CROSSING INTO SYRIA S06 EP.34 | Jaber Nassib Jordan to Syria Border | MIDDLE EAST MOTORCYCLE TOUR
Germany... Tour guide Syrian border Syria OK. Thank you. Okay then. Go inside. OK.
Keep your passport and change the... It's such a chaotic system. People were nice... but I had to pay a lot of money. German vehicle. Are you Iranian? No. Pakistan. German? Assalam Alekum. Good Morning. Welcome back to the channel from Jordan.
I've been here for almost 12 days or so. I hope you must have liked all my Jordan vlogs so far. Time to move from Jordan to our next destination. And I'm very excited about that.
As a kid, I heard the names of only a few countries. Visiting all of them has been my childhood desire. One of them is ... Syria. The country has been the victim of war for some time now. That not only made traveling there, but even everyday life for locals was made hell. That's why you can see Syrian refugees all over the world.
And travel in Syria is a far fetched idea. But for the last couple of years, I noticed that traveling has somehow resumed. Personally, I'm not aware of the situation there. So, I'm gonna share everything that I experience there with you. I'll cover the remaining areas of Jordan after I come back from Syria.
I thought it was pertinent to mention that at this point in time. We plan to cross the Syrian border and go to Damascus. The Syrian border is about 130 km from Amman. After crossing the border, we'll ride for about 100 km. Let's say the name of Allah and hope that our day and the whole Syrian tour goes well. Okay then... Good bye.
Bismillah... In the name of Allah... *Prayer for the journey* I pray to Allah for a safe, memorable and fun filled ride. Leaving Amman ... early in the morning.
Our first stop is gonna be at the border. But I might stop on the way to refuel the motorcycle. Don't know about the petrol situation in Syria. Although my tour guide told me not to worry about that. I'll have a tour guide with me to assist me with my tour. It is compulsory for you to have a tour guide with you if you want to travel in Syria.
You won't get a visa otherwise. The ministry doesn't allow that. That's why I've engaged a tour guide there. I'll meet him at the border.
We have scheduled to meet at 9 am. I hope to reach the border before 9. This is the newly developed part of Amman. That's why you still see so many houses under construction. Much like how we have newly developed housing societies outside city areas in Pakistan. But it's a great city.
I haven't explored it fully, yet... But I have liked whatever I've seen so far. I'm quite excited that I'll come back here and share my experience with you. But for the next couple of weeks, you are gonna see Syria and Lebanon. I think we are close to the Amman city airport now.
It's a little away from the main city. Overall, it's quite a big city. It must have a population around 10 million or so.
I'm gonna share all the details of this info in my Amman vlog. I haven't researched about everything here, yet. Don't want to go into much detail for now. Here, you'll notice many people standing by the road side.
It's common here for inter city travelers to share rides. Because it's a safe country. You can go with anyone who is willing to take and you are paying for your ride anyway.
One can earn like this as well. So, people don't hesitate to share their ride. Well, you can do this here at least. In many other countries, you might get kicked out of your own car if you give someone a lift. You might lose your own car too. Instead of earning your 10 dollars, you end up losing your car.
However, this is a very safe country. The city you can see on my left side is quite a big city. This is the first city that comes after Amman on the way to Syria. It's called Zarqa.
I think Jordan shares two borders with Syria. I don't know if both are open. The border that we are gonna cross is called Jabir. I think there's some city or village close to the border and that's why this name is given to the border. It's either Jabir or Jabbar. But I think it's Jabir.
As a matter of fact, I considered crossing that other border... But my tour guide suggested that I better use this border. I'll ask the tour guide if the other border is open. It may be closed. I just noticed some people standing here by the road side waiting for ride sharing. It's a good trend.
No need to do any booking over the internet. You can just come here and travel with any local. We are almost 40 km from the border now. And I've spotted a petrol station.
It's an ideal location to get Rangeeli's fuel tank filled. Don't know the situation at our next destination. I mean there will be petrol stations there for sure... But... better to get it done here. Let's see how much fuel we get. As per my calculations, there's only room for 6 liters or so.
6.5 it is. Let's get it filled as well. Enough. Full... Assalam Alekum Turkish qahwa please.
Turkish qahwa, please. Without sugar. That's our Turkish qahwa. It's gonna take care of our drowsiness. A rather strong type of coffee.
