Imagine yourself living in a sandbox called Bahrain and you come up with the idea to drive back to the Netherlands when your assignment has ended. This involves a lot of paperwork and you need to start on time preparing the whole journey.
A Carnet de Passage is required (to enter Iran), you need an international driving license and AA membership, you should not bring the wrong passport pictures to the Iranian Embassy in Manama, and you will soon learn that the bureaucratic requirements from Saudi Arabia are not predictable.
Thijs decided to go on the safe side and took the car, a weekend prior actual deadline for a first attempt to cross the Saudi border.
On Thursday we de- register our car, we engage in a Bahraini bureaucratic exercise and produce more than half an inch new paperwork. It takes us all day to get an export license plate.
On Friday, we prepare our house for the move and we pack the majority of our luggage (tents, clothes, camping gear, etc.)
Thijs is in good spirits and departs at five in the morning to cross the border. I say goodbye and go back to bed (as the latest sand storm did not spare me and I have a sore throat, bronchitis developing).
A few hours later, I got up and walked into the kitchen for coffee. I see the pile of papers on the counter and on top is my car key, I also see Thijs his took his car and mine is back...
Uhuh, something has gone terribly wrong I’m afraid ... Thijs apparently failed to cross the border with my car. After producing a half inch of documents, he had to get one more form in an empty office at the border between Saudi and Bahrain ... No idea when it will open.
He has given up, drove back to our house, exchanged cars and left for work...
Thank God, he did the first attempt on time, you never know where the red flag comes up ...
My neighbour hears this story and within fifteen minutes her husband walks in my kitchen. He warns us and shares his experience when he drove his car from Qatar to Bahrain, nicely as he should on an export license. We learn that we want something impossible: The expected trouble to cross borders with export license is beyond belief, so this is something we need reconsider.
So, tomorrow I’ll go back to the Traffic department, and I’m afraid I’ll have to register my car again and undo the de-registration. I hope they’ll give me one of those new Bahrain license plates, the ones with the nice Bahrain flag on it.
Then we’ll sneak out of the country, off to a holiday in the Netherlands. Oh, oops, we will not return to Bahrain. What a pity, what do we do with our license plate?
No problem, would love to keep it as it will make our collection complete!
M.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten