To Klang and Back

30 Decembre 2008

I woke up at 930 feeling like it was 3 am and I hadn’t rested. I really don’t like those morning. I was ready to call every port agent in Klang to try and get the wombat.

First, I called the contact that Mr Indrawan gave me in Klang. It was a nice lady named Syima at Modern Shipping. She told me that we had to pay a release fee of 610RM in cash to her at the office to release the car. It turns out that the port didn’t have a record of our cargo because we haven’t paid the release fee. It makes sense so that people can’t get their cargo unless they’ve paid. She gave me the name of a shipping agent who could help facilitate the retrieval of our cargo.

I call the agent, Mr Halim, who tells me that it is going to take 2-3 days to complete the paperwork to get the cargo. Because it is a car, we have to apply for customs approval to release it and it needs to be inspected. I was pretty upset...I wanted the car today to drive up to Thailand to see our friends for New Year’s!

To calm down, I call my family on Skype. It is so nice to see them. My brother shows me his new bass and my mom shows me her Montréal Canadiens paraphernalia. I think the Canadiens heard that I was down because as I was talking to my family, they won against Florida 5-2 (they scored twice while I was on the phone with them!). Lapierre got a hat trick, which means the Canadiens have scored a hat trick in the last two games they’ve played! (Kostistyn scored a hat trick against Pittsburgh). In any case, I was pretty psyched. Another picker-upper was to see my kitty cats on the webcam. It’s silly but I miss them very very much. Pets dont call or email, so Skype is as good as it gets!

So now I was all happy and ready to face the bureaucracy of shipping companies. We took the bus to Klang without a hitch and arrived in the town centre. We took a taxi for 20 RM to the Modern Shipping office. Syima was waiting for us, remembered our names, and was ready to help us. It took me a while to understand everything that needed to be done. We were meant to apply for customs approval, pay our fee and then we would get a ledger number that needs to be entered into an electronic system which allows us to release the cargo from the port. Apparently we needed to hire an agent because we don’t have access to the electronic system.

So we had lunch and called the agent again. His fees were 400RM + 700RM because it is a car + the 610RM release fee. That is ridiculous! It’s almost as much as the shipping itself! So we went back to see Syima. She told us that was indeed too much money, so she gave us the name of another agent.

I called him, and he said that because we had a carnet, we didn’t need to apply for customs approval. All we needed to do was pay the fee and get the shipping company (Syima) key in the ledger number to release the car to us. The reason you hire an agent is that individuals don’t have access to the electronic system, so when the shipping agent keys in the ledger number, they can’t release the car to us, they release it to the agent. The agent we called wanted to charge us 600 RM (cheaper than the other guy) but he was out of town! So while he was on holiday, we would do all the work and go to the port, but we would have to wait until he was back in town to release our car! Screw that!

We went back to see Syima ( she was so patient and polite with us!) who told us that it was unreasonable. She made a phone call and said that we could go to the port in the morning and we should be able to get things sorted. We paid the 610RM release fee, to avoid having to come back to the office. She gave us the invoice and said that we should be okay now.

Many people are not familiar with the carnet, and now I’ve learned to talk to as many people as it needs to find someone who has heard of it! The procedures are different whether you hold a carnet or not, so it’s important to hear the steps to take from someone who knows what a carnet is! I wouldn’t have panicked about all of this 2-3 days custom approval thing if I had just kept calling different people until I spoke to someone who was certain what a carnet was. Live and learn!

We headed back to the Klang city centre and had 45 minutes until 5pm. We thought it might be worthwhile to go to the port just so that we would be familiar with it and could get things done faster the next day. We waited at the bus stop until 450pm and then realized that we should just go back to KL and go straight to Westports in the morning. By then, it had been a long day!

Back in KL we went to the same curry house as before. Jonny had his favourite tandoori chicken with butter naan and I had an almost-too-spicy tom yam soup. Great dinner.

We bought snacks to have a little movie night. Volcano was on television. I love seeing geologists in movies. Anne Heche is classic. I love when movies over simplify geology...I reckon they do the same for every subject in movies, but I notice geology because that’s what I studied. When Anne Heche explains plate tectonics to Tommy Lee Jones: classic. I internet-movie-databased to see the goofs, Jonny and I laughed. Good times. We ended up watching Full Metal Jacket for movie night. Not a good thing to watch right before bed...Especially when the alarm is set for 530 the next morning.

Marie-Claude