Sending a Carpet to U.K. from Central Asia

[Seradane]

Hello all,
Today we've gone and purchased ourself a rather large shyrdak (felt carpet) here in Kyrgyzstan, and are now trying to figure out the best way to ship it home to the UK. Although we are tempted to save on postage costs & tax it's just too bulky to cart around for the remaining six weeks of our trip!

As it turns out our plans have us here in Kyrgyzstan now, then a couple of days in Kazakhstan (Shymkent) then on into Uzbekistan all within the next week, so potentially we can send it back from whichever of those three countries is most affordable. Not too worried about shipping time as long as it gets there!

So, can anyone share their experiences with shipping things from here to Europe? There's a lot of services online offering the opposite but very little information on going west! The little Kyrgyz town we were in quoted a cost of about US$22/kg but as the thing is 9kg that starts to add up quickly! We will get another price here in Bishkek but once we leave Kyrgyzstan we're not coming back in should elsewhere be more expensive, so would like to have an idea where is likely to be the best place.

[steven]

Hi Seradane,

it will be expensive, I think. Let us know what shipping company you went with finally, it is a question that has come up repeatedly in the past which I have sofar not found a good answer to.

[Seradane]

So after being quoted a price of around US$190 to ship a 9kg carpet from Bishkek (not much cheaper than the small village), we found an online calculator for Kazpost in Kazakhstan that quoted us a price of about US$108 - so if that was right it seemed like enough of a savings to justify carting it around for a few more days.

So we crossed the border to Shymkent and set out to send it from there. Our accommodation host was absolutely amazing and drove us to the post office herself, and then spent the next hour or so helping us figure out how to package and send the thing.

In the end Kazpost quoted us US$130 (as with a box and tape the rug was now weighing 10.75kg) which we were happy with (although our host initially got a bit angry at the post office for charging us such a ridiculously expensive price!).

We couldn't find any information about what Uzbekistan might charge so figured that Kazkahstan was probably our best bet considering the unpredictability of bringing things across Uzbek borders.

So fingers crossed it arrives safely but the office certainly gave the impression of an efficient functioning post office as you'd find in any Western country, so feeling confident!

Hope that helps others somewhat

[steven]

I have good experiences with Kazpost, others seem to be happy with it as well - at least outbound.

See also: http://caravanistan.com/forum/viewtopic ... 155&p=3712

[Seradane]

We have just received word from our recipients in the U.K. that our carpet has arrived (already!!) in good condition and without being charged any import tax by the U.K.

Considering they told us it might take a month (this was the normal service, not EMS) we are super pleased and couldn't have asked for better service from Kazpost. So for those trying to send bulky things we can vouch for Kazakhstan being a great place to send things from.