GETTING THE NECESSARY APPROVALS

1. The paper work necessary to drive one's car from one country to another in our region is somewhat less developed, resulting in inconsistent practices and onerous regulatory compliance in some instances; not always customer friendly. This is really because driving holidays is still an immature sector of the tourism industry in the region. Few people take their car and drive from one country to another, touring the region. If any, people would mostly just drive to the immediate neighbouring country, eg. Singaporeans driving to Malaysia, or Thais driving to Cambodia. It reflects the level of affluence of the region, eg. as compared to Europe or Australia; but as the region develops, this form of holidays will become more prevalent, as it provides a different experience for the travellers.

2. I started meeting with officials of some ASEAN Embassies here from early March to find out what are the necessary steps to take to allow me to tour their countries in my car. Overall, they were supportive and helpful, and enthusiastic about my plan. Cambodian Embassy said that they had handled organised car rallies but never had such a request of 1-2 cars before and they would clarify with its government. They said that the officials at the border crossing points are likely to be unfamiliar with the procedures and it is better to have a letter from its government or Embassy to facilitate my entry to Cambodia. Lao Embassy expressed similar sentiment.

3. It is interesting to note that, Liliana and Emil Schmid, the Swiss couple who have been travelling round the world for some 24 years in their Toyota Land Cruiser, had a trouble-free experience at the border crossing into Lao. They said in the website, "Contrary to all predictions, our passports and Carnet de Passages are stamped with any signs of corruption straight forward".

4. To date, thanks to the assistance of Lao and Cambodian officials in Singapore, I had received facilitation letters from the Lao and Cambodia Embassies.

5. Procedure and compliance requirements for Vietnam, Mynamar and China are onerous. According to Eviva Tour Vietnam, the travel agent handling our application for our car to travel in Vietnam, our application is currently on the desk of the Premier office for his approval. For the application, other than the necessary details of the car, the government also requires a detailed day by day itinerary for the journey in Vietnam (given the nature of our trip, we rather want to keep our itinerary flexible). We also need to specify the points of entry and exit; once approved they cannot be changed.

6. In addition, we will be required to have a tour guide following us throughout our stay in Vietnam. To save costs, we plan to have the guide seats in our car. Squeezy, but tolerable. Overall cost for getting the car permit for a 3 weeks travel in Vietnam would amount to more than US$2500; US$2000 for getting the car permit, slightly more than US$30 daily rate charge for the tour guide and US$25 for the necessary car insurance. Cost, of course, on a per car basis will be lower if there are more cars. With the assistance of the Vietnamese official in Singapore, we had received the facilitation letter from the Vietnam Embassy here, but we are still waiting for news from Eviva Tours for the formal approval letter of our application.

7. According to CTS Club Beijing, which is helping us with our planned driving holiday in Southern China, "self drive travel can only be handled by special licensed travel agent. There are a lot of work involved with a lot of man-hour attached, hence it is highly labour-intensive, and the workload and procedures are not as easy as what the ordinary people expected. Various documentations are required to be sent to multiple levels of government department/agency (especially the cities/province intended to be visited by the group) for approval".

8. Time needed for the application is normally 3 months, travel agent will charge an estimated cost of RMB 35,000 to 40,000 (US$5-6000) to do the pre-trip documentations and process the application. Although PRC is a Carnet country, we understand that there is still a need for a compulsory vehicle deposit paid to the customs. This is to ensure that the owner would not “smuggle” the car into China and dispose it off along the journey. At the estimated commercial value of the car, this deposit will be reimbursed upon disembarkation; about S$60,000 in my case.

9. In addition, an appointed vehicle and travel guide are required to follow the group (even if it is only one car like me) on the road and all the expenses including food and lodging are to be borne by the travellers.

10. Given the high cost and the long application time, we decided to leave the trip to China to a later time.

11. Requirements for Myanmar are no less onerous and have taken long time. We were told that an application for a self drive holiday will need Cabinet's approval. We expect that approval will not come so soon; quite undestandably given their deep concern over security.

12. Procedure for crossing into Thailand is more straight forward. What we need is the Carnet, insurance coverage (which can be bought at the Gurun service station (travelling along the N-S highway in Pennisular Malaysia) just before the border crossing or at the many outlets at the border crossing, and the completed manifest. Insurance coverage for Singapore cars would generally only cover up to 50 km into the Thailand/Malaysia border. Separate insurance would have to be bought for travels beyond. In a recent car rally to Hatyai, I paid 14 Ringgits for a 2 day coverage. Separate insurance would have to be considered for the other countries, as with the case in Vietnam, including whether its for third parties coverage or for own car as well.

13. A few words on The Carnet de Passages. This is a customs document that identifies a driver's motor vehicle. There are more than 160 countries which are parties to the Carnet agreement. These countries will facilitate travel in and out of the country without imposing customs duty if the car carries a Carnet document. This is really an anti-smuggling measure. In Singapore, AA is the authority issuing Carnet. Cost is $107, document is valid for one year, after giving a cheque for 80% of the commercial value of the car. A banker guarantee is also acceptable. Given the current low interest environment I gave a cheque of S$60 000 to AA. I will get this back when I return with my car. Process is efficient, and I got my Carnet in days.

14. Less Vietnam's approval, documentation wise, we are all set to go. Eviva Tour Vietnam assured us that we will get our approval in due course. Our plan is to proceed with the ASEAN on Wheels journey on 27 Apr as planned, and we can always collect the documents in Vientiane or Phnom Penh at our Singapore Embassies there.

