Question, Visas with motorbikes, Jordan and Syria
 

Hi,
We've just entered Jordan from Syria, 3 bikes and riders with carnets. Jordan visa at the border is for one month, which is ok.
But customs gave us a permit to keep our bikes in Jordan for just two weeks. To extend this we have to go to customs HQ in Amman. Cost unknown.
Anyone have experience of this please? Or of overstaying the 2 weeks?
Thanks.
The need to extend the Syrian visa beyond 14 days doesn't apply now. It's 30 days. We just left Syria, stayed longer than 15 days. Great time.
Cheers.

Did you actually need the carnet for both countries?

The carnet was required for Syria. It was fully processed on entry and exit.
Not required for Jordan. We were each given a card, in Arabic with various stamps and annotations which defines the two week limit and is required to be presented on exit. We were also shown the relevant rule on the Customs computer screen.

Strange. Just entered Jordan from Syria on Saturday. Got insurance and visa at the border and also got my carnet processed by customs. Customs check outside initially gave me a white card to present to one of the desks inside. The desk guys then took this, processed the entry portion of my carnet and gave me a blue A5 form called 'temporary entry permit for foreign vehicles'. The rest of the blue form is in Arabic and I'm not sure if it gives a time limit. Will check with some friends this evening. I don't plan on staying longer than 2 weeks in Jordan anyway, but seems odd to have this different procedure...

Can anyone clarify? I intend going to Jordan by car, nobody mentioned this time limit in previous threads I raised. Also my understanding from other posts is that carnet is not required for Syria and Jordan, everything can be sorted at the border.

Hmmm .. I intend also to go the same route on september 2010, and last year a friend of mine also ride the same route with girlfriend on a bike, and they sorted out everything at the borders .. No carnet! ..

OK, hope this helps, from our experiences the last couple of weeks.
Bikes are banned in Jordan. Only a few companies are allowed to use them and a couple of scooter hire places maybe just for foreigners. We've been told there's quite an active underground movement in Amman using bikes secretely off-road in the early hours of the mornings. We met one hostal-owner who spent a few months in prison for owning one.
We haven't even seen a bicycle on the roads, except for a few foreigners travelling through.
So you're quite an oddity riding a motorbike in the country. ESPECIALLY with children!

So we conclude that our carnets were not processed because bikes don't exist in the country. Also this is almost certainly the reason for the two-week limit.
We've examined our blue cards, and on two of them there's our entry date (in Arabic), and another date that is two weeks later. On mine, there's the same entry date, but where the two-week date is on the other cards, on mine there's a date about 5 days after entry. The cards are computer-produced so probably a keyboard error by the official. We'll see tonight when we leave on the ferry for Egypt!

We've been travelling on and off with a British couple in a Land Rover. On entry (the same day as us), their carnet was processed in the normal way. They got one-month visas like us and no limit on duration for the Land Rover. They'll be staying here three weeks.

So we conclude they process bikes in a completely different way to cars.
Cheers

P.S.
Egyptian visas easy and quick to obtain from the Egypt consulate in Aqaba. (Two hours). 12JD for one month. Minimal paperwork.

Thanks for explaining about the bike situation.