Syria - Border Immigration Station

The official rule on Syria visa is that if there is a Syrian embassy in your own country, you must get a visa there. This was not an option for us because the visa is only good for three months and we have been on the road for six. In practice, citizens of most countries have no problem getting a visa at the border. However, with Bill being a US citizen, we weren't so sure.

We got to the Turkish border town of Antakya (Syria map still shows this town as part of Syria, with "temporary boundary" showing the actual border) and asked around. The bus operator to Syria said it was "no problem", which roughly translates to "maybe it is possible."

We decided to give it a try and got to the Syria border immigration station; alas, Bill needs to wait for the infamous "fax from Damascus" approving his entry into the country, which takes anywhere from two hours to infinity.

For us, it took TWELVE HOURS. We read, played card games, drank tea with the tourist office guys (one of them was an aspiring poet - he told us that Arabic language has 10 different words for 'love', starting from a little more than like to the epic, perfect love).

After 7 pm, it became quite informal as the immigration station quieted down and we sat in the immigration police captain's office and watched an Egyptian movie with about six Syrian police officers, including the captain. Then, someone brought us diet Pepsi, I showed around my family pictures and our wedding picture, the policeman with a baby girl showed us pictures of his daughter from his cell phone.

All above activities were interjected with processing of other unusual visas in the captain's office, laughing discussion in Arabic, angry discussion in Arabic, a policeman talking to his girlfriend on his cell phone, four policemen comparing their shoes, and us sitting around a table with about six Syrian policemen making small talk in pantomime.

Finally, a young handsome policeman who is studying at the university (and thus spoke English) took pity on us and called the Damascus office. Either that or they wanted to get rid of us. At any rate, we finally walked out of there at 11 pm with visas in our hands. Yay...? We looked around - we were at the border no man's land, our bus had left us eleven hours ago, all other buses had stopped running since it was so late and we saw no cabs.

A guy approached us and said he had a car and could take us to our destination city of Alepo, 45 kms away. We generally don't take suspicious unmarked cabs (or in this case, a minivan), but we had no choice. Fortunately, he was not a serial killer, but he had some suicidal tendencies in his driving, using the horn instead of the break and passing cars only at the most dangerous moments.

We got dropped off at the hotel we had picked out from the Lonely Planet around midnight. It was full. At this point, Bill and I lost it and got into a fight.

What a day!