Category Archives: Paperwork

Stuff about paperwork, customs, borders, immigration officials and more red tape

Day 36 – Booze town

It was Number 3’s worst night yet. I don’t know, he just woke up and up and up again. In the end, the app said, he had 4.45 hours of sleep that night. If he had that little sleep than I had as little as well.

Groggy, we climbed out of the tent and down the ladder in the morning. But we had breakfast booked at the campsite so we just had to survive packing first. We weren’t as fast as we wanted to be but still took some time to talk to the NZ couple on a motorbike a bit more. Then, we headed out for breakfast.

Leaving Coimbra over a bridge

I knew my expectations shouldn’t have been high and I somehow still managed to be disappointed. Probably by the utter lack of jam for breakfast. Given the choice between cold meats and cheese, I choose something sweet. Thus, Flo was nice enough to get our own jam out of the car so I can have breakfast.

Today’s mission was to get to Porto. Portugal’s second biggest city is our last big ticket item on the list. Probably since Mat and Liz introduced us to port wine and Port Night, going to Porto and tasting port wine became a thing in our minds. And now was the time to do it.

Being so tired we couldn’t be bothered to find a way around the toll road and add extra time to the journey. We just paid the toll and were in Porto in under 2 hours. Before lunch, with a good couple of hours before we needed to find a camp ground for the night. Thus, we started to explore the city.

Parking somewhere on the south bank of the river Douro, we were in walking distance to the inner city. The first thing that we came across was a cable car up a nearby hill. A short check in the guide book told us that it’s a thing to do to get views over the city and river so we hopped into it straight away. A good start already.

From the cable car, we took the amazing bridge over the Douro. On foot. The bridge actually has two levels: The upper one is for the metro and pedestrians taking in the views nowadays, the lower level is for cars, buses and more pedestrians.

On the other side of the river, we realized just how much it reminded us of Wellington. The inner city is walkable without problems, everything is close by actually. It is rather hilly and you go up and down and back up again. And it was just…charming. And compact. Of all the cities we visited lately, Porto is probably the one we liked most. More than Lisbon and Barcelona. It’s just…nice to spend time here.

Going uphill

From the Ponte de Luís I it is about 50 meters to the Sé, Porto’s cathedral. It was lunchtime though and we were hungry. So we went to a hipster restaurant to enjoy some proper food. The waitress shook her head when I told her I’m vegetarian and I had to go with starters and side dishes. We thoroughly enjoyed it anyway. 🙂

After lunch, we stuck to our guns and decided to walk around for the first day as it had worked well for us in Lisbon. The Lonely Planet suggested a walking tour and we stuck to it. A detour to the train station was necessary to change baby’s diaper. So we got to see the artfully hand painted tiles’ in there as well. On Rua da Flores we ended up in a café with more pastel to eat.

But Porto is all about port wine, really. Vila Nova de Gaia on the south bank is full of wine lodges, each sprouting a big name in port wine. Tours and tastings are advertised everywhere, in every shop, every café, every bar. In the chocolate place, I ended up buying a dark chocolate filled with port wine ganache. Made with Graham’s Six Grape port wine.

At 4pm, we headed out to find a camp for the night. Preferably one with a bus connection back into the city so that tomorrow, we could visit a lodge.

Still further uphill

The first one was already completely full. Flo dreaded the next one as it had bad ratings on the usual websites. They had space though. It’s a municipal camp ground and they were suckers for bureaucracy. It was the first place that Number 3 needed papers to be allowed to stay. Everywhere else, Flo and my national ID card was enough; here Baby needed his passport.

We rolled our eyes but it did it, went to a patch that looked okay and started to pitch the tent. We had booked electricity for the two compulsory nights so a staff member came by to connect us. When he saw that we wanted to have electricity in a tent, he outright refused to connect us. We never had a problem with this in more than a month of travelling…here, no way. So we were stuck here for two nights and a full day without electricity to charge cell phones, laptops and the camera. Our mood hit rock bottom.

