Short Answer: Y E S !
Read more about our Asia adventures in our ebook
Buying and Riding a Motorcycle in South East Asia
by Sherrie McCarthy & Patrick Schweizer
Get it for $2.99 USD at your favorite ebook store:
Smashwords (all formats), Amazon
Being a biker over a backpacker almost ALWAYS wins. Big time. But thats not the topic for this post. We wanted to find out: was it financially worth it and how much did it actually cost us. This is not factoring in the money saved by not shipping the BMWs or the money we got for the BMW’s. This is based on the costs once we arrived here.
Costs:
1522 EUR per bike including insurance, registration and oil for just over 10.000 kms
30 EUR bike insurance in Thailand (we got one after the first border crossing. Later and in Laos and Cambodia we didn’t)
3 EUR selfmade chain oiler
4 EUR for having the bikes washed 2 times
That makes for a total cost of 1559 EUR. I sold my bike for 690 EUR, that leaves me with 869 EUR in fixed costs.
The gas consumption of the Honda Wave is about 3 liters. If you average the costs for gas at 1 EUR/liter (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia; Malaysia is about 0,5 EUR) you get 0,03 EUR/km.
Since we rode about 10.000 kms that makes for another 300 EUR.
So the overall costs of having our own, new bikes for half a year in Southeast Asia costs us 1169 EUR per bike or 6,40 EUR per day including gas. That is about the same cost as a bike rental but it allowed us to cross borders without problems (not possible with rentals) and gave us the feeling of our own new bike.This was especially important in two places: on the highway, where our new and generally unabused bikes did 90 km/hr without a problem (so long as we were not on a hill) and while off roading, where we did not have to worry about bringing back scratched bikes.
Well worth it. Especially given how easy it is to buy in Malaysia. As for what they could handle: everything! Floods and insane mountains of mud included!
Moscoot Goodness:
Hi Guys,
No problem taking your Malaysia registered bikes into Vietnam?
What is the advantage of buying in Malaysia over say Thailand or Vietnam?
Cheers,
James
Hi James,
We never took the bikes into Vietnam. We had heard so many different stories that we decided to just skip it. Getting into the other countries was so easy we felt why jeopardize the trip.
The big advantage of buying in Malaysia (and that goes for any bike, big or small) is how easy it is. You go in, you say you want the bike, you pay for it, you got it! Thailand and Cambodia involved a lot more paperwork, and a lot of the dealers would not even sell to us because we were not residents. Guest houses will often help you and register it in their names, but then of course you do not legally own the bike you just paid for!
Sherri,
From what i have read it seems that its nearly impossible to get a bike registered in your name in Thailand. Is Malaysia really that much easier?
Hi John,
WAY easier. Check out our post about it:
http://unleashyouradventure.com/buying-a-motorcycle-in-south-east-asia/
Cheers Patrick