Pathologic
Registered user
Hi evryone,
as promised here is our experience of crossing the borders into Syria and Lebanon. The observations are not definitive, but I have tried to make them accurate to what happend. So no come back if I misunderstood something.
We crossed Turkey - syria, Syria to Lebanon and back then back into turkey.
We have some active members in Turkey, so I won't repeat their much better explanations. However, turkey, like all the borders we did requires similar things. Namely, a visa, proof of ownership, insurance and import export tracking. The other common feature is that they all cost money. Turkish visas and insurance seemed very cheap to me.
So, The Syrian border crossing Reyhanli was very busy. We had fun leaving Turkey as they had incorrectly recorded the registration plate of one of the bikes (recording a zero as an 'O'). That took two trips to see the 'intelligence' office before we could go through. Once we reached the Turkish side we were 'adopted' by Samir, who works for the Syrian tourist board (apparently). Certainly he and a mate have an office in the border control building.
He was very good at directing us where we needed to go. First we needed visas. We discovered that multiple entry visas are not usually available at the border. I have heard that if you make enough of a fuss they can be provided, but I don't know. We paid again at each crossing of the syrian border (in and out!). Syria has a reciprocal pricing structure for visas. Whatever Syrian pay to get into your country you pay to get into Syria plus a bit. So $42 for a Brit, $35 for a Croatian; reputedly its $95 for a Kiwi.
Once you have paid for a visa nad had your passport stamped, you can start negociations for a Carnet.
I looked at a Carnet de passage from the RAC for Syria and Lebanon. The quote came back as £2,500
Although you get about 2/3 back if you don't use it. 
At the border it was $87 to get into Syria each time and $20 into Lebanon. So go figure.
All the paper work is in Arabic, so it is impossible to check its accurate. Including insurance it cost 18,500 Syrian pounds for all the bikes (about $100 US). It takes a while. Sammy made us quite comfortable in his office. Tea was served, so it was better than some crossings. He is keen to receive more bikers. What follows may explain why.
So we had all the paper work and the money. Sammy wanted a representative to go with him to pay. He warned us that the cashier would expect more money. We would need to be firm. So off I went to pay. I checked the cash and it seemed to me that there was 500 Syrian pounds short. So we went to see avery harassed and bad tempered man. He demanded 2,000 more spondolies. I simply said we didn't have it. Samy said something else. Grudingly we were sent next door and after more discussion money changed hands and documents were stamped. We had insurance and huge hand written papers to give in again when we left the country.
Samy and his mate were in high spirits when we left the office. They had got one over on somebody, I am not sure if it was us or not! We paid a fixed amount. C'est la vie
We then had to get the documents stamped by the border officer at the check point and we could leave.
It took 4 hours!
Crossing back into Syria from Lebanon was similar. The main difference was the amount of blatant graft in the system. Several times it was impossible to proceed with out paying extra. Particularly the final checkpoint.
I'll post about Lebanon later.
as promised here is our experience of crossing the borders into Syria and Lebanon. The observations are not definitive, but I have tried to make them accurate to what happend. So no come back if I misunderstood something.
We crossed Turkey - syria, Syria to Lebanon and back then back into turkey.
We have some active members in Turkey, so I won't repeat their much better explanations. However, turkey, like all the borders we did requires similar things. Namely, a visa, proof of ownership, insurance and import export tracking. The other common feature is that they all cost money. Turkish visas and insurance seemed very cheap to me.
So, The Syrian border crossing Reyhanli was very busy. We had fun leaving Turkey as they had incorrectly recorded the registration plate of one of the bikes (recording a zero as an 'O'). That took two trips to see the 'intelligence' office before we could go through. Once we reached the Turkish side we were 'adopted' by Samir, who works for the Syrian tourist board (apparently). Certainly he and a mate have an office in the border control building.
He was very good at directing us where we needed to go. First we needed visas. We discovered that multiple entry visas are not usually available at the border. I have heard that if you make enough of a fuss they can be provided, but I don't know. We paid again at each crossing of the syrian border (in and out!). Syria has a reciprocal pricing structure for visas. Whatever Syrian pay to get into your country you pay to get into Syria plus a bit. So $42 for a Brit, $35 for a Croatian; reputedly its $95 for a Kiwi.
Once you have paid for a visa nad had your passport stamped, you can start negociations for a Carnet.
I looked at a Carnet de passage from the RAC for Syria and Lebanon. The quote came back as £2,500
Although you get about 2/3 back if you don't use it. At the border it was $87 to get into Syria each time and $20 into Lebanon. So go figure. All the paper work is in Arabic, so it is impossible to check its accurate. Including insurance it cost 18,500 Syrian pounds for all the bikes (about $100 US). It takes a while. Sammy made us quite comfortable in his office. Tea was served, so it was better than some crossings. He is keen to receive more bikers. What follows may explain why.
So we had all the paper work and the money. Sammy wanted a representative to go with him to pay. He warned us that the cashier would expect more money. We would need to be firm. So off I went to pay. I checked the cash and it seemed to me that there was 500 Syrian pounds short. So we went to see avery harassed and bad tempered man. He demanded 2,000 more spondolies. I simply said we didn't have it. Samy said something else. Grudingly we were sent next door and after more discussion money changed hands and documents were stamped. We had insurance and huge hand written papers to give in again when we left the country.
Samy and his mate were in high spirits when we left the office. They had got one over on somebody, I am not sure if it was us or not! We paid a fixed amount. C'est la vie
We then had to get the documents stamped by the border officer at the check point and we could leave.
It took 4 hours!
Crossing back into Syria from Lebanon was similar. The main difference was the amount of blatant graft in the system. Several times it was impossible to proceed with out paying extra. Particularly the final checkpoint.
I'll post about Lebanon later.