Just when we were debating on leaving again, we got company. One of the fellow campers wanted to have a look into our roof tent. When he learned why we were so upset, he lent us his powerbank to charge our phones at least. Later, he also charged our camera battery in his camper. So kind!

  • Leaving Coimbra over a bridge
  • First bridge in Porto
  • That’s what we plan to do!
  • And up we go
  • Me in the cable car
  • I guess you can feel like a pirate while tasting port wine?
  • View along the River Doura through Porto
  • The riverfront promenade
  • Ponte de Dom Luis I with iots two levels
  • Pictures on the bridge seem to be the thing to do…
  • …I rather kept my distance from the not high enough railing
  • Porto portrait
  • Graham’s lodge from afar
  • The side with all the port wine lodges
  • Lots of graffiti around
  • So close to the ocean, there are seagulls around
  • A giant mural
  • Small alleys
  • Going uphill
  • Our bread and olive starter looked like a still life painting
  • Flo could look into the kitchen and sneakily took some pictures of it
  • Great little detour to the train station
  • Statue on one of the fancy buildings around Avenida dos Aliados
  • Avenida dos Aliados
  • Still further uphill
  • Checking out the square next to a church
  • Cute houses close to the riverfront
  • The camp ground had a playground…
  • …Number 3 enjoyed it
  • Mh, yummy chocolate!

Day 12 – Granada or the Disappointment of sights in Spain

It had been really bloody cold last night. Temperatures dropped to somewhere between 3 to 1 degree and it made for an uncomfortable night. Not because we didn’t have enough blankets to deal with it but because Number 3 refused to sleep in his cold “bed” and decided that mama was the only warm place to sleep upon.

There is a ticket office that has the “no tickets available” sign permanently nailed to it …

Today was the day to visit Granada. Our camp ground was only about a 30km drive away and I had really been looking forward to seeing the Alhambra. However, it turned out (again) that Spain is incompatible with our travelling style. We had the same trouble in Barcelona already when we couldn’t get tickets to see any of the sights I wanted to see. Though back then, we could have remedied it by staying a couple of days longer: No same-day tickets but tickets in a couple of days were available. So we learned from this and had checked out tickets for the Alhambra about 3 days in advance with the option of adding up to 3 days to our stay…just to make sure we actually get to see it this time. De nada. Online tickets to visit the Alhambra are sold out until the middle of June. There is a small number of same-day tickets but people start queueing for them from 2am onwards…nothing that is at all feasible with a baby.

So there we had it. Physically in Granada, unable to see Alhambra. Didn’t make for the best of mornings or city visits. I understand the necessity of regulating the number of visitors…didn’t lessen the disappointment though.

We still drove into Granada and checked out the outside of the Alhambra but it isn’t that much fun. Also, there is not much to see except for a wall and a bit of garden. It’s a good time to go as all the orange trees have fruits upon fruits hanging on them and just look lovely.

TAPAS!

With that little sightseeing done, we drove into the city center of Granada. Eating traditional tapas helped a little to get over the disappointment. We picked a traditional tapas place instead of fusion one to get a taste of southern Spain. Flo loved it! He ordered the “warm plate” for two people, even if the menu suggested that only one thing on there was vegetarian. So I had Spanish potato and egg omelette from the plate and a spinach empanada that I ordered. Not feeling quite as filled as Flo I continued to order “Queso a la plancha” which turned out to be three big pieces of grilled cheese with orange marmalade and…fish eggs…*shudder*. Luckily, everything was piled up neatly and I could eat around the fish eggs.

A stroll through the inner city showed us some great architecture and an impressively clean and rich looking city. For our actual sightseeing, we went into the museum next to the cathedral; the place where Isabella and Ferdinand are buried and some of their personal things and art is exhibited. So I got to see some Memlings and Van der Weydens as well as a Botticelli up close.

