The long story cut short is that we wanted to see if we could find an alternative method of entry, ie transit China with our motorcycle on the back of a truck and not riding.

We spoke to travel agents before and over the past few days and they confirmed the cost and expense and yes there are only a few that know anything about motorcycle self guided tours.

We consulted the 2009 importation legal bible used by customs and import/export companies to determine status of goods and what categories they are under. We were told that we could not enter china with our motorcycle on a truck as it was classified as "used machinery or electrical equipment" and this is categorised as strictly prohibited.

There is no such thing as temporary importation for transit purposes according to Chinese law.

This makes strictly no sense at all but because the customs officials get to decide which law applies to which goods they can slap any anomaly they wish and then your stuffed either way. The stupid thing is that my mobile phone is used electrical equipment but they don't care about that!

We felt the full force of the Chinese Bureaucratic machine and the complete incompetance of Chinese customs to tell us exactly what is required. We spent 3 whole days discussing this with the customs officers and never lost our cool, that's something!!

In the end we were faced with an ultimatum, enter china without the bike - and hence have it 'looked after' by immigration or have our Visas cancelled on the spot and kicked out. We are now back in Laos and have resolved never to travel in China on a foreign vehicle given the prohibitive expense, bureaucracy and mountains of red tape.