OUR TRUCK IS FINALLY RELEASED

 

It’s now the end of May. John heads to the storage yard to finalise collecting our truck which is still strapped to the flat rack. But the next drama is paying Maersk (the shipping line) fees for their overdue container/flat rack. John returns for me and the laptop and we set up in the boardroom. Pay Maersk and forward them proof of payment. But of course, they want to see the actual monies in their bank account and monies coming from overseas takes a few days! After spending all day at the yard we head back to the Hotel with our tails between our legs!

Friday morning, we discover our foreign exchange has refused payment. India is a restricted currency and they need a purpose code. We spend the entire day emailing and messaging people everywhere. The Kenya agents, the Australian agents, our bank manager, our foreign exchange and people here. A big shout out to our lovely bank manager and our Australian agent who tried so hard to get the monies paid to Maersk Australia. But by 4pm everything goes quiet. The weekend is looming so nothing will happen for 2 more days at least. On Saturday we decide to pay our agent here as he can supply a purpose code. Of course, the fees have increased dramatically because Maersk charge like wounded bulls for hire of their flat rack, but we have no choice. We set up the payment carefully with every part of the entry filled in. Now we can only sit and wait. Phew, Monday morning our foreign exchange confirm it has gone. We wait. Who knows how long India will take.

Tuesday nothing. Its getting a little stressful. Wednesday waiting! At 8pm we get a message from our agent; the monies have arrived but it’s too late for them to transfer them to Maersk. It will be tomorrow morning. So again, we wait. Emails are flying everywhere as our agent tries to speed them along for our Delivery Order (the very last piece of paperwork required to free GR2).  Finally, by 2.30pm I get the message. We order our tuk tuk and head in to holding yard. I let them know we are coming in, but of course they don’t organise the credit card machine until we arrive. (They have daily yard fees too.)  So, another 40 minutes! Then out to the yard. A container has to be moved and then GR2 is lifted out. How many guys does it take to unbolt the stays, open the end of the container and put in ramps. Over 20, but only one works at a time.  Hours later (no exaggeration) we finally drive GR2 back to our hotel. It is way to late to leave tonight, so one more night here with our best sleep so far. It has been nearly 4 weeks since GR2 landed!

Up early to prep before it gets too hot. Days are in the high 30’s. John has to remove all the bars over the windows and we pack our room. By midmorning we say our goodbyes to the very helpful staff who have looked after us for the last 3 weeks. You are legends!

The plan is to explore a bit on our way to Ahmedabad where John has found storage for GR2 and where there are good flights home on Singapore Airlines. But it is so hot we just keep driving and decide to head in to the storage and see if we can get flights. Yay, by 10pm we are all settled in and have our flights booked for the next day. Its’s still 38 deg so we are in for a hot night!

We pack and tidy. It is 48 deg today so poor John is incredibly hot after putting the bars back on and disconnecting the batteries. But of course, India has one more curve ball to throw at us. We have to move to another storage area. John reconnects the batteries and we move!!! We are incredibly glad to get to the cool airconditioned airport, and thank goodness its not as frantic as Mumbai.  By the end of the day, we are up and away. YAY Brisbane we are coming home. We will return to India after the monsoon.