Worn out from walking around and spending that much time in the sun, we continued on a short while towards Malaga. A very affordable little camp ground right before the city was our stop for the night.

  • The team checking out the spectacular early morning views
  • that is what they found
  • Top view on the reservoir and the mointains from the campground
  • There is a ticket office that has the “no tickets available” sign permanently nailed to it …
  • beggars at the door
  • peeking in like a commoner
  • Would have been a nice walk down to the city
  • garden between the walls
  • A little orange grove in the parking lot. Funny to see fruit bearing trees as decoration
  • heading down to the city. Our front view with the tent up there 😉
  • TAPAS!
  • He manages to scrounge treats wherever we go …
  • building decoration
  • The mausoleum / tempel of Isabella and Ferdinand
  • Heading for the Costa del Sol

Day 0.2 – Hard to get going …

Since this is a relatively short trip for us, only two month for what will roughly be around 10,000 km, we had initially planned to make the most of our time and start on the first real day off. That would be today.

To cut right to the chase though, we will not start today. We could, if we really wanted to, but there are a few threads left hanging that we want to finish up before heading off. It proves true once more that anything takes just that bit longer when you add a child into the mix. So what are we waiting for?

Go Vote!

First of all, given the political climate at the moment, we really want to make sure to be able to vote in the European parliamentary elections. Few things count as much as casting your vote when you are as worried about some current trends as we are. Unfortunately, ballot papers for early mail-in voting are only made available 6 weeks ahead of time, which will be on Monday, 8 am, in our case.

Health

We timed it just right for Number 3 to get his final round of vaccination shots before we had to leave, but it seems he might have developed a mild reaction. Nothing to worry yet, but better to have an eye on it at home with our family doctor close by, just in case.

It is probably a good idea as well to take a minute or two to take a breather at home and see how the two of us are holding up. In all the hustle and bustle of everyday madness, certain things get overlooked. Now is a good time to get checked out and just relax a day or two more.

Loose ends

As any traveler would know, there is always another thing that you could do before getting off. A few audio books to decide upon, fine tuning the sleeping and blogging arragements and the like.

Finally, we might take the time to take care of some long neglected little bits. Seeing that exibition that we wanted to go to for months now, sorting some stuff in the house and so on.

So Monday seems like the day now. One cannot leave these things for too long, there will alway be reasons. Time to get moving …

Day 320 – Homewards

And thus, the travelling part of this journey was over. Istanbul had been the last point for a long while, we then extended it to “after we’ve seen Gallipoli” but now, no matter how you looked at it, the travelling through Turkey was over. From this point onward, we’ll ride homewards.

On the last stretch to the border, Turkey was quite flat

On the last stretch to the border, Turkey was quite flat

Today, leaving Turkey and getting to Sofia was a “must”. We packed up early but still, we weren’t on the road as early as we’d liked. It was probably 10am already. Getting to the border between Turkey and Bulgaria didn’t take long. However, we got the first fine of the whole trip. Riding towards the border on a long straight road, we went at a 102kmh when the speed limit was 90kmh. Yes, we did speed…it was annoying anyway. There were only a few cars on the road and every single one of them was waved to the side of the road to receive their fines. It turns out that it is a common thing for countries in the EU to do as well. From now on, we saw police fining speeding before every border but we had learnt our lesson. Turkey remained the only country where we got a fine.

Last picture on the Turkish side. Bulgaria, here we come!

Last picture on the Turkish side. Bulgaria, here we come!

Spending all our coins in the town before the border, we were happy with the progress we made. Crossing the border before lunch time meant that we’d probably make it past Sofia today to camp near the border to Serbia. Standing in line, we got our passports stamped without an issue. Asking for the customs office, we got to the right place and they checked that our papers are in order and it’s the right bike. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. We had to wait for over an hour, closer to 1 1/2 hours before we could leave. When we crossed from Iran into Turkey, the staff put our information into the system incorrectly. So now, the computer protested and wouldn’t let them finish the process. Instead of copying all our documents, stamping us out and letting us go, they kept us waiting until the staff at the other border had corrected their mistake so they could finish their internal process. It had nothing to do with us or our paperwork and it was annoying as hell.

