On the road to Damascus
Finally after confusion about actually getting there, we were heading north to Syria. One of the ‘axis of evil countries’ according to Bush and with strong travel warnings against going there on lots of countries state websites. However, from what we had heard it sounded amazing and really there has been very little conflict there for years and years, and none ever directed at tourists or in main centres, not like London or anything. So we were going to see for ourselves.
By this stage we were used to the inefficiency of the Middle East, much like other developing countries, things that should take 5 minutes, take an hour, if you need one person to do something, why not employ 10. For instances, why have a toilet paper roll in the toilet when you can employ someone to hand it out to you? But really nothing can compare to the border crossing between Syria and Jordan, the other passengers in the car didn’t need visas and we were planning to get one on arrival. So we rock up to this hall full of people, pushing there way to talk to a line of officials behind glass. There’s a huge board down one end with the country names and how much it costs for a visa. NZ is $60 (USD), ouch, expensive! On the plus side if you are from Yugoslavia a visa is free, or North Korea only $10…I guess a North Korean visitor is more likely than a Yugoslavian these days.
So we line up, well people don’t really line up in the Middle East, its really just a whole lot of men shoving to talk to this person through a little hole. After being there awhile someone asks if we have our receipt? No…we say, well we have to go to the building next door and get a receipt and then come back. So we go off and find the next building, much more of the same pushing. Eventually we speak to a guy, saying we need a receipt to get a visa. He asks how much and we say we are not sure, he gets angry and demands something that tells him how much we are paying and yells at us how is he supposed to know what to give us. Of course because that’s not his job or anything. So we go back to the first building where the same guy is like, you must have gone to the wrong building, you need to go the small building to get stamps, so outside again tucked away is a small building with a guy, “where is your receipt?”, back to the second building to talk to the same man who yells again that we need to show him how much. Our driver has come by this stage a bit agitated because the others are waiting and its already been an hour. So he talks to the angry man and rushes off to find out the price, which of course is $60 and all we needed to tell him. Not sure why this guy couldn’t have a price list. But anyway we want to pay in Syrian pounds as we just changed all our money. Apparently this is unacceptable and we must pay in USD, even though he is a money changers as well he will not give us USD, we must have USD he is yelling at us. So we search through our secret emergency money and change some money with a guy from our taxi. Then unbelievably he changes the money to the equivalent in Syrian pounds and gives it back to us with a receipt where we go to the small building to get a pile of stamps then go back to the first building for them to stick the stamps in and stamp our passports. The whole thing was stupid and just a ploy to bring more foreign currency into the country, I was so angry they wouldn’t let you pay with Syrian pounds and then just change it-it is stupid. So a very expensive visa and confusing and long process. However I have heard worse stories of getting stopped for up to 5 hours at the border questioning on Israel, which Syria hates and won’t let you in if you have been there. So really our 1 and half hour stop was good! then we were really on the road to Damascus and only a couple of hours away
Tags: blogsherpa, border crossing, Syria, TRAVELS 2008, visa
admin
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.