Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Going abroad with a Thai motorbike

Yeah a great idea! Even it is rainy season - unfortunately. But before you can leave Thailand with your motobike (or car) you need to get a lot of paperwork done.

1. You will need an International Drivers License
I went down to the place where you can make your drivers license. I brought my two Thai Drivers Licenses and they gave me a paper. With this formular I went to the Phuket Immigration first floor. The officer there wrote another paper. Therefore I needed the Passport including my not expired ThaiVisa, 2 Pictures midium ones 2" and my notification certificate. If you don't have the notification certificate you will need your house registration papers. It will cost about 100 Baht and then you can go back to the Drivers License place near Saphan Hin. They filled out the forms for me and charge about 300 Baht. They also needed 2 copies of your passport and 2 from your valid Visa. Finally I took a number in the room around the corner after paying another 450 Baht and waited. When you get called they will take pictures of you and charge you 105 Baht. Then I needed to wait again and depending on how many people will be waiting with you, you can pick up your new international smart card drivers license (valid for 3 years) quite fast, like me. You don't need to pay anything here and they will also provide nice covers (1 per card only) free of charge.

2. Next is getting International (translated) Papers for your vehicle - in my case a Honda Phantom 200CC motorbike
Therefore I needed again a copy of my passport and valid visa, company-papers and company stamp as well as signatures and IDcards and houseregistration papers from your thai or other managers (i.e. if your vehicle is registered on the company and you have a thai manager), otherwise you will need your houseregistration papers and workpermit. It took about 1 day to get the translation and it costs only 25 Baht!

Enjoy your trip beside the Thai Borders with your Thai Motorbike. I will too :-)
(All information provided as is and it happened to me it might be different when you apply for it - please keep this always in mind)

3. Going with a Honda Phantom 200CC
Yeah the Honda Phantom is made in Thailand and very very solid and good. It consumes only little gasoline and best of all - all around Thailand you will find nearly every 5km someone who could repair your machine. During our Motorbike Diaries Tour 2006 we never needed this assistance and oil changes where made in a breeze of time in about 20-30 Minutes. We drove 7500 km one time all around Thailand in 24 days. Check out our nice Motorbike diaries Videos we made from each day of our trips.

If you wanna really see and meet Thailand and its pleople then go by Bike. You won't regret it. Our 2 boys Anakin and Sky Bird were sitting each infront of my wife and me and were mostly sleeping on the tank ;-) but they loved the tour and still like to sleep on the motorbike.

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