Having lost so much time rather unexpectedly, we were dreading the Bulgarian side. It is the entrance into the EU so we expected strict controls. However, all we had to do was ride through a spray of disinfectant (what?), declare if we had any cigarettes or alcohol and were sent on our way. Easy as. And so we entered into the European Union after four years away (not counting our single visit over Christmas).

Entering the EU, we noticed another step up in wealth

Entering the EU, we noticed another step up in wealth

From here, everything went smoothly. The motorway in Bulgaria is in a great condition, there are fuel stations and rest areas around and we made good progress again. It was unbelievably hot though. One of the things that struck both Flo ad me while riding north was how well off Bulgaria is compared to other countries we have been to. In Germany, Bulgaria is seen as one of those cheap countries you can go to for holidays but compared to most of the world, everybody is well off here. It was even a step up from Turkey. Europe, and the European Union especially, is a rich place and full of privilege; too often it is not really seen as such.

The corner of Sofia that we stayed in had lots of little places catering to our taste

The corner of Sofia that we stayed in had lots of little places catering to our taste

With the motorway under our wheels, we decided to push to Sofia despite being so late. We booked an excellent hostel online and with the place where we would sleep tonight determined, we set towards it. At around 6pm, we arrived at Moreto & Cafe which turned out to be incredibly lovely. After a quick shower, we walked around the block in search of food and found this corner of Sofia quite nice and interesting. It’s a pity that we don’t have the time and money to stay and explore but it’ll have to wait for another time.

The hostel organized a boardgaming evening that night and I ended up talking to people and having two cupcakes while poor Flo blogged. Then, we were too tired to participate and went straight to bed.

Day 308 – Opportunities

Using some time after breakfast for blogging

Using some time after breakfast for blogging

What a blissful night! The bed was really fantastic. Our hosts had to leave for work early, but kindly allowed us to sleep in and take the time we needed. When I got up, I had a text telling me that they even left some breakfast outside for us. Thank you so much!

Last night I got a message from a good friend about a job currently on offer in Frankfurt. After having missed the opportunity to fix up my application papers in Oman while staying with Lina, I thought I would leave any job hunting until we reach my dad’s place in Würzburg. This one really was too good to let slip, I had to admit. That meant I would have to call them at some point today to get some more details. Then, I probably would need a day dedicated to writing the cover letter, wrapping up a German style CV and gathering all the required documents from their various storage places.

Isn't Tiny cute? She pretended to sleep but kept an eye on us while we packed

Isn’t Tiny cute? She pretended to sleep but kept an eye on us while we packed

After a brief discussion with Nina, we decided that a nice campground on the Turkish Mediterranean coast would be just the perfect place to do so, provided Nina would be allowed to buy her next book. 😉 So we packed our bike, said goodbye to “Villa Naz” and headed towards Kaş.

We were hoping to find a place somewhere along the way, or if not to go to the campground we heard about in Kaş. Of the attractions along the way, the only one marked as a must by Nina was the sunken Lycian city of Simena. Although this was best accessed via Üçağız, only 35 km from Kaş, so we could also do it as a day trip from there.

Beautiful coast

Beautiful coast

None of the other bits along the road really tickled our fancy that day, apart from the scenery on the coastal road section. But these were taken in anyway. We had our lunch picnic in the woods near the road after first failing to find a nice beach and then refusing to pay 40 lira to get to the one we saw from the road.

So we rolled on, with the mood getting a bit better along the coast, but my mind constantly drifting towards the job offer. What to write, what to say, how not to bumble like the fool when trying to sound professional in German (remember, no practice for four years). When we came to the turn off to Üçağız, we gave it a pass and pushed on to the campground. It was late enough that I would need to call Germany soon before they would go home for the day.

