We decided to bring our cat, MIPS, with us to Taiwan (he originally came with us from Canada to the UK – he travels well). Taiwan and the UK are both “rabies free countries” so MIPS could be imported with minimal fuss and no quarantine. Still, we wanted to make sure all of the paperwork went smoothly (and the airlines’ cargo departments only deal with agents) so we decided to hire the pet relocation service, Air Pets. Boy, was that a mistake. I cannot tell you how useless this company is, even before all the screw-ups. Never use them. But enough whinging about those useless idiots, here are some highlights from my “adventure” of importing MIPS into Taiwan.

First of all, I had no idea how to get MIPS when he landed in Taiwan, despite my best attempts at getting this information from Air Pets. I was told only that EVA Air would call me when he arrived. Well, they didn’t, and it was only after several hours of MIPS sitting in a warehouse with nobody to collect him did Air Pets finally get off of their lazy asses and give me call. After dealing with EVA, I realized that MIPS was being held in a giant warehouse in the middle of nowhere and there was no time for me to make it to the warehouse before they closed at midnight; I would have to pick up MIPS the next day (Friday). Given that MIPS had already gone 24 hours without food, I was motivated to get there when they opened at 6AM sharp.

No taxi driver from Taipei had heard of the street 航勤北路. Fun. Getting here in a taxi was a serious test of my limited Chinese-speaking abilities.

The sun coming up at the airport industrial complex

Friday was a hell of a day, for both me and Sylvia. She stayed in Taipei dealing with our other fall-out from the relocation: a heavily jet-lagged baby.

I managed to get to EVA Air’s cargo office right when they opened (actually, before they opened as the taxi driver drove at 150km/h and made it to the airport in 25 minutes). I finished the paperwork with EVA and went down to Taiwan customs. It was then that I realized the next mistake by Air Pets: MIPS’ age on his UK government health certificate was listed as 9 months instead of 9 years. As he clearly wasn’t 9 months old (which his rabies vaccination record confirmed), the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine office (with their catchy acronym, BAPHIQ) refused to release him and I was left to go get updated paperwork. Thankfully I was allowed to see MIPS, give him some food, and top up his water. He smelled bad – really bad – and was plenty angry, but he was in good health. He was being kept in the corner of an imports warehouse with forklifts constantly driving by with shipments of food (fish, plants, and animal products) being imported into Taiwan. Needless to say, he was scared shitless.

Give me back my cat!

When the UK woke up I managed to get in through to Air Pets. To their credit, they finally started to move and within the next 2 hours new paperwork had been faxed to BAPHIQ by DEFRA (the UK equivalent of BAPHIQ). I flagged down a taxi and headed to the airport.

Once again, the taxi ride was an adventure. The taxi driver’s taxi license photo had him shown wearing a neck brace, he used the brake like a London bus driver, and was driving between the lanes in stop-and-go traffic. Traffic to the airport at rush-hour was really bad and after sitting in traffic for over 2 hours the taxi driver was running out of gas so we had to stop in Taoyuan city for a top up. It was a this point in time when he finally realized where he was going (i.e., not quite to the airport, but rather in the industrial complex nearby) and informed me that he was only licensed to go to the airport (I think that’s what he said anyhow – it was all in Chinese). He offered to bring me to the airport but I decided to let him drop me off in downtown Taoyuan and found another taxi driver to bring me the rest of the way – one who actually knew where he was going!

With the correct documentation faxed to BAPHIQ, I figured the rest of the evening would go smoothly but I underestimated the bureaucracy of Taiwan customs (I guess some things are the same world-wide). I filled out a dozen forms, paid 3 separate fees at separate times (warehouse fee, quarantine fee, security inspection fee), and was bounced between about a dozen employees between departments with differing levels of English comprehension. Thankfully one of the employees from Taiwan customs (a fellow cat-lover) helped me out the whole way, which made the process significantly easier.

I won’t bore you with the details, but there were a few times during the process when I thought they wouldn’t release MIPS:

1. The shift had changed since the paperwork was faxed and nobody could find it. Thankfully it was also emailed to them and after about 30 minutes of searching they found the email.
2. One clerk unfamiliar with the process of rectifying mistakes on paperwork said I needed to wait until the original copy of the updated paperwork had been couriered to them (i.e., the following week).
3. MIPS needed to have his microchip read but he has two microchips (one North American, one European). The scanner was only picking up the North American one which didn’t match his UK paperwork.
4. One clerk noticed my Canadian passport and claimed that because MIPS was from Canada he would need to go into quarantine for 21 days. It took two people to explain to her that I am Canadian but was coming from the UK, not Canada.
5. One clerk couldn’t understand why some of my paperwork said MIPS was from “UK” but others (and her computer) said “GB”. If you’re curious, here is the difference.

Shortly after 9PM (after about an hour of paperwork) I was able to collect MIPS from his sad box in the warehouse.

MIPS' box in the EVA Air Cargo warehouse. Behind me was several tonnes of fresh fish recently imported from Japan, just to add to MIPS' torture.

After the whole ordeal was done, the helpful fellow cat-lover from Taiwan customs drove me to the airport so I could get a taxi back to Taipei. He told me about his own cat (a former stray) he calls “小虎” (“little tiger”), which he told me is by far the most popular name for pet cats in Taiwan (he once dropped off his cat at a local cat hotel when going on vacation and there were 20 other cats there named 小虎).

Now, 24 hours later, MIPS is in our apartment in Taipei – happy as can be – and the smell of cat piss is starting to fade from his fur. To him it’s like the whole thing never happened. I told you he travelled well!