) and packed for travel.
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| Wooden Crates for Individual Bikes |
Approvals were sought from customs with our bike papers, registration certificates, Carnet (passport and visa of bike) obtained from automobile federation of India. They needed certificates as to why we are going and for what purpose. Not ready to believe that Indians can also go for bike rides for just fun. It took a personal visit from me to meet the customs guys to explain the ride and getting the file cleared. The custom guys were ready to release my bike but refused to approve bike of this civilian from Gujrat. I had to take the matter to higher up and finally assisted in getting approval for this civilian guy from Baroda also. It took me nearly a week with five trips to custom office and a lot of cajoling.
After custom clearance and inspection the bike was packed and handed over to air cargo company for fumigation and x-ray. Again a few certificates including basic reason for travelling, battery and fuel queries were required. Everything costs money to include, packing of bikes, to wooden crates, to transporting the crates to airport hold, to fumigation, to x-ray to money for using machinery for lifting these crates.
Finally, after missing three flights, the bikes in their respective pellets were handed over to airline on night of 15th June 2013 for transportation personally by me. The bikes were to fly by Korean Airline from Delhi in India to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan via Navoi in Uzbekistan.
I visited the company office and paid my balance of amount, another bomb for my bike. I started my journey on 16th June 2013 with assurance from Jyotsna that bikes would be in Bishkek latest by 17th June 2013.
Let's hope for the best.....
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