After we had seen around the castle we headed for Damascus. En route our GPS map for Syria ended and we had been unable to buy another one, so we followed signs into the old city hoping to come across a hotel or guest house that would let us camp in their grounds. But as we got nearer we soon realised our best hope of finding somewhere to stay would just be a hotel that could provide some sort of parking for the trucks. It was getting dark and pouring with rain, we eventually found somewhere to park the trucks and wandered of to try and find somewhere to stay, hoping we could navigate our way back to the trucks. The fifth or sixth hotel we tried had rooms and parking spaces out the front so we negotiated the crazy roads and got the trucks parked out front.

We asked in the hotel where we could find an ATM that took visa (since arriving in Syria we hadn’t been able to find one and where surviving on the few dollars we had managed to exchange) but he told us that it was closed now, he then added ‘You need money? I give you money’ and then handed us 2000 SP so we could buy our dinner. Very very generous. Woke up the next morning to what we thought was very very heavy traffic in the square our hotel was on but in fact it was the fountain and the square was totally deserted.

Leaving Syria was just about as complicated as arriving. We arrived at the last customs check to realise we had totally missed the stage where we had to pay 50 SP EACH as a ‘departure tax’ and get our passports stamped.

Next Jordon, what a difference. As we entered Andy said, ‘This is my favourite middle eastern country.’ It soon became obvious why.

“Border procedures are lengthy & costly,” said the man from the RAC by email, when asked if it was possible to get into Syria without the official customs documents pre-arranged.

On Wednesday, we found out for ourselves. Below are the steps we took. The total was 2 hours and $752 US.

1. Queue for 2 hours to get a stamp in passport to leave Turkey. This isn’t really a fair mark against Turkey, as there had been a 24 hour strike at the crossing point which ended an hour after we got there.
2. No man’s land: Ends with a closed gate. A policeman opened it and smiled, directing us onwards to the arrivals building.
3. Parked at back of lots of traffic and walked to the building. Large, long building with windows all along back wall, split into sections by purpose. “Arrivals,” “Customs,” “Bank,” “Photocopying” etc. At the entrance to the building, green, A6 arrivals cards were being handed out from piles along the front of a small desk.
4. Massive writing along the end of the building had an incomprehensible English translation, describing the process. It suggested visiting the visa office first. No sign about which window it was – managed to work out it was not one of the main bank, but off the end of the main area.
5. Visa office: Met 2 German girls and 1 Italian guy already attempting to apply. After a short queue, Andy handed all 5 passports in.
6. Sent to benches along back of the main area to wait. German girls were not given visas, as they are girls. They had travelled by bus, and were told they need to return to Ankara, 700km away, to try to get visas there.
7. Visa office: All ok, we were sent to bank to pay. Louise and Andy treated as single unit, therefore Louise is ok, even though she is a girl.
8. Bank: $52/person paid, 3 part carbon receipt for each person. Bank kept middle copy.
9. Visa office: Hand writing added all over top copy of receipt.
10. Immegration: Top copy of receipt kept, bottom copy given back with passport. V5 documents inspected, and owners given 3 stamps in passport, one with details of vehicle. Everyone else assigned to a vehicle and given 2 stamps. Green arrivals cards from step 2 stamped (while still blank).
11. Benches to fill in green arrivals cards.
12. Foreign arivals desk: Didn’t want to see us.
13. Customs desk: Paid $3/truck for an A5 customs slip with all truck details written on it.
14. Outside: moved vehicle to front of building for inspection. VIN plate, truck colour (under the dirt), fuel type etc inspected. Stamp and notes added to customs slip
15. Small office off back corridor: Customs slip stamped again and more notes added.
16. Customs desk: Sent to bank to pay.
17. Bank: paid $240/truck for insurance ($55), tax and temp import duty. 3 new 3 part receipts printed per vehicle. Middle copy of all removed and filed, top & bottom of the first one for each truck given to us
18. Insurance Window: 1 month insurance exchanged for top copy of recipt
19. Bank: Other two receipts, for road tax and temporary import (8320 Syrian pounds), given to us
20. Photocopy window: Took copies of V5, passports, green slip and customs slip
21. Customs desk: Photocopies, customs slip and back copy of receipts taken and kept. New large (>A4) document printed with A5 document stapled to back. Free to leave building.
22. 40 Turkish Lira (£15ish) paid to fixer who extremely usefully helped in whole process.
23. Outside: Customs inspection. Vehicles opened and briefly inspected. Questions about destination.
24. Random small booth beyond customs: Vehicles directed to be parked. Louise & Kester pulled inside. Men in booth copied details off large document into book. Demanded very vague payment. Kester had $3.
25. Louise came forward to trucks to get dollars. No idea how much.
26. Outside: Move trucks to allow articulated lorries to turn.
27. Random small booth: Andy returned with Louise, asked to know how much to pay and what for. “Tneen tneen” (“two two”), while pointing to Louise then Kester. $4 looked out, then changed to “Tneen” (two). Kester paid $2, small slip ripped out of book of slips and given, no numbers in English or Arabic on it. Since Kester paid, they insisted, in good spirits, that Andy give Kester $1. All fair.
28. Beyond border control: Arrived at similar closed gate to start. Passports inspected again, asked “Israel? Israeli?” with broad smiles in good humour. “No!”
29. Gate open, leave.

Once into the country, we found it welcoming and open, and much more relaxed than we had imagined. And Blingy. Lots of bling. On everything, but especially in the form of flashing LEDs all over every vehicle at night time.

That’s the Krak des Cheveliers Castle in the background, one of the largest, best preserved medieval castles in the world. The next day we went for a poke around. It gets less visitors in a year than the Tower of London does in a day – we counted about a dozen people in it.