Border Crossing: Turkey

Date of Border Crossing	June 2006
Point of Entry	Karadagi (Turkey) from Kassab (Syria)
Passport and Visa	Passport has to be valid for at least another 6 months but no visa was required.
Insurance	Nobody checked if we had valid insurance, but our European insurance (green card) includes Turkey.
Drivers License	Nobody checked if we had valid drivers licenses, but I am sure you are required to have it.
Motorcycle papers	Vehicle registration papers (gray card) were needed and checked.
License plates	-
How it went	Very quite border crossing. There was hardly any traffic. Stopped at the Immigration Office. There our passports got stamped. Then we continued to the customs office. Here a "scribe" copied the relevant information of our swiss vehicle registration papers onto a form with 3 copies. These we had to take to the office of an other Customs officer. He entered all the data into the computer, stamped all there copies and handed one of them to us. On the form it said that you need this copy to exit the country and that you are allowed to stay three months.
Point of Exit	Sarpi border to Georgia
How it went	Immigration: This part was very easy. Go into the immigration office and have the passport stamps. Customs: It looked easy enough. In the customs office they looked over our papers and then sent us to another customs officer in a booth who had a computer. He entered the data from our bikes into the computer in order to sign us out. Once that was done he handed us a white paper slip. With that in hand it was back to the customs office , where they stamped the bike out of the passport. Now we were allowed to go up to the gate and leave Turkey. There was a light complication however: the computer did not like our data, at least not the data from my bike. The officer tried it every possible way he could think off, but the system refused to cooperate. Behind me a the line of inpatient Georgians and Turks also wanting to cross the border kept growing and grumbling. Unimpressed the officer tried and tried. But after an hour he finally gave up and just signed us out by hand.
Additional Information	Changing money: Syria/Turkey border: There was not Bank at the border so we couldn't change any money there, but there was a ATM in the next town, only 10 km away. We did not have to pay any fees to enter the country. Turkey/Georgia border: On the Georgian side there was a small bank where we could change our left over Turkish money into Georgian currency.