I had to wait a little to write this particular post. One, I had to cool down a little and two, I didn’t have a whole lot of time with school and a bunch of other stuff going on here. But, now that I find it a little bit humorous, I thought I’d share a little story with you:
When you enter UAE, you get a 30 day visitor stamp in your passport. This stamp can get extended once for another 30 days, but after that, you either have to be official (have your residency visa) or you have to leave the country. Well, since Steve’s PRO (person responsible for getting the visa paperwork done) seems to be completely and utterly incompetent (I have found others who have received their visas in less than a week), we had to do a border run when our 60 days were up. We made plans to drive to Oman and do a “quick” border run.
Theoretically, we should be able to drive to Oman (about 1 ½ hours from here) go through the border and then turn around and go back into the UAE. This being done, we could have a fresh stamp in our passport that could then be extended to give us another 60 days.
Sounds simple right???
Well, it wouldn’t be a very interesting post if it were now, would it??
The girls were in summer camp at the time and instead of taking them out of their fun activities, we decided to wait until it was over (2pm) and leave after. I had also read somewhere that the prime time to go through the border is between 3 and 5 pm. Steve was also very busy at work and could use the time in the morning to get things done.
We had heard horror stories about things that could go wrong during a border crossing. It seems that the custom officials on both sides like to make up new rules and regulations as they see fit on a day to day basis. We had taken everyone’s input and prepared ourselves with as much documentation as we possibly could. And Steve had already done this once before (when he was here earlier this year). I had borrowed a portable DVD player from a friend and packed a small cooler full of snacks just in case (Thank Goodness!)
I picked the girls up and then we went and picked up Steve from work and we were on our way. The trip to Al Ain (oasis, border town in UAE) was uneventful and at sometimes beautiful. Once you get out of Abu Dhabi there are some wonderful sand dunes and scenery.
We stopped in Al Ain for a potty break and proceeded to the border station that someone had recently recommended as being pretty “hassle-free.” We got there and the official immediately rerouted us to another border station about a mile away. Why we were rerouted, we do not know. I guess it was the rule of the day (we knew several people who had crossed here the week before). I could feel Steve’s pressure go up a notch at this point in our journey (he was already in a bad mood because we had to do this in the first place). We turned around and went to this other border station.
When we got there, there was a long line (no waiting at the first place of course). When we got to the front of the line we were directed to park and go into the custom’s building. We were expecting this and dutifully parked and went to the building. Inside we had to fill out some forms and then they processed our paperwork. We were there for about 20 minutes. They gave us a “map” and sent us on our way.
At this point, I was feeling pretty good. I had heard horror stories of sitting in customs for hours before they would let you out of the country, but we were done in less than half an hour. We were in Oman, so all we had to do is get our official Omani stamp in our passport and then turn around right???
At about this time, I looked down at the “map” which they had given us. It looked like a confusing complex of circles and arrows with some Arabic, a few English words, and an occasional number. We weren’t sure if we had to walk or drive to the border station. We assumed that it was close by. Finally, through some charade-like communication with one of the officials, we learned that we actually had to get back in the car and drive to the station. We all piled back in the car and started off. Steve drove while I tried to interpret the “map.”
Traffic circles are commonplace here (at pretty much every intersection), so I was able to figure out that part of the map, and I assumed that the arrows were the direction that we had to go in. There were 5 circles on the map, so we thought, we’ll go through 5 intersections in the appropriate direction (according to the arrows) and we’ll get to the station.
We had gone through a few circles and I realized that one, I had lost track of what circle we were on (trying to navigate and pass out snacks and drinks while changing the DVD do not mix), and two, the circles were getting further apart. I assumed that Steve had been counting also, but he had lost track as well.
We realized we didn’t know where we were going, so we decided to backtrack and start over again. If you’ve ever been with Steve when he is lost, you’ll believe me when I tell you I could see the steam coming out of his ears at this point. Right about then, the fuel light went off in the truck. (The steam started coming out of his nose as well). I had seen a shell station and navigated us back to it, the only problem is that they only took cash and we had no Omani rials. So, we had to find an ATM. This took quite awhile driving around (and remember we don’t have much gas), but we finally found one. We crossed our fingers that this bank would actually give us money (a lot of banks won’t work with foreign Debit cards) and took about 10 minutes trying to figure out how much we would actually need (I had forgotten my calculator that day). Thankfully, the ATM cooperated with us and gave us the cash so that we could go back to the gas station ( I won’t even mention where the steam was coming from at this point).
