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A Map of Syria
with a little help from Nick. This shows the route that we have taken (or are about to take) through Syria We were unsure about our success crossing the border from Jordan into Syria as the official stance is that you are should organise your visa in your home country and we had not (yep, small oversight I know). But as Syria is between Jordan and Turkey we thought why not give it a go? Rumours abound about the availability of visas at the border but this usually depends on your nationality and also the mood of the immigration official at the time you show up. Some Dutch people we'd spoken to claimed “Yeah, no problems, we paid 30 Euros without any hassle”. Hey, as long as we're not Americans they should like us right?
We caught a shared taxi with two other Jordanian men. Upon meeting them Nick asked the two customary questions that seem to be the best ones to ask in Jordan: “What's your name?”, and “How many children do you have?” We'd encountered this quite a bit during our time in Jordan. Everyone always seemed surprised to see that we were travelling with our one, single child. Eyebrows were often raised and some women even went so far as to point to my stomach, saying “Baby?”, to
Us in the taxi
The guy on the right is a picture of the King, there were pictures of him everywhere farewelling us which I responded in the only way you can in Jordan: “God willing” (saying something along the lines of 'not thinking about anymore just yet' is out of the question). So getting back to the men in the taxi, when he responded “Only two children” we raised our eyebrows and Nick asked if he was hoping for anymore. He responded with a perfectly commonsense and rather Western answer “Children are expensive, you have to pay for them to eat. I have good job, but I want to give them good life”. By way of explanation he followed it up with “I am Christian”, and showed us the wallpaper picture of Jesus on his mobile phone. We understood this, as the number of Christians in Jordan has been decreasing for some time, not due to lack of popularity, but due to being out-bred by the Muslims, where families commonly consist of at least 6 children.
In no time we were at the border. We nervously filled out our arrival cards for Syria and approached the official at the 'foreign visitors' gate. He then made the announcement that had us reeling for the next hour: “Three visas, three hundred Australian dollars”.
The Confrontation
Phoebe's depiction of our confrontation with the immigration officials. Plus a little plug for 'The Age' (I don't know where that came from) What followed was us attempting to wheedle him down on the price (the whole process is unofficial of course, so therefore the price should be negotiable). He gave us a blank stare, and repeated “Three hundred dollars, that is what you have to pay”. As this really wasn't what we were expected we sat back, tallied all the money we had on us, including Syrian pounds, Jordanian Dinars and US dollars; we still could not make the total. We even tried the trick of waiting until the official we spoke to went on a tea break and asking the next one.....we got the same answer. Directly across from the foreign arrivals gate there was a 'bank'. We spoke to the man at the 'bank' (it's just a payment and money exchange office). We attempted negotiating the price with him, and he produced a card with every different country on it with the cost of visas next to them. Learning Arabic numerals didn't help us, as all we saw was $100 in Arabic, yep, great, so everyone seems to think that's what we should pay. We knew we'd just have to pay up or go back to Amman and fly to Turkey, which really would be a shame. We found an ATM and went back to Mr. Bank man with our collection of various funds. Mass confusion on behalf of Mr. Bank ensued as we tallied up various currencies to get to the total. He spoke limited English and very quickly got overwhelmed and started saying over and over again “You give me dollar, you give me dollar” (meaning US dollars). I found it ironic that they are quite willing to accept American dollars but not willing to let Americans in. Eventually his response to anything was just “You give me dollar”. Finally we paid by converting Syrian pounds into US dollars, with Mr. Bank happy now because he was able to take a cut. Grrrrr.....
The ride to Damascus was less jovial, as the cost of the visas was quite a hit to our finances and we were left feeling a little downhearted and rather unimpressed with our reception in Syria so far. We made up some alternative names for Syria and declared that Syria had a lot of making up to do to get back in our good books. Hopefully the AUD$300 was going to be worthwhile. Lesson learnt: investigate visas BEFORE you leave town.
Note: As the border crossing was hardly something we wanted to remember, there were a significant lack of photos available for this blog. Phoebe has graciously volunteered some of her drawings of our experiences. She hopes you like them!
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birgit
non-member comment
hi phoebe, we really liked your drawings,especially the greedy customs officer and your mum´s look of despair.well done, girl.you are such an experienced traveller now ,we can´t wait to hear you tell us all about it in autumn.try to make the best of syria,and take good care!lots of love from birgit and lukas