This one's a long one... Just detailing getting the bikes from the UAE to Iran. It's a long annoying process which I'd recommend for anyone who's bored.
There's no photos on this either, they're all over at Facebook in this album here. It was the only thing I could reliably upload photos too from Iran. Everything else is blocked or too slow to access. The story starts back in Sharjah at the Golden Beach Motel...
We were told to drop
off the bikes at the port early because there was some overtime for
workers involved if we did it late. So After breakfast at the hotel
we go to drop the bikes off at the port. The port was only 1km away
from the hotel so it was quick to get there and back. We ride over to
the main gate and show them the paperwork and after some discussion
we're let in and we head to building number 6. No one is about but we
can see the ferry behind it so we go look and park the bikes to try
and find someone. Another guy walks over and after some dumb
discussion were following his car over to the opposite side of
building six. Now more discussion ans we're off again to where we
were before. Still no one here, more discussion and the guy we were
following makes a phone call. And then we're back over to the office
where he took us on the other side of building six. I can see where
this day is going.
We park the bikes
and go in to get some paperwork sorted. There was a very sweary happy
Indian guy from Mumbai in the office that helped us out a bit. After
it was all done we kept the keys and went back to the hotel to waste
time before immigration.
The next thing we
were told by the ticket office was to be at the port at 2pm where
we'd go through immigration, then put our bikes on the ferry and then
we'd be away! How it actually went down was very different.
We departed the
hotel just before 2pm and headed to the terminal and find a bunch of
people gathered around the "Port Khalid Passenger Departure"
building as it is clearly signed. We get through the door and
everyone is just looking at us oddly. One of the people at the desk
points at us and then another speaks up and tells us this is a secure
port and that we can't come in there. So I show him my ticket and he
says to go out of the departure building and in though the main gate
(or so we understand from his instructions). So we walk to the main
Gate and we're called over by security. We show them the ticket and
then they point is back to the departure building. So we go back
again get inside again and Drew asks the guard where we should be but
they keep pointing back outside to the main gate. Eventually after
some frustrated loud talking were shown to the waiting room next to
the departure building. In here the room seems naturally divided into
males and females for some reason. Wait number one of the day to see
if this is the correct area.
After a while Drew
gets bored and walks off to find someone to help. He comes back
saying were in the wrong area an he has a guy with him and we head
off over to the main gate again. This time we get into the office and
we start asking where we are supposed to be and they point over to
the waiting room again. We ask where immigration is and then they say
its in the waiting room, but then they offer up another location for
immigration. This introduces all types of confusion and eventually we
settle on being back at the customs building at 5pm because that's
when they're supposed to open. We get a taxi back to the hotel to use
the phone and call the agent and to use more internets.
We call up the agent
and he can't hear properly but he tells us to be back at the port
where his person will find us after we clear immigration so we can
load the bikes. He also said that immigration will be open in another
10 minutes at most.
We give it half an
hour before heading back. Once we get back to the “Port Khalid
Departure Building” and they again direct us back to the waiting
room. We stick around and ask some other official looking people but
they say to go back to the waiting waiting room too. After an hour of
waiting a door finally opens on the other side of the room and
everyone rushes towards it. We wait it out, boat isn't suppose to
leave before 9pm and that's 4 hours away at this point. Once we get
up to the door we show passports and he says “boarding card? I get
my ticket out and show him and then he says “No no boarding card!”.
Well that's confusing. One of the helpful Iranians sees our confusion
and explains whats going on. He takes us over to the “Port Khalid
Passenger Departure” building where there is a small office in the
corner issuing boarding cards.... Yup, the building we've been in
three times before and each time they told us to go to the waiting
room had something in that we needed to do.
If you think that
airports are horrible inefficient places you should try going through
a sea port once.
We go back into the
waiting room but find the door to immigration has just closed and it
will be another 15 minute wait. We picked a spot to sit and then some
old lady in a burka comes over and tells us to move so her family can
sit there in the mostly vacated waiting room... We move and I loudly
exclaim that I was sorry for sitting in her spot but the sarcasm went
unnoticed (by her, everyone else in the room looked suitably
dumbfounded by her actions). We sit somewhere else and get talking to
a guy next to us. He helps us through the rest of the process and
guides us through improper hand signals in Iran after some questions
(thumbs up, some people will take offence. 'ok' hand very very bad,
much like Brazil I hear).