The view from our tent

The view from our tent

The campground offered a pretty cool location. Lucky for us, not too much is going on right now. The arrangements of the camp spots has a lot in common with the locally famous sardine dishes … but it was only maybe 15% full. The host is also a bit quirky, refusing to let us get our bike down to the spot. So we had to strip the bike at the entrance without shade and have him taxi all our gear down in a cartoonish electric trike.

We finished setting up the tent and I had my call. Afterwards, I only was more excited for the job. Needs must, tomorrow I would need to set my application straight. So excited!

During dinner, cats appeared looking very hopeful

During dinner, cats appeared looking very hopeful

Dinner was another sad fail, on both the main and the dessert part, unfortunately. We went to a fish restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet. The place managed to go down to abysmal quality and raise their prices in the short time since our edition came out. Quite the feat. The fries were half raw and dripping and the anchovies soggy and bland. To make up for it, Nina felt like having a waffle. We both nearly choked, though when we heard that it would cost 15 lira, for a single half-cooked waffle with way too much cheap Nutella knock-off slabbed on top of it. Welcome back to tourist land …

We did jump into the sea at out campground, which made for a pretty lovely end for a very mixed day.

Day 305 – Where’s the groove gone?

Time to finally leave the Göreme Camping camp ground which had been really good to us. The next camp ground would be at the Mediterranean Sea, some 250km away. Not really a big day, kilometre wise, and looking at the map…the road would be many-laned and fast. Thus we left, just to get the cloud cover back that was our constant companion before Cappadocia.

Loads of Lanes, no traffic

Loads of Lanes, no traffic

The beginning of the ride was unspectacular. Soon, we hit what must be the motorway…with a toll gate. There was no one around and no barrier, no sign that said motorbikes are not allowed so we just went on it. So far so good. About 20km in, we needed fuel and just to be on the safe side, Flo wanted to do a 3 km detour off the motorway rather than wait for a station on it. So we left the motorway again at the first exit. Again, a toll gate, no one around, no barriers. This time, when we left, an alarm sounded. Whoot? We stopped immediately at the side of the road to ask how to deal with it but THERE WAS NO ONE AROUND. Not even the alarm going off could produce a human being that we could talk to.

This time, with toll card

This time, with toll card

Confused, we rode to the fuel station and Flo googled how Turkish motorways work. There is a toll (*check*) and you need to have a card for contactless payment (*uncheck*). Okay, where to get such a card? “Every PTT and Shell station will sell them”. Asking the guy at the fuel station, we rode to the next post office about 5 km away. Fair enough, you can do that to avoid setting off any alarms. The real reason to fix this is because the bridge over the Bosporus us also a toll road and we really, really want to ride it. It took the staff at the post office about 15 minutes…to realize they could not help us and to send us to the post office in the next town. Great. By now it was 11.45am and with our luck, the office would just close at 12, right?

Bor, the next town, was another 8km away. Now it started raining. Yay. -.- Or not. There, the yellow of a post office! Flo jumped inside and while I got off to take cover as well, he came back out again. Too small, we needed a bigger post office. We took one wrong turn getting to the “right” one and I was thoroughly annoyed. This is hilarious…if they want you to pay the toll, maybe it should be a bit easier to get that stupid card?

We even got into one more brief rain

We even got into one more brief rain

Now things worked out. Flo got his card, we had to put 50 Turkish lira on it as the smallest amount (!) and I now felt as if I could eat a horse. Figuratively. The first place, of course, was a kebab shop but they were kind enough to point us to a place further up the road where vegetarian food would be available. We gladly sat down and after the initial confusion about a vegetarian I was offered a cheese pide with fresh salad as a side. So good! Flo enjoyed his pide with minced meat and we were so happy about the food which was freshly made (even the dough!) that Flo had tea as dessert while I chose the sweet rice pudding. Also really good. 🙂

