International Shipping about 23kg from KL to the UK by freight?

Hi everyone,

I will be arriving in KL with a bag of up to 23kg of clothes / shoes etc that I want to ship back home to the UK. The reason for this is I have been living in the UK for about 2 years, and to ship from NZ looks ridiculous - about $330 just for 15kg!

Has anyone got any experience shipping large items international from KL / Malaysia and how straight forward is this to arrange?
A quick search on sevenseas suggests that it will indeed be MUCH cheaper than shipping from NZ (and I happen to have already paid for baggage from NZ so may as well use it).

Is international shipping in Asia pain / complicated to do? I have no experience shipping large items and I'm pretty apprehensive about this, but figure it's worth it to save several hundred bucks. Not sure if I should buy a box, pack it and then take it to the Post Office, or if it would have to be picked up by a courier (and again, do they drop off a box for me to pack? Or can I just give them my packed bag to ship?)

ALSO, I will have my Macbook Air with me, which I figure I would also like to send home, (please correct me if you think I may as well hang on to it - I am going to Thailand as well and am worried about losing it / getting stolen etc), but possibly by air so it has less time to get damaged in transit and hopefully I can get it tracked / traced or whatever.

Would really love to hear from anyone who has shipped large items from Malaysia (or indeed anywhere in SE Asia.

Thanks!

It's easy, just put stuff in a box, tape it up like crazy, mark the address and take it to the post office (Pos). (You can also buy expensive boxes/packaging at bigger Post Offices. Personally, I just get an empty box from an electronics store then turn it inside out, so it is clear on the outside, then tape it all up again).

The postoffice give you an address label (it requires a senders address).

Do you have someone in the UK who will be in to collect it? (surface takes 2-3 months) If the UK post office can't deliver it after 2 weeks they will return it to Malaysia. The Malaysian address label has a space for an alternative delivery address, but the UK Royal Mail ignore that.

The rates are usually on the pos website http://www.pos.com.my but it doesn't seem to be working too well right now. /edit - just on Firefox browser, it seems

Zone 6 (UK) surfacemail
First 1kg (RM) 65.00
Every additional 500g (RM) 11.00

I often sent parcels home from Malaysia and found it easy, cheap and reliable.
Even from neighboring Indonesia I sometimes carred things to Malsysia with me for cheaper shipping to Europe.
Just one thing: before packing it all, check with the post office if there is a limit on minimum size and weight! In some places there is a max 20 kg and 1 meter limit on normal postal parcels. Sizewise you should be OK, but if the weight limit applies, you might have to split your stuff into two parcels.

oh wow wonderingstar2 - thanks for that very reassuring. Yep, it'll be going to my folks so they can deal with. Thanks for all that info I feel much calmer about it now - hopefully I can concentrate on enjoying my trip!

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