Let's remove the helmet and sip on our coffee. We have this friendly guy with us. The coffee has freshened us up. Our next stop will be the border. Just half an hour more .... hopefully ...
The traffic has drastically reduced ever since we left Amman city. The traffic here is quite less but there is a lot of industry in this area. Actually I didn't know it before that there is a large garment industry here. A lot of people from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh work here. Not just that but many of our people have invested in the garment industry here.
That's because US has some contract with Jordan... According to which Jordan doesn't have to pay any customs duty on all the garments exported to US. That's why many people from other countries have come to Jordan and set up their businesses here.
As we are getting close to the border, I can see more and more of these buses. I thought he was signaling me. Let's hope it's not too crowded there.
Since it's still very early in the day, we may get free soon. However, my heartbeats are getting faster with every km. I'm going through a sort of tense situation. That's exactly how I feel today. I'm not getting too scared though.
But you do understand that feeling.. When you are going to a country that has been in news for so many years... The stories that were coming out of Syria were heart breaking.
I think I should say all the prayers that I remember. God willing, I just want this border crossing to be hassle free. I think the gate in front of us is the border crossing. That's exactly what my navigation is also telling me. All these trucks are waiting here to cross the border. There's just one lane.
Could get really time consuming here. I think we just need to cross from here. It's just a check post.
All the documentation and stamping will be done after that. My passport is inside my bag. Let's see what they have to say.
Assalam Alekum Oops... It's slippery patch. Syrian? German.
German. Yes. I just understand a little Arabic.
Germany Tour guide. For the Syrian border. They have let me through. They asked me if I had a Syrian visa. I told them that a tour guide is waiting there for me to take care of these matters. I don't know if he understood English or not...
But he told me that I could go. Let's see where do we need to go now... I think towards that gate in front. But people are coming from there. The guys back there just sent me here.
I need to get my passport stamped from here. But I don't see any mechanism here. Nothing is written anywhere.... Any sign that can tell you where to go... So lets just wait for our turn in the line. We'll see how long it takes.
Gladly, it's not too hot otherwise the heat would have made it much worse. Syria... OK. Thank you. Nice of him to tell me to keep going. Let's see if someone else objects to our going ahead like this.
German They have stamped my motorcycle documents. Let's see how they do the further processing. Because my motorcycle entered on Carnet. So, I must get my carnet stamped.
If you entered a country on Carnet, then you must exit using the same document. Otherwise, I won't get my security fee back in Germany. That's a duty free shop. OK. So we need to go there. Well...
Finally we have reached the departure area... Lets see how they are gonna treat us. Assalam Alekum So, they have told me to go further ahead.
Since I've no clue, this gentleman is gonna guide me. Motorcycle?? OK. I should park it here. These are all the documents of our motorcycle. Go inside...
Keep your passport, go ahead and change the... Okay. Stamped, you mean? Yes. Finally we got free after two hours. Such a chaotic system here. People were really nice but I had to pay a lot of money.
10 JD was the exit fee. That's almost 15 dollars. They also charged me with a fine of 15 JD. They told me that I had kept the motorcycle in Jordan for one extra day.
Now, how am I supposed to know that. When the visa is valid for 1 month, then it must be valid for the motorcycle as well. But strangely the motorcycle was only allowed for 10 days. And the fine for that is 15 JD per day.
Then the exit fee for motorcycle was 25 JD. All in all, I paid 50 JD here. Now, I've no idea what they are gonna check at the next point. I've kept all the documents in the small bag. They also asked me to show them my Syrian visa. My tour guide hadn't sent me that by then.
So, when I tried to contact him through Whatsapp... my internet stopped working. Consequently, I had to request him to give me internet through hot spot. So that I could use my Whatsapp. The internet package chose the worst time to finish. I don't know what happened to the 40 GBs.
Let me see if I'm on the right track. There's a traffic signal in front. I'm not able to get what's going on at this border. It was so crowded.
I've gotten the exit stamp though. The motorcycle documents have also been stamped. Let's see what's in store for us now. May Allah help us.
I can see a Syrian flag now. It seems that it's gonna be our last check point in Jordan. German vehicle. Yes. Yes. All. This. Just this.
Man... What do they want me to do... The guys back there told me I could go... But this officer is telling me to go back to Police. I feel like I'm going in circles.
I've already been to at least 10 counters. And after that, he told me that I could leave. Everything has been taken care of. Now how can I know if I need to get one more stamp.