Feeling much better now that we didn’t have to deal with things on an empty stomach, we got back on the motorway. This time, the entrance toll gate even gave us a green light. Riding for 120km, time and miles flew past. Soon, we were only 60km away for tonight’s camp ground and had to get off. Again, the alarm went off. WHY? No idea. It should be contactless payment but it didn’t work. This time we stopped near by the three men standing around but really, they just said it needs to scan the barcode and that we should simply ride on. You have about a week to go to a post office to tell them that it didn’t work before you are fined…

Checking out our first Mediterranean camp spot

Checking out our first Mediterranean camp spot

Welcome back to Europe’s bureaucracy. However, we don’t want to burn any bridges as we are unsure when we will want to ride through Turkey next so leaving with an outstanding fine seems like a bad idea.

To top today’s great experience off, when we reached the Mediterranean coast, we were not impressed. Mersin and the next towns looked too much like the Caspian Sea in our eyes: Rows of hotels blocking the view. Arriving late at the camp ground next to a construction site of the road, we are left with a feeling of uncertainty as not even the coast excites us. Will we be able to enjoy Turkey or should we really just power through to get to Frankfurt?

Day 300 bonus – Stats 109 United Arab Emirates

This kind of did not fit in well with the day’s post, so I decided to celebrate day 300 with an add on! Hope you like it. The stats are not too relevant, since we did not really spend time in Dubai and had a lot of “special” stuff to sort out.

Country data #9: United Arab Emirates

Full screen version of the map

  • 481 km in total (470 km of GPS tracked)
  • 2 travel days, 4 days total
  • $35.56 Average cost per night (3x room, 1x ferry)
  • 44.14l of standard fuel for $  25.46 (6.5 l / 100km – all Arabia)
  • ~$10.25 for food every day, always eating out with two invitations
  • ~$2,309 in total – $1100 for shipping and spare parts and $460 for visa

All $ values are converted to NZD.

Day 295 – Grenzerfahrung

Last bit of road in Iran

Last bit of road in Iran

Writing the blog post from two days ago in the morning, with the thoughts on returning home at the end, left us in a bit of a low mood after breakfast. Thus, packing took extra long this morning. Not a big deal, though. We had only 130 km to go to the border.

Near lunch time we hit the border town of Maku. We filled up one last time with the obscenely cheap fuel and sat down along the main road through that narrow valley for lunch. It is always good to tackle a border with all primary functions tended to. Just as we were doing some last minutes preparations (I forgot to take proof of my German bike insurance which is valid and required in Turkey) Iran decided to give us a very Iranian parting gift. A guy jumped out of a taxi, shoved a melon and some bananas into my unsuspecting hands and jumped back into the taxi with a “welcome to Iran!”. Now we had bananas and a melon to declare as well – and another amazing memory of Irani hospitality.

Random gift of bananas and a honey melon. A melon?!?

Random gift of bananas and a honey melon. A melon?!?

We reached the border shortly thereafter. By the looks of it, it is only ever used by thousands of trucks or pedestrians. There is a lane for passenger vehicle crossing, but all booths are abandoned and no one was to be seen. It was relatively easy after all. Dodge the hawkers, find an official and then get led to the equivalent desk in the pedestrian terminal through back doors. Maybe 45 minutes later we stood in front of the two gates that separate Iran from Turkey with all the required stamps. Iran opened its gate for us and we called over to the Turkish guys …

… and waited. A long while. The Turkish border guards who saw us after one minute played manly man games with the Iranians and us. They left us hanging for about 20 minutes before pushing the the button that would open the gate. What a great start. Smile and wave …

Note the line of truck starting at least 6km before the actual border

Note the line of truck starting at least 6km before the actual border

We had to work around a similar way on the Turkish side. Passport immigration police guy was only available in the passenger terminal, so through some more back doors we went and met Mr. Grumpy Number two. I will never understand why some guys feel the need to underline their authority with outward rudeness. It did not get better when he saw our German passports. “Deutsche? …” sneer … then he only stamped one passport and got really annoyed when I remarked that I would like to get an entry stamp, too. Smile and wave …

Great light and dark due to the rain clouds

Great light and dark due to the rain clouds

Luckily customs guy did not know what to do, really, so our workaround regarding the insurance remained untested. I helped him with the carnet and off we went, into thick storm clouds on the horizon. We put our full rain gear on, ducked down and headed into the Kurdish town of Doĝubayazit. This grey border town had nothing to offer, neither phone shop nor ATM in sight, so we pushed on northwards along the border.