Once in immigration
its another wait and then a stamp and then we're loaded into a bus to
travel the 100 meters to the boat. We're deposited outside the boat
and then we ask someone what happens with the bikes. No real answer
but we go off in turns to get the bikes from where we parked them
earlier in the day (about half way to the immigration office) and
ride them over to wait.
Someone who seems
like they're running this loading of BMW's and Mercedes onto the ship
directs us to park just near the entrance. We tie them down and move
them as close as possible to the edge and then it's upstairs to find
a relatively empty passenger cabin. We each take a set of three
chairs and get comfortable for the long night ahead. They're still
loading cars and trucks on the decks below so its a long time before
we actually set off.
While still in the
port food was served at around 7pm. The boat didn't actually depart
until 930pm. We'd been sitting on a boat that hasn't moved for 2
hours, did they load all the passengers first for some kind of
efficiency reason? This is going to be a long journey. Someone told
me it will get to Iran tomorrow at 8am.
The lights go off
around 11pm, and I manage to get a couple of hours sleep with the
help of earplugs. The three seats I have to myself are very
uncomfortable no matter which way I try and sit/lie on them. The
lights come back on at 4am for food, unsure if it was for everyone or
just for those fasting during Ramadan, some people seemed to go get
food, others didn't, I opted to wait until 9am to get food where I
was told I had apparently not wanted to have breakfast when asked
earlier (news to me).
At 11am we are
finally docked in Iran. And good too because I'm bored of everything
on my laptop and phone and what they can do without Internet. We take
the bikes off the ship to the front of the immigration building
closest to the berth. I take in only what I had on the ship with me,
the rest of my belongings stayed with the bike (important later...).
We then sit inside patiently to see what happens and how fast the
queue is moving (slow).
Once we get up we're
the last in line. While I'm there a guy comes over from his office
and starts talking to me. He started asking me why I am here, where
am I going, for how long. I thought he was just a taxi driver or tour
guide because I'm used to this line of questioning from India. He
asks where I am from so I say "Australia", but I think with
the accent and his, he misinterpreted this as "Israel",
which would be very bad indeed. He repeats what I thought was
“Australian?” a few times and each time I said yes, but each time
I guess I said yes to “Israeli?”. There's a bit of discussion
about and he goes through my passport and after a bit of confusion he
can finally see Australian written all over my passport. Looks like I
was just mistaken for the enemy in immigration.
Once through
immigration we had to head to a small office and sit outside it
because we had vehicles. We'd been following a father and son from
Germany who are driving a car back home from Qatar, but at this point
they had disappeared, they were a handy guide on where to go next.
After half an hour of waiting outside this small office some official
looking person calls us over, who then hands us over to a less
official looking person who we walk right through customs with, and
then follow outside to a port office building next door where we pick
up a bill of lading copy (already holding onto the originals). Now we
have to go to the shippers office outside the port area to get some
more paperwork and then come back to clear the bike through customs.
Sounded simple! (And if it was the story probably would have ended
here).
We head out the gate
and find a taxi and then ask the driver if he accepts us dollars,
sounds like he says yes and shows us the rudest way possible to show
two with your fingers. We jump in and for some reason we've passed
Team Germany and they jump in too. Once the taxi stops we try to pay
on US$'s but this is met with blank stares. None of us have local
currency, but the driver eventually accepts 20 Dhirams from Team
Germany.
Inside the this
building its rather straight forward: ask for office, go there and
ask again where the office is, go there and ask again, arrive at
office. We get some more papers, then its downstairs to a copy room,
then over to another room to wait for more paperwork. And wait we
did. More than an hour passes and I use the free time to exchange
some currency (500us$ = 6150000 rails, at the very bad bank rate. At
money changers on the street you can get almost double that). And
then I run out of things to do because I used my phone to death the
night before when I couldn't sleep.
After the hour ticks
over and we get our little slips of paper back in Farsi and we all
get a dodgy taxi back to the port again. This time we have the local
currency and it costs 50000rials. We ask around for customs again and
no one can find them in the building. Failing to find anyone here we
go over to the office that told us to go to the shippers and no one
here really knows what's going on either. Eventually the same guy who
told us to go to the shippers comes out and he looks at the
documentation and says its the wrong one. But then he runs off before
we can ask what exactly we need. He also mentions customs being
closed for the day, but tells us to go to the shipping office and get
this new paperwork (whatever it's called). We start walking for a
taxi and then the guy appears in a car beside us gives us a high
speed lesson in Iranian driving to the shipping office. We ask what
about the bikes and he tells us we can get them at 8am tomorrow...
