Crossing the border between Jordan and Israel by land can often be portrayed as a stressful process. Stanfords’ Barbara Tognini shares her experience of crossing at the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge.
From what I could read on travel guides or on the internet before leaving, the process seemed to me quite long, complex and stressful, and I was expecting to spend most of the day in queues on either side of the border. Luckily for us everything went very smoothly and we reached Jerusalem in very good time! Our trip to Jordan and Israel took place in March 2013 – for anyone planning a similar trip I’ve outlined our experience below.
We returned our rented car at Queen Alia airport, and took public transport to Amman (the airport is located about 35 km to the south South of from Amman): a Jett (Jordan Express Tourist Transportation) coach which takes about one hour to reach to Tabarbour bus station and costs about 4 dinars.
Tabarbour station is on the northern outskirts of the city, so we had to take a taxi to reach our hotel in the centre. Unfortunately, we didn’t agree the price with the taxi driver before getting into the car. Once we got on the way it turned out that the “meter is very expensive” and it’s best that we just pay 30 dinars (slightly more than £30.00). I would define it as extortion, but we didn’t have much choice: it was dark and we were in a completely unfamiliar place.
The hotel was located in a very dimly lit street and my partner- Denis – who doesn’t see very well in the dark, didn’t realise that the driver gave him the wrong change (naturally, the driver didn’t “realise” this either, as he vanished from the spot with a speed poor Schumacher would be envious of)… We ended up paying 60 dinars (£65!) for that ride. We were obviously hesitant to take another taxi after this experience but our hotel reassured us and offered to arrange a private car to take us directly from the hotel to the customs, for 25 dinars. This way the trip would take under one hour rather than 3 hours by bus.
A car picked us up on Saturday morning at 7 o’clock and when we got there we had only four people in front of us! We had to wait about half an hour, because the bureaucratic procedure to exit is quite long: basically we passed through three desks for various stamps and to pay the exit fee of 10 dinars. This was unexpected as the travel guide didn’t mention that there is a fee not only to enter the country, but also to exit. We did not have any dinars left and they don’t accept card payment so we had to use a nearby cashpoint. The custom officers took our passports, saying that we would have them back on the bus.
Once finished with the customs, we went looking for this bus, which was parked just in front of the custom house, so it’s impossible to miss. This is another Jett bus: the ticket is 5 dinars a person, plus 1.50 dinars a bag, and it’s the only way to get to the other side: nobody can drive or walk across the border. The bus departs every hour and we had about half an hour to wait. Fortunately, the custom house also hosts a nice duty free, with a variety of Jordan wines available for purchase, much to Denis’ delight. Jordan wine is very good but not so easy to find in restaurants or shops, the only other place where we found it in shops was Madaba, home of the largest Christian community in Jordan.
Once on the bus, a custom officer gave us our passports back, showing that they stamped a separated piece of paper rather than a page of our passports. He explained that this is a “favour” they were doing for us: as in this way our passports won’t show any signs of passing this border. If a Jordan stamp from that particular border appears on the passport, the border officials of other Islamic countries such as Dubai or Lebanon might not allow entrance.
We finally set off on the way to Israel. The bus driver was extremely chatty and friendly to everybody, and when other buses approached from the opposite direction, they stopped for a chat and even got off for a cigarette! He stopped for a break exactly in the middle of the bridge on the Jordan River that marks the border between the two states, so we had the chance to take another look at the famous river, or what’s left of it (see picture). Unfortunately, the legendary river has been reduced almost to a stream, because both Israel and Jordan use its water for irrigation.
It took about half an hour to reach the Israeli check point, where a small group of soldiers in full combat outfits examined every part of the coach. Needless to say that our driver picked a conversation with them too! After about 40 minutes on the bus we finally reached the Israeli customs. A large group of Palestinians and Jordanians was already in the queue to have the luggage inspected (exactly like in an airport), but the border staff, made mostly of Palestinians, was making way for us and the other people that alighted our bus (almost exclusively Europeans). Of course the people in front of us didn’t like it and complained bitterly. At first the situation seemed quite strange, but then I understood: we had only one small bag, while the people in front had several large suitcases each, so the staff was pushing us forward to make the queue move quicker.
Once the luggage was left on the conveyor belt, we were finally sent to the passport control, this one under Israeli administration. The lady asked me which was the reason of my visit, how long I was planning to stay, which places I was planning to visit, and if I had a hotel reservation. She took a quick look at my reservation and then issued my visa on a separate piece of paper, not in my passport.
There are three ways of reaching Jerusalem from the Allenby Bridge border: a public bus, a taxi or a shared mini bus taxi. However we arrived on a Sabbath and the only option was a minibus which costs 35 shekels. The ride to central Jerusalem took less than an hour, and at about 12 o’clock we reached our hotel.
To conclude, crossing the border took much less than I expected, I guess because we went there quite early on a Saturday morning, probably a week day would have been much busier.