We went back to the gas station and filled the tank and backtracked in the direction we hoped we had come from. Eventually we did find the border station and turned around and started counting circles. The girls were settled down with a movie at this point, so it was easier to keep track of where we were going. As I was looking at the “map” I saw something that said 35km. I also saw something that said 20km. I mentioned this to Steve and it dawned on us that our trip into Oman was going to be a lot longer than we expected.
We wound up driving 60 kilometers (about 36 miles) into the middle of Oman before we reached the Omani border station that we needed. Thankfully, I had bought a very nice map of the area the day before or we might still be wondering around Oman. It was still very disconcerting to keep going further and further into Oman (which is a desert that has the population of about 2). There was nothing around but a couple of stray camels and some occasional cars. The border station was smack dab in the middle of nowhere, but we did eventually find it.
I complain about the ride, but it actually was quite beautiful in a barren sort of way with cool rock formations and mountains in the background. And when we got out of the car at the station, it was quite nice temperature-wise. I actually got chill bumps when a breeze hit me and thought wow it’s nice and cool here (a look at the car thermometer told me it was 90F, but when you are used to 120F, it’s cooler!).
We spent about 45 minutes at the station waiting our turn and then waited for them to process our paperwork. The highlight of the whole Omani border station experience had to be the women’s room. The building itself looked fairly new and was very clean until you went to the women’s room. I have been to many disgusting restrooms in my time, but this one took the cake (of course both of the girls had to go pee). Caitlin was actually gagging and I wanted to. I don’t think that it had ever been cleaned (I’m talking dried feces on the walls). I quickly gathered the girls up and took them out to the car where I had luckily kept the port-a-pot and the girls relieved themselves there instead. I just sucked it up.
We turned around and drove the 60km back to the UAE and parked at their border station. There really is no parking and we just parked on the side of the busy road and went inside. Steve waited in line while I sat in the chairs and tried to occupy the girls who were bored and now tired because it was after their bedtime. Steve and I had our obligatory retinal scan and then he had to get back into line.
One thing that I have come to learn about the people here in this region of the world (and especially the Emirati men) is that they have a huge sense of entitlement (I’m sure there will be a post about this in the future). So, they tend to just butt in line and cut you off like you are invisible. This happened to Steve a couple times while he was waiting in line. (The steam was coming out of my ears at this time). He finally gets to the front and hands our passports to the attendant and Ashli comes up to me with a desperate look in her eye and tells me she has to poop. Talk about bad timing! I did a quick scan of the room and saw no facilities (and I was a little nervous about going into another border station restroom at this point) so I used hand signals to let Steve know where we were going and told him we would be right back.
I took the girls out to the car (that I mentioned previously was parked on a very busy road) and set up the port-a-pot once again. Not only did Ashli have to go number two, but so did Cate. They both took huge stinky ones in the back of the truck while massive semi-trucks were flying past us. Ahhh….the life I lead!
We finally finished inside and then we had to go through 4 more stations (while in the car thankfully) before we were allowed to go back into the UAE. Each station wanted some document or other and spent about 5-10 minutes of our time and then we were finally on our merry way again.
I was starving at this point (I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and it was 9pm) and really had to pee, but I didn’t want to have to stop any more. I just wanted to get home. The girls fell asleep in the 1 ½ hours that it took us to get back to our house (nine hours after we had left it) and we put them clothes and all in their beds as soon as we got there (and then sprinted to the nearest bathroom).
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” I don’t know who originally said this, but this quote certainly holds true in this case. It was a long and very frustrating day for all of us, but we lived and I can now laugh about it a little. I learned a few things in the process. One, don’t ever take the port-a-pot out of your car when you have kids. Two, buy a portable DVD player and three, always pack more snacks than you think you might need (the girls ate everything!!!!). And in conclusion, if I don’t get my residency visa before the next 60 days are up, there better be a plane ticket in my hand to Cyprus or heads will roll!!!!
