Hi Gary,
I have brought the same bike up to Thailand twice.
The first time was in 2004, I shipped the bike by container from Darwin to Singapore.
I did a lot of homework on Horizons Unlimited. com.
I did the right thing and got a Carnet, International Licence and arrived in Singapore. This story has been repeated endlessly on HU.
So check out the reports.
Malaysia was easy, stamped carnet and I was off for 4 weeks of riding in Malaysia. At the Thai/Malaysian border, still no problems. Got the Carnet stamped on both sides of the border. I bought 12 months of insurance on the Thai side for 500bht.
In one year I crossed numerous borders in SE Asia, didn't get far in Burma and a no entry in Vietnam.
Come home via Indonesia/East Timor 12 months later and arrived back in Darwin via Container. 38,000km later. With no problems with border crossings.
Move forward to 2008, done the same thing except shipped the bike to KL Malaysia, the only stuff up was a delay in Oz by a week, which stuffed up my trip to
the Malaysian GP on my bike.
Got to the Malaysian/Thai border, yep you guessed it Thailand no longer recognises a Carnet, best I got was one month.
As I live in Samui at the time it was a 700km round trip once a month.
Asking a high up customs officer why the change of policy, answer "not customs problem, police". I then asked him what if I don't do a border run. Answer "fine, 1000bht". I left with a smile and commenting that it is worth a 1000bht not to do the run.
Unfortunately the GFC hit late in 2008 and I ended up back in Oz with no bike. Left her in Samui for 12 months.
I am now in Chiang Mai with the same bike, very illegal on Qld Aussie plates.
I guess I'd better do a border run to Burma to keep her legal.
I wonder if I can send the bill to the American Government for putting me in the financial situation that they created.
Cheers
Tom