15. Considerable amount of work had gone in over the last 2 months, working with the embassies and the travel agents, to get the necessary approvals. We are grateful for the support rendered by the various ASEAN Embassies here. We are also indebted to Quek Bee Lan, who in her own personal capacity, had rendered many hours of her our own time to help with the facilitation and applications.

16. Overall, there is scope to significantly simplify and harmonise the procedures for self drive holidays in the region. They are good examples around the world that we can study and adopt. Such efforts will facilitate travel in the region, help integration and encourage people to people exchanges and grow tourism.

17. Also, I found little information in the web that facilitates self drive holidays in the region.

ONE WEEK TO D-DAY

1. This time next week Sunny and I would spend our first night on the road, possibly at Ipoh or Taiping in Perak, the start of our two months ASEAN on Wheels journey to the Indochina countries, i.e. we are 7 days to D day, 27 Apr 09. This week will be an intense week as we finish the preparation for the trip.

2. After 2 months of exploring and seeking various approvals, we had decided to scale back on our plan. We decided to drop the Southern China leg of Guangxi and Yunnan, as the cost of approvals and complying with current regulations is very high. Given that our theme is ASEAN on Wheels, we reckoned that the omission is no big loss. We also decided to drop Myanmar as approval (to self drive in Myanmar) is taking a long time. We felt that it may be better to leave it to another trip later.

3. The revised plan now calls for travel to Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, then back to Laos, Thailand etc. All in all, we would have an average of 2 weeks per country, for Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam; enough time to explore the country and not having to rush. Given its size, we plan to spend about 3 weeks in Vietnam. When done, we would have travelled about 10, 000 km.

4. As this is a free and easy journey to explore and experience the Indochina countries, we decided that as a rule we do not book in advance hotels and tours. We will look for hotel room when we arrive at city or town that we are planning to stay the night. The hunt is part of the fun. Our budget is S$100 per night, twin-sharing.

5. For reason of safety and to allow us to see as much of the country as possible, we decided that we will only drive in the day; no more than 5-6 hours each day split between two of us. A comfortable pace.

6. Will focus the next postings on seeking the necessary approvals, getting the vehicle ready, and procuring the necessary supplies for the trip. Look out for them.

7. Sunny has also set up a blog to share his thoughts and experiences during the trip - www.2free-n-easy.blogspot.com. Do visit it.

ASEAN On Wheels, Part 1

For my first adventure, I have decided to cover ASEAN by road. For Part 1 of the journey, I will cover the Indochina countries of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Myanmar, in addition to Malaysia. (See map on left)

I have set aside two months for this journey, May and June. My co-driver of this trip is Sunny Loo, a close friend of mine for 20 years. I am sure we will have lots of fun together. During this trip, I hope to better understand the car (which is really the travel companion), and what it takes to keep it going for thousands of kilometers, week after week.

I hope to complete the ASEAN on Wheels journey by early next year. The challenges will be different, as regular sea transportations will be a key feature for Indonesia and the Philippines. The ASEAN experience will prepare me for longer trips which I hope to make in the future.

I am looking forward to discovering the different places and peoples of ASEAN. When I was at the STB, we worked very closely with all our ASEAN neighbours and we planned tourism campaigns together as well as crafted policies on how we could promote tourism to the ASEAN region.

It wil be nice to explore ASEAN as a traveler this time. I am sure it will give me a
better appreciation of the immense tourism potential of the ASEAN nations and the challenges faced in realising this potential. Hopefully, I can make a small contribution to the promotion of tourism in ASEAN.

I think what’s needed on a road journey are common sense, some knowledge about cars and adequate preparation. It shouldn’t be too hard. More critical, I think, is having the right mindset.

We should expect to encounter problems along the trip. Overcoming the problems is an integral part of the road journey. They allow us to get to know the places and people better, and in process I am sure will enable us to make a few more friends. With the right mindset, problems, while they can be frustrating at times, can also be fun.

Finally, time for my road journey

The idea for a road journey came to me in September last year after I decided to step down as chief executive of the STB.

With more free time and before I take on another corporate responsibility, I decided it was time to do something that I had always wanted to do but never had the time or opportunity – to see and experience the world at my own pace.

The many working trips I had made to several places around the world were often short, in and out very quickly, without a chance to really see or experience anything indepth.

Around that time, I chanced upon Jim Rogers' two books, Investment Banker and Adventure Capitalist, and I thought, wow, what a great way to experience the world. Then in December, a friend and travel journalist, Siew Hoon, passed me two books for my holiday in Kerala, India – Long Wa Round and Long Way Down by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman.

By then, I was convinced that this was something I really wanted to do, which was to see the world on wheels. In February, I bought a one-year-old Mitsubishi Pajero.

When I first told my wife, Li Hoon, about my plans, she was, not unexpectedly, initially apprehensive. She probably thought I was joking and my dream would fizzle out after a while. She kept asking who would want to travel with me and told me I knew little about the mechanics of a car.

But when I bought the Pajero, she knew I was serious and determined. She is now resigned to the fact that I will make one trip after another and has been very supportive since.

I have always loved cars and driving. It's the freedom to explore that really appeals, to go to places that few tourists would have a chance to explore, at your own pace. Also, it's about getting out of one's comfort zone to do something out of the ordinary.

I have owned many cars over the years the Pajero is the first car dedicated to road trips. My first motoring holiday was in 1994 when we drove around South Island of New Zealand – 4,000kms over two weeks.

In early March, I joined the Singapore team and participated in the ASEAN Family Rally from Singapore to Hatyai. I was one of 11 cars that took part in the rally, organised by SMSA, led by Leslie Chang. Up and down, we travelled more than 2,000kms in my Pajero. Li Hoon came along.

That's just to prepare for the real adventure I know lies ahead with ASEAN On Wheels.