One of the pleasures and trials of long-distance overland travel is crossing borders overland. Having just crossed the Uzbek/Tajik border between Samarkand and Penjikent, I thought that it would be fun to do a post on the topic.
I imagine the first borders that I crossed overland, like most Americans, are the U.S./Mexico and U.S./Canada borders. These are pretty simple–there are essentially no formalities as you leave the U.S., and only a couple questions and proof of nationality when you re-enter. The Mexicans and Canadians are pretty relaxed. These borders are usually done in a car, though, and so don’t present much of a challenge–you just drive through a series of booths.
More often, crossing borders overland requires changes of vehicles and walking. The transportation that you take to the border usually drops you off before the immigration/customs complex of the country that you are leaving, where after completing formalities you are forced to walk through the no-man’s land to the immigration/customs complex of the country that you are entering. This walk is generally manageable, but can be long (requiring special transportation) or fraught with the tension of heavy military presence (or in the case of many borders, mines–but as long as you don’t stray off the road…).
The way from Uzbekistan to Tajikistan? Despite poor relations between the two countries, we found the crossing trivially easy. Our Uzbek taxi dropped us off at the Uzbek border post, where the procedures were fairly simple (customs, with x-ray, and then immigration). We lugged our bags through about fifty meters of no-man’s land to the Tajik facilities (which, relatively makeshift, revealed the relative poverty of the country–borders are often the best places for recognizing dramatic changes in economic development, including especially by experiencing the change in road quality and maintenance, which can be drastic). We were met there by the Tajik officials, who were among the friendliest and most welcoming immigrations and customs personnel we had ever encountered. We were invited to sit down on a wooden bench shaded by a tree while the immigrations officer gathered our passports and headed for his small wooden shack, explaining “five minutes” in a cheery voice. He returned soon with our stamped passports, and then chatted with us, giving us a proud briefing on some of Tajikistan’s natural sites, including an entire mountain made of salt located near his home town. After a similarly pleasant encounter with a customs official, we were on our way.
The first transport in a country is often the most troubling, pricing-wise, because border taxis are keen to rip off a tourist who has just arrived and has no sense of prices or distances. If the taxis work together, the tourist is left with no choice but to pay inflated prices, since the nearest town is often miles away. At the Uzbek/Tajik border was a cheap shared minibus to Penjikent which managed to fit us in before leaving–perfect.
After some wandering around Penjikent looking for lodging, and refusing an empty Soviet-era apartment that was offered to us for way too much money, we ended up at the comfortable homestay of Mr. Nematov Niyozkul (listed in the Lonely Planet, although we somewhat fortuitously happened upon him), who was incredibly helpful in arranging not only our onward transportation (Penjikent to Dushanbe, post to come) but also our OVIR registrations (required within 72 hours of entering Tajikistan, a relic from the Soviet era).
Mosaic (one of many), Penjikent
One story: Our most memorable border crossing was between the United Arab Emirates and Oman in 2003. We had just flown into Dubai on Emirates and taken a bus to the city of Al Ain in order to cross the border into Oman. I believe the border situation there has changed since 2003, but when we were there Al Ain (the UAE town) and Buraimi (the Omani town across the border) were completely joined, an invisible line dividing the two but with no physical barrier–you could walk freely between the two. If you wanted to travel deeper into Oman, however, you needed to go to the UAE immigration post that was located inconveniently a couple dozen miles to the west, officially exit the UAE, and then complete Omani immigration procedures at the Omani facilities a few dozen miles deeper into Oman. Wanting to have all our paperwork in order, we hired a taxi to take us to the UAE border post.
We were caught off guard, however, when the UAE official (who was an employee of the Abu Dhabi emirate, of which Al Ain is a part) demanded that we pay an exit fee. We had traveled to many countries, and never encountered an exit fee (although we have elsewhere, since). We didn’t even have to pay anything to enter the country–now we had to pay something to get out? We wanted to see some sort of documentation confirming the law and the amount (which was fairly small), but were met with gruffness. (The official, from Abu Dhabi, did not exactly have the tourist-friendly attitude that one encounters at Dubai International Airport.) We got into a small argument with the man, and, when refused his name and identification number, which we wanted for certainty that the proper procedures were being followed, Derek took his picture as a record. (This had worked very well with corrupt Uzbek police earlier on the trip.) Now, of course, it is usually not permitted to take pictures at borders, and Derek had just, we imagined, broken a law. The official seemed more than happy to exploit this as he called the guards.
Uncertain what would happen to us, we decided to flee, and, without our exit stamp, walked quickly across to the Omani side of the border (where there was nothing but desert, the Omani border post being dozens of miles away). The UAE border guards asked us to return to the UAE to talk to their superior, who refused to talk with us on the Omani side of the border, but not knowing what would happen to us, we stayed put in Oman, finally walking into the desert and hitching with a Pakistani driver on the Omani desert road back to Buraimi, where our luggage was waiting in our hotel room. What to do next? We decided to proceed to Oman without our UAE exit stamp, with the hope that the Omani immigration officials would not notice or care, and that the UAE immigration officials would not notice or care on our way back into the country. We ended up being half right–on our way into the UAE, we were asked why we didn’t properly exit the country. But all was okay, in the end.
When leaving the UAE through Dubai International Airport a couple weeks later, we asked the immigration officials whether there was some sort of “exit fee” when leaving the UAE overland through Al Ain. We were told that there wasn’t, and they asked us to write a brief letter explaining what had happened to us, so that they could investigate.