IMPORTANT : RHD vehicles BANNED in Gambia !!
 

That's serious and This is for real !!
since las June .. all RHD vehicles have been banned from driving in The Gambia.

This , unfortunately include foreign vehicles which are turn-down at the border.
No ammount of bartering/bribing could make your way in .

I was driving a RHD mondeo (my commuting car whilst in UK) , and was stopped at the border. A convoy of 4 more british vehicles was aswell blocked at the very same border. Apparently both borders (barra and Farafeni ) follow the same rules.

In my case , and knowing a lot *I mean a lot !* of people in Gambian police/douannes could help me , but It took me 4 days bribbing the hell out of all gambian police/douanne to get a exceptional Customs clearing for RHD vehicle (at a cost!) . A lot of cash , and the hassle of leaving the car in the Douanne , taking the ferry south , sort out the papers , ferry north 4 days later , and then again ferry south with the car . a ****ing nightmare .

Obviously this has screwd up a lot of the UK overlanding tourisme (Camping Sukuta was absolutely empty , no-one was there , was kind of spooky) .

Unlike the 5 years-old rule in Senegal which seems easy to overcome by less than 50 Euros , this seems serious !!! . I even offered up to 250 Euros and even that I couldnt get in .

Even inside the country I couldnt barely drive 5 minutes without being pulld over/ stopped about the RHD thing on my car.

Incredibly , there is a business in the border which specializes in Swapping the steering wheel from right to left to allow entry in the Gambia . Dont want to think about how can they do that . Apparently they can do it , for as low as 5000-10000 Dalasis.

Have a nice day
Javier

Had no problems in Gambia
 

We entered Gambia with our UK reg. TLC just a few weeks ago and had no problems at all! Nothing was ever mentioned about RHD vehicles not being allowed to enter, in fact its been our easiest border crossing yet!

maybe things have changed since your experience???

Hi Slobo

I really assure you that me , and 4 more UK cars were rejected in the border that very same day *I stayd the whole day in the border*......

maybe you were lucky .. or me extremely unlucky. The fact is that the very law is actually written on the walls of the Customs' building (I am talking about Barra) . where aboout did you enter Gambia ?

Having said that ... my car was excepcionally suspicious to be sold in The Gambia (which was not ) old Mondeo in a really sorry state , with a really cheap respray ,etc.. looked as obviously for sale.

but the other people coming with me (well , I just met them on the road ) driving Nissans and a LandCruiser with all the ussual overland parafernalia were aswell turned down , and those people looked like propper tourists , not car-sellers , and after triying unsuscessfully to bribe the hell out of the place , they were forced to get back to Senegal.

Interesting .. hmmmm , were you very Lucky or me very unlucky ?

any more recent experiences ?

Javier

From Wikipedia :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive_on_the_right
<<In West Africa, Ghana and Gambia have also banned RHD vehicles.>>

hi ...

in my web-forum , someone reports that he actually entered Gambia with a RHD vehicle ,but also with lots of paperwork involved (and , as was in my case) leaving the car in Customs ,getting the paperwork sorted out in Banjul , and getting back to the border to pick up the car. Apparently he paid only 30 euros in fees/bribes.

so .. It seems that I was very unlucky , and that -even if they have banned RHD cars - they don't enforce it too much . (not as much as I thought )

Have a nice day .
Javier