Our first sight in Turkey was the former Armenian capital of Ani. To get there, all roads lead through Kars, the regional center. En route there, I felt the strong need to answer nature’s call and we stopped on the first pass. Right then a van pulled over and four soldier type guys came out. One was a sergeant and had this way about asking what we were up to that showed suspicion hidden behind mere curiosity. We moved along.

The world appeared to end at the horizon so I, wisely, packed the camera away

The world appeared to end at the horizon so I, wisely, packed the camera away

The rain started for real beyond the pass, with lightning and thunder hitting left and right. It was cold, too, and just kept on getting colder as we got closer to Kars. The last pass went over 2300m, we were soaked and shivering by this point. Looking around there were still patches of snow on the ground…no wonder it was cold! We had done another 200 km on the Turkish side by then and stopped at a petrol station maybe 5km before the longed after hotel. The guys there took pity on us and shouted us a hot çay (tea). That got us the rest of the way through freezing rain without frostbite.

The hotel was cheap, which was the best to say about it, really. To make up for it, we went out that night to a really nice restaurant. What a treat – tablecloth, fresh bread and really good not-kebab food. Just what we needed to get the spirits back up again!

Day 268 – Welcome to Iran

Sunrise equals breakfast time :)

Sunrise equals breakfast time 🙂

All of the reports on Horizons Unlimited are full of descriptions about the shipping to Bandar Abbas and they all had their story to tell about the Iranian bureaucracy. Flo was dreading it and we had scheduled for a whole day in the port just trying to get Rocinante out of customs. If possible, we would hire a fixer to help with the paper work.

For now, when the lights came on on board of the ferry, there wasn’t even land in sight. Half an hour later, breakfast was served at which point I went back to reading…nothing would happen for a while. Land came in sight, we docked and yet still, we were sitting around on deck waiting for anything to happen.

Close to the port now

Close to the port now

Finally, Jan and Flo rode the bikes out of the ferry to the immigration terminal. There, the only English-speaking officer of the port welcomed us and helped us through the dealings to get the passports stamped. It involved a bit of paperwork already, including giving a rough itinerary and a section about your thoughts on Iran. Maybe half an hour later, we had our passports back and could start with the process of the temporary import of the bikes. Well, almost. Flo had left the carnet with the bike and while it was just outside the glass wall, we were locked into the building. It took an officer to unlock a door for him to quickly grab the carnet.

With our passports in hand, we left the immigration building and were immediately brought in contact with a fixer who spoke nearly no English. Not wanting to negotiate a price AFTER he had rendered his services, we negotiated now and got an amazingly great offer of US$15 per vehicle. That was even cheap enough for Jan so we went through the process together.

First picture after all the paperwork was done

First picture after all the paperwork was done

Or rather through the waiting time. While our fixer knew almost no English, he definitely knew the process of importing bikes well. Thus he walked around, made copies of the carnets and passports, collected stamps in multitudes and got us through. Mostly, it involved him walking to the next building, us sitting down in the waiting area and then moving on to the next building once he said so. In the meantime, the paperwork in his hands took on epic proportions (about three trees had to die for it, would be my guess) and it became clear that we would have had no chance getting through it ourselves. Plus, the customs office would close at 3 pm before which we really wanted to be done.

