Bintan Tri--what's the deal with bike transport????

Rather ridiculous situation--hoping someone can give me some insight.  I entered the Bintan Tri in December. At the time, my tri-buddies weren't real sure who was going to do it, who was doing which race, etc. so we decided just to enter the race. A friend who'd done the race before suggested we go ahead and book ferry tickets as we have a tight timetable and some times fill up early. We did so thru the ferry website, but there was no info on bike slots there. I contacted the ferry company and they said that bike slots had to be booked through one of the two travel companies handling the triathlon packages.

By this time, we had booked a place to stay. I e-mailed the travel agency which was supposed to handle bookings for people staying there (Safe2Travel) but never received a response. E-mailed twice more, no response. A friend called twice and was promised they would take care of it but never received a confirmation. I contacted the other company (brf) and they said to contact Safe2Travel. A friend contacted the race director and received the same promise but no follow-up.

In the past few weeks, three people have decided not to go,  and we have had to rebook accomodation at another place on Bintan. We again tried to get bike slots for the ferry using the booking form on the triathlon website. No response.  It has been a week now.

Do these people just not answer their e-mails?  Is e-mail not getting through from Vietnam for some reason? Has anyone gotten bike slots successfully and if so, how??  I am about a week away from just giving up on this venture entirely, despite the $100+ entry fee, $200+ of plane tickets, and six months of training. I am not going to go to Singapore and just hope that my bike can go on the ferry. Any ideas would be appreciated.