Well that's not the best. Because we thought it was a five minute
process to get the bikes out we left a lot of our crap on the bikes,
stuff that will probably be damaged in the sun all day, and things
like a change of clothes (I'd been wearing the same clothes for 4
days). He kicks us out and then he flies off at high speed.
At the shippers
office theres lots of paper flying around but no one is telling us
what is going on. I've zoned out because of hunger and no sleep and
stopped following people around so closely. Inside one of the offices
Team Germany has left, then Drew has left, and then when someone else
is talking about paperwork I happen to get one of the slips out which
someone else spots and takes me over to the bank, where I find Drew
again. We end up having to pay some fee that no one seems to be able
to explain to us. It's only $5ish, but we're still in the dark as to
what's going on. Then it's back in to another office to get some more
documentation. Team Germany leaves the office early to see if they
can get hold of customs and get out of here (they were only planning
a two day drive through Iran into Turkey). We wait for our documents
to be completed and then go outside to try find a taxi during the 2pm
peak hour rush of Ramadan.
There's a lot of
discussion in the taxi as to where we are going and the price the
driver wants to charge but eventually with the aid of the
Persian-Farsi app on my phone I'm able to communicate the distance
and the amount it should cost, which he agrees with (6000 is what we
were told, totally ripped off twice in taxis so far). Once at the
port however we try to give him a 10000 rial note for change, but he
said no and pointed to the 100000 note. Well it turns out he was
talking in Tomans (I think that's the word) which is the local name
for 10Rials. Most people will quote prices to you in Tomans, so we've
learned. This journey had cost 60000Rials.
Inside the main port
building it's all rather dark but we run into the guy who took us
over to the port offices and we get him to call a friend of his who
can translate for us and then we get that person to talk to security
who reluctantly lets us through the building out the door to the
bikes so we can get a few things that might not survive in the sun
and secure the bikes for there overnight stay. Looks like the bikes
will have to wait another day.
We get another taxi
and tell him to head to Hotel Amin which was a decent sounding place
according to the LP (but who can trust it really). We spot Team
Germany walking out of the port so we get the taxi driver to stop and
ask them what happened. They said they have given up and will try get
it out tomorrow. Team Germany jumps in the taxi and we all head to
the hotel for the night.
The evening is spent
gaining lost sleep and eating local foods (which seems to be pizza or
burgers) and a quick walk around our first Iranian city. It's still
hot here. The erratic driving and general condition of the place
reminds me of Malaysia or the Eastern European places I've seen on
TV, just with added heat. On the walk we heard some scream and then
turned around to see a guy shoving and pushing a female driver who
may have just hit him or his wife. Not to sure what happened but I
considered it unwise to be a foreigner (possibly Israeli looking)
staring at what was going on there. From up the street we could see a
large crowd gathering but it was all gone when we came back.
The next morning
after a quick breakfast we met up with Team Germany, checked out of
the hotel, and then headed out to the port again to try get the
paperwork completed. Once at the port we went into the big building
first to look for customs, no one seemed to know what we were looking
for. Outside we were directed to the correct customs building that
was covered in scaffolding and had “DOWN WITH THE U.S.A.” posters
above the doorway. Inside this anti-US office you'll find them using
lots of software from a very large US company. Mixed messages here.
Team Germany starts
off the process and someone goes through the documents. After about
ten minutes the customs officer gathers all the documents together to
tell Team Germany there is a problem with one of the forms. It turns
out that in the rush following Team Germany yesterday there was one
bit of documentation missing for our bikes. Assuming the worst voices
get raised immediately. I leave Drew to it for a bit as it is
probably unwise to be yelling at a customs agent while looking
vaguely Israeli.
The bit that was
missing was a “Release from Warehouse” document which we were
able to get form the port office next door. However the bikes were
never in a warehouse, they were pushed off the boat and left directly
in front of the passenger terminal. You could also see them from the
port office but they were having none of it.
Armed with this new
bit of paper we marched back into customs and started the long wait
to get the carnets stamped. Team Germany were away after about an
hour but we seemed to be there a lot longer. I went over to the desk
once Team Germany collected their documentation and stood there to
make sure other people stopped interrupting him. After he was done I
raised my hands in celebration and he said “Welcome to Iran”. But
then he asked me to go to the opposite side of this waiting area to
another desk. This time they wrote all the details in a large book
for some reason. They handed all the paperwork back and then he said
“Welcome to Iran” and I thought we were actually done now! But I
was wrong. He told me to go to one office, and then to another, then
we were done. I asked him to write the names on a bit of paper so I
could show people where I need to be.
