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crossing syria
Written by Jerem   
Sunday, 06 November 2011

After some difficulties, i ve finally entered syria.

I first tried on 3rd, and after one hours questioning, i ve been turned back to turkey, officialy because my visa is not valid.

The next day, i tried to gather infomations : has anybody entered recently syria from turkey, are the chances to enter different depending on the nationality, border post, visa...?

It appeared that from the last 3 to 4 weeks, some travelers have been stopped at the border, a few others haven t. On the ones turned back, rumors say some have flown to jordan, lebanon or israel, other would have changed their route.

 

So I ve started to check the options if syria comes to be definitively tourist-proof : boat from turkey to egypt, flight to jordan and ship the bike there or to egypt, get around via iran and saudi.....

After one day brainstorming, I decided to try my luck again, at different border posts. If still closed to me, then i would have to check the other options more deeply.

On 5th morning, I was at the border. And it went really easily... My passport has been stamped before I had the time to answer more than 3 questions! After enjoying the relief, i had to answer the next question : should i spend a couple of days here and visit the country, or ride directly to Jordan? As the journey to Jordan is anyway to long to be done in one day, i ll stop near Aleppo, the first big city in Syria coming from Turkey, and take the evening to think about it.

I ve been told that some areas can really be un-stable or dangerous, including some major point of interest, and the army keeps foreigner on the main highway. In that case, it seems more appropriate to me to drive to Jordan.

In order not to be questioned and deeply checked at the exit of syria, there won t be any photo from syria, if you want to see what can be seen here, the safest way is to type : 'syria -problems' in google images ( '-' is to remove pages with unwanted words).

i ve eventually riden my ten thousandth kilometre of the journey in syria some time today.

in order to compensate the lack of photos, and to entertain you, here is a little game : Syria is the 17th country i ride in during this trip. The one who can name the 16 previous countries will receive a postcard!

 

Comments  

 
#1 Hongying Tang 2011-11-10 18:22
France
Switzerland
Italy
Germany
Austria
Liechtenstein
Poland
Czech Republic
Slovakia
Hungary
Ukraine
Romania
Serbia
Republic of Bulgaria
Moldavie
Turkey
Syria
Jordan

I got 16 out of 16.. plus one extra..
ca fait une carte postale (en poste express) et +. :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
 
#2 jerem 2011-11-10 20:31
sorry, you re wrong !
 
 
#3 ostalter 2011-12-03 12:36
1- France
2- Switzerland
3- Italy
4- Lichtenstein
5- Austria
6- Germany
7- Czech Republic
8- Poland
9- Slovakia
10- Hungary
11- Romania
12- Ukraine
13- Moldavia
14- Bulgaria
15- Greece
16- Turkey

Envoie nous une carte d'Egypte si tu le peux encore. Sinon retoure vite fait en Syrie on aimerait bien une image de là-bas ;-) Bises et bon voyage! Liliz.
 
 
#4 jerem 2012-01-27 10:53
here is the solution to the small riddle :
france, switzerland, liechtenstein, germany, austria, czech rep, poland, slovakia, hungary, romania, ukraine, moldova, bulgaria, turkey and irak