At 2 pm, everything was done. We were good to go…once we had paid. Our fixer had two other people working for him as well at this point. One of them showed us the break-down of the costs: US$70 for fees, copies and legal things that they had paid for us already and then another US$70 for their services. Well, we had negotiated a price of US$15. Once we wrote it down to make absolutely clear what we meant, horror dawned on our fixer’s face. He clearly thought we had agreed on US$50 per vehicle. Also, the others didn’t seem too happy about the pre-arranged price. In the end, Flo paid US$70 for the legal stuff and US$30 for their services while Jan stuck to the original price. In the end, he paid US$19 for their services.

Jan talking to the locals in search of a currency exchange

Jan talking to the locals in search of a currency exchange

DONE! Good to go! I should have mentioned earlier that it was incredibly hot, most likely 40 degrees. Now, back in all our motorcycle gear, we were cooked. Jan only had dirhams with him so we had paid his fees in US dollars in the port. Thus, we were looking for a bank now so he could exchange his money. Everything was closed though. Once Jan started to ask locals for help, they all said that it’s siesta and things would open up again later on. However, one of them led us to a currency exchange which was also closed but opened up just for us.

Having sorted the money, Flo and I now looked for a hotel. The same helpful local recommended a budget hotel for us which we checked out. It was slightly pricey for our budget but close to what the Lonely Planet described what the lowest price around. While we checked into Ghods Hotel, Jan used the wifi to check up on his couch surfing for the night. So we parted. Flo and I had a little nap in our room, sitting out the heat and waiting for the shops to open again.

So much choice! This is just one of two counters

So much choice! This is just one of two counters

At 6pm, we went out. The extremely helpful staff of the hotel sent us to “City Center” to buy a local SIM card. We got 5GB for a month now and it worked without an issue. From there, we just grabbed a bite to eat before I saw a confectionery shop which I HAD to check out. In the end, I left with a box filled with four different types of sweets…all of which I had to try immediately in the hotel room. 🙂

 

Day 267 – Dockside surprise

There was no real rush to get up this morning. All we had to do today is arrive at Port Khalid in Sharjah by 12 noon and then hang around until the boat would leave. So we slept in and went out before packing up to have another dead cheap Deira breakfast.

On our way back, we checked the copy shop again, but it would not open for another half an hour. I had painfully grabbed an ok version of our business card design from the web (the original is on my PC in Germany), since we were running out of cards pretty fast. It was only 9.30 am once we had packed and the shop promised 30 minute turnaround, so we stuck around a bit longer and got a new batch printed.

The whole procedure in the port ran pretty much according to the great instructions we got from Al Hili Marine Services. There was one brief moment of terror when the cashier at the customs office looked up from my paperwork and said: “I have one more question: …” After a pause that seemed eternal, the relief came with “ … why Honda and not BMW?”. Because I can buy 3 of mine for the price of one GS, my friend. 😉

By 11.30 am we had done everything we could and got into waiting mode – right after an overpriced lunch at the Seamen’s Club (no kidding) at the port. As we were just abode to nod off for our afternoon nap, I heard the clatter of a large displacement single nearby. I looked up and saw a new Teneré coming towards us, with the unmistakable overlander outfit of aluminium panniers and bag roll.

Turned out that there would be two bikes on this boat, Rocinante and Jan’s Teneré. Jan is a young German guy on his first long distance bike ride. He had just shipped his bike to Dubai from Bremen to ride it back home to Germany. Most likely he will be taking the same route as we will.

And so the afternoon went by, chatting, blogging and finding other ways to occupy ourselves. Around 5 pm, we loaded the bikes onto the ferry. It took only a little bit of convincing, then the ship hands did a fine job in the end. Next up we walked over to the shack labelled passenger terminal to be processed and hauled back to the ferry in an ancient bus.

The ferry could take up to 375 passengers, but today only about 50 would sail with us. Everybody had plenty of space and we could spread out in a corner of the family section (Jan was “adopted”). We had to wait another couple of hours till 9 pm for dinner and departure. A good time to start studying the lonely planet to make up a route. The lights were turned off at 10 pm and we all spread out over multiple seats for a good night’s sleep.