I mean they didn't forget to take all the fee from me but they still forgot one stamp. So... we have got that stamp now. I hope they won't make any issue now. Many cars are going to Syria from Jordan. And many are coming from there.
These cars seem to be from some embassy. Done? Let's go. Welcome. Thank you. Assalam Alekum Thank you. Bismillah... In the name of Allah.. Hopefully the next part of our ride is gonna be easier.
This is the no man's land. That's the neutral strip of land between the two countries. And this is Syria. Assalam Alekum Lebanese? No. German. Germany! Welcome... Are you Iranian? No, Pakistani.
Is the passport German? Yes. So you are Pakistan and traveling to Syria? Do you have visa? Yes. Abrar Hassan. German. You are coming from Jordan. Saudia. Jordan but before that Saudia.
'Syrian Arab Republic Welcomes You.' We have entered Syria. By the will of Allah... it's our 15th or 16th country... Or is it 14th? Of our motorcycle tour. I'm counting these countries on behalf of Rangeeli... Not myself.
Our immigration process on this side will be completed at the next check point. Here they just checked the documents and let me through. To take care of the visa and motorcycle document, the tour guide is waiting for me ahead. Hopefully he will take care of all this. Let's park it here.
Abrar? Assalam Alekum Abrar? Yes. Nice to meet you. So which document do we need here? I'll tell the guys there. Do I need just the passport? Yes. What's in this? That's just my bag for batteries and related stuff.
Come please. OK. How are you? I'm good. Alhamdulillah. And you? Two hours? More than two hours. Because it's not easy with the motorcycle. Do you see how crowded it is over here. After a toil of another two hours, we finally have our visa.
I'm following my tour guide. Let's see what else we need to do for our motorcycle. The guy in the blue shirt... He actually worked really hard for me. I think I haven't been to a more hectic border crossing before.
I can't even imagine doing it without him. It could have been Iraq border all over again... Or may be worse. I'll explain it in some time.
They actually have a rule for Syrians coming back from foreign countries... That they have to exchange 100 dollars. And so it's really crowded with people. In case they cannot exchange 100 dollars, they are not allowed to enter.
That's what I was able to gather. It's because they need foreign currency. That was probably the main reason for the crowd. The guy responsible for collecting 100 dollars somehow lost some money.
And it had made a chaotic situation there. The visa fee is 72 US dollars. I had already transferred that amount to my tour guide.
That's why I didn't have to pay anything here... so far... I'm not sure if I actually need to pay anything here. Whatever happens... I'll share with you. He's gone inside.
Let's see if they call me. They are asking for the card of my motorcycle. That's right here.
Is this the card of the motorcycle? Yes. Assalam Alekum Some border crossings are actually tough nuts to crack. And when you are through... you actually feel like having accomplished a great feat. This border crossing is one of them. Like a never ending procedure.
So much documentation.... At one point in time, they refused to allow me to enter with my motorcycle. But thanks to this tour guide, everything was taken care of.
Salam... German From Germany to Turkey via the whole Europe... From Turkey to Iran... Iraq... Kuwait... Saudi...
It's German. I'm from Pakistan. Will go to Lebanon after Syria.
Turkey? No. Syrian, Lebanon and then Jordan. Assalam Alekum Can we take a photo with you? Yes. Yes. It's 2:15 pm now. I entered the Jordan side of this border around 9 am. The whole thing took almost 5 hours. 2 hours were taken at the Jordan side.
And the remaining time was consumed here. It's quite tedious here although it needs to be an easy procedure. Because so many people cross this border.
This is going to be our last check post. And then we can finally go out of this border area. Let me tell you one thing at this point... It took longer to go through the procedure because of the motorcycle. And I paid 35 US dollars for that. Other than that, almost 70 thousand in Syrian currency.
I think the currency here is Syrian Pound. Not sure at this point but I will tell you later. That must be around 50 dollars. Not to forget the visa fee of 72 dollars. That's the breakdown of total expenses here. Still I felt it to be a little less expensive than Jordan.
Anyways... I'll officially welcome you all to Syria after this check post. We'll have to show all our documents here. My tour guide is right in front of us and he has all my documents. Motorcycle documents, visa, passport and other related papers.
Assalam Alekum So.... I welcome you all... officially... in Syria... Irrespective of how long it took... we are eventually in Syria.
2022-09-14 09:29
