"Crossing the border into Turkey" Top 5 Page for this destination Iraq Transportation Tip by maykal

After the ease of entering from Turkey, I naively thought it would be the same in the opposite direction. I got a taxi from Zaxo to the border, and was dropped off at the same taxi rank I first arrived at, where Turkish drivers touted for business, offering rides to Silopi, Cizre, Mardin and Diyarbakir. Stick to Silopi, it's cheaper and closer, and there are buses on to the other cities from there. While waiting for other passengers, you'll be sent to the passport office to photocopy your visa stamp and info page. Pass your passport to one official, who will type a few things up, put it on a huge pile of other passports and leave them for another official deal with. After a bit of a wait, you'll be stamped out of Iraq, and the next phase of waiting can begin.

Your driver will drive round to the customs section, where taxis and private cars wait in a loooooooong queue on one side of the road, lorries wait in another loooong queue on the other. You're waiting to have your bags searched in detail by Kurdish customs officials...and chances are you'll wait an hour or two. Cars with women, foreigners or Iraqis can jump the queue if your driver is persistent enough...cars full of Turks are made to wait longer. In my taxi, we had a Turkmen from Kirkuk with an Iraqi passport and two Turkish citizens...only the Turks had their bags searched, and ours were somehow "not seen" by an official who pocketed a fistfull of notes from the driver.

Then you'll wave goodbye to Kurdistan and enter no-man's land, where you'll wait several hours in a queue on the bridge over the Habur river. Plenty time to remember that you've never been to Kurdistan, never met a Kurd and never heard Kurdish spoken. Kurdistan? Oh no, officer, there's no such place! I've just come from Iraq!

Vehicles are checked thoroughly on entering Turkey, as there is a thriving business in smuggling cartons of cigarettes. Each person can bring 3 cartons into Turkey, but every taxi was over the limit...there may be Turkish soldiers parading up and down the bridge, but the drivers are really quite blatant about hiding the cartons in secret compartments in the car. It's a good idea to check your luggage at some point to make sure you haven't suddenly acquired an addiction to tobacco.

Wait...wait...wait... you can get out and wander along the bridge, taking in the views, which really aren't that bad...the river is wide and fast flowing, and the Zagros mountains loom in the background...but no photos. Feeling peckish? An enterprising Turk has set up a stall at the end of the bridge selling simit and tea.

The Turkish side make you wait while each bag goes through an x-ray scanner. Passport control shouldn't take too long if you're papers are in order, although my passport is old-style so I had to be sent to a separate office to be stamped in.

A full 6 hours after starting the border crossing, we were in Turkey and hurtling towards Silopi. Don't leave the crossing until the day before your flight!

Mode: TO
Type: Car/Motor Home