Going international - the Caravan hits Singapore

I ended up staying in Brisbane for 5 nights - it's not a bad city to mooch around in, I'd found great accommodation at Bunk Backpackers, and made some new friends. It was good to have a day off from riding, but I got over that fairly quickly and I'm now experiencing separation anxiety from the trusty Transalp. With hindsight, I should have put the bike on a plane in Brisbane and saved myself 3.5 weeks of backpacking, but I had to make a snap decision if I was going to make the 13 January cut off for the Brisbane-Singapore container ship. The situation was not helped by some particularly clueless freight forwarders - Qantas referred me to Dangerous Goods Management, who referred me to Schenkers, who then took a week to provide me with a completely unintelligible quote for airfreight to Singapore (problem 1 - no total and no way of adding it up, problem 2 - the bike had been on the ship for 4 days by the time the quote came through). I've since discovered that bikes have been airfreighted with Qantas and DGM with relatively little fuss - I think the lesson here (since I'm no longer a consultant I won't call it a key takeaway) is that with an unusual situation like this, if you ask 3 different people at the same company, you get 3 different answers (and hopefully one of them is the answer you want).

New friends in Brisbane - Emma, Onnie, Erik and Nagore

A day at the movies - Brisbane style (yes, that's Alvin and the Chipmunks)

On 18 January, the One Man Caravan went international (the rider at least - the bike's still stuck at the port) and I arrived in Singapore. My old friend Shri and his lovely wife Deepa very kindly offered to host me - hopefully his parents were consulted, since Shri still lives with them (temporarily, he tells me...). Anyway, the Jayakumar family were wonderful hosts, and they have a fabulous house in a great part of town. I was really enjoying a life of luxury, but I needed to find a couple of weeks to kick back and plan the next part of the trip while waiting for the bike. I eventually opted for Bali because it seems like there's a lot to do there, and I can always hop over to Lombok if I get bored. Plus 3 days in Singapore were starting to hurt the bank balance (even with free accommodation), and it appears there's more trouble on the horizon there...

Shri and Deepa - fantastic hosts

Now in most countries I'll be travelling through, a visa plus a carnet for the bike should be enough to get by. Insurance is either optional or can be blagged. But in Singapore, before I can clear the bike through customs, I need to show an ICP ($10) and an autopass card ($10), and before I can get either, I need 3rd party insurance. It seems like the only organisation that will insure me is the AA, and they want $150... which is a bit steep for about 15km of riding in Singapore. Even Horizons Unlimited, the font of all adventure motorcycling knowledge, has failed to come up with an alternative. Now $150 would buy me five nights of luxury accommodation in Bali, so it really grates, but as they say, Singapore is a fine city... Looks like I'll end up sucking it up - I can't wait to get back in the saddle again.