We headed out and
found the first office, which was meant to be a gate pass office we
think (still not sure, no one explained). Inside we handed the
documentation to someone and then waited a very very long time for
them to finish processing others documentation and get to ours. In
this time Team Germany had appeared again and they were armed with a
helper. They got in and out while we were waiting. Once ours was
processed we got a new bit of paper with a bar code on it, however
once drew got his I mentioned that they both had the same number
under the bar code, well this caused more confusion between them and
after another long wait we had two separate bar codes. We were then
to proceed to the second place on the note we were given earlier
where we were told it would be the last step to getting our bikes!
Hooray!
Inside the port
office we dumped all the documentation on the desk and they picked
out the bits they wanted. They did whatever they did for about half
an hour and called us over. This time we had to pay a fee for loading
and unloading of the bike. Well, that was curious. We loaded it on to
the boat, and we also unloaded it and parked them were they remained
overnight. We argued over this but it's a standard port charge and in
the end it was only $8ish for each bike. We took this paperwork and
asked them to let us out to the bikes. But nope, apparently there was
another office to go visit and they told us to go back out to the
gate pass office to get another stamp on the documents. We argued
again that we'd already been out there and they had given us stamps.
Through all this arguing we'd managed to gain our own helper from
within this office. The helper had managed to acquire a driver which
made walking the short distances a lot easier. He took us back out to
the gate pass office and in there was some discussion and I can't
remember if there was any paperwork changing hands.
After the gate pass
office for the second time it was back to the car and over to the
entry side of the port where we had to go through security, they saw
us white guys in the back (one looking partially Israeli) and we
turned around. Now we had to get security passes.
In the security pass
office the passports were handed over but then a copy of them was
needed. The helper ran off to do this (also astounded a the processes
required here and he works in it). He came back armed with passports
and copies and we had our security pass written out and then it was
in to the secure area to another hidden office. There was a lot of
documentation being done here and then we were told we had to get the
bikes weighed which is what the bar coded papers were for. We finally
get our hands on the bikes and ride over to the weigh station where
the helper is waiting. Drew rides up on the platform and waits. And
waits. Then the helper comes out and asks for passports. Then we wait
some more. And some more. And then finally the helper comes out and
says we have to pay 50000rials for both bikes, after mine wasn't even
weighed. Who knows what that was for.
We head back to the
hidden warehouse office and the paperwork is done over a long period
of time while I rearrange all my gear, some of which I'd been
carrying around all day after checking out, the rest had been
strapped to the bike.
We're finally told
all the documentation is done and we're free to go! Drew heads off
towards the gate and I'm just a little bit behind but I'm following
the helper in another car. We get to the security gate and the helper
gets out hands over some paper and points to us then we're good to
go!
Then we get closer
to the gate pass office and the helper gets out again. We follow him
over and then we go inside. The helper is moving between two rooms
and arguing with people. But after some discussions in the office the
helper finally comes over says we're free to go! Hooray! The bikes
are free! I thank him for his help and told him we would never be
able to do this by ourselves. I start putting on all my gear and then
he runs out and tells us
that actually we're
not free and there's one more thing to do.
So now apparently
there is a problem with the paperwork or the computer system or
something. All that I could get out of him was that somehow the
computer system was expecting three bikes. Perhaps it was because of
the bar code problem all the way back in the morning where I noticed
we got the same numbers.
At this point it's
after 2pm, so if they need any other offices they'll be gone and
whatever stuff up this is might mean we would have to come back the
next day to sort it out.
But after another
half hour and more discussions we're free to go again! I'm starting
to suspect that when each of these people says “welcome to Iran”
they're doing it sarcastically. Outside we again thank the helper for
his help. One of the people in the office comes out and security at
the gate happens to call over to him about us, I assume he tells them
to let us through it's all complete and good. So we get on the bikes
and head out but then security tells us to stop and go into their
office. ARGH.
Again the gate pass
office guy says something to security and we're away, actually
outside the port! Hooray! For real this time! We head over to get
petrol and then it's back to the hotel because it's too late and too
hot to go anywhere now.
Welcome to Iran.
