Turkey (10) | Shipping to the Middle East

When traveling overland, every now and then there comes a day to travel a bit over the water. This time we ship our Milady Landy single-handedly from Mersin, Turkey to Haifa, Israel, the gateway to the Arabian Peninsula, a special part of the Middle East. We fly from Adana to Istanbul and then to Tel Aviv.

In this blog we provide the details of this crossing, including the costs.

Preparations

We inform ourselves extensively via the Facebook group Overland Middle East and become a member of the WhatsApp group Overlanding Asia (via a PM to Nelly Bird). Through these channels we collect the necessary information about shipping from Turkey to the Middle East.

We also considered traveling overland to the Arabian Peninsula. The route via Iraq and Jordan seems feasible to us, but we want to avoid Syria and Iran. Unfortunately, it appears that it is difficult to travel to Iraq by car from Turkey. The northern part of Iraq is a semi-independent area under Kurdish rule. At the border with Turkey you can get a visa for Kurdish Iraq, but it is not valid in federal Iraq. There is no border post at the border between Kurdish and federal Iraq, so you cannot get a visa for federal Iraq. One option is to fly to Baghdad and arrange the formalities there in advance, but that is too much hassle for us.

On October 9 and 10 we will travel at our usual pace, a maximum of 300km per day, to Mersin. On the way we do some fruit shopping…

…and we stop at the Marmure Kalesi.

We find a spot in Mersin near the marina and tourist harbor and eat fish in one of the many floating restaurants.

Shipping from Mersin

The procedure

We agreed at 8 am at the Catoni Agency office, at 8:30 am Erman Ilter, our contact person, arrives (coordinates: 36.803759, 34.637133, email: erman.ilter@catoni.com.tr, Mobile: +90 530 035 37 26=WhatsApp). Erman speaks good English and explains the procedure well to us.

He prepares the first papers and accompanies us to the port together with his colleague.

There we can park Milady behind the customs gate between a number of other cars.

This is where the long wait begins, customs want to thoroughly check Milady’s papers and then have to check with Interpol whether the car has not been stolen. The latter in particular takes a terribly long time, without any message from customs we have to wait outside the gate…

… until finally, after 6 hours of waiting, the redeeming word comes, Milady Landy is released by customs and we can leave for Adana. We have already missed the train, so we have to take a taxi to the airport, which Erman arranged for us.

The cost

The total costs for shipping Milady Landy – a Defender 130 with an overall length of 5.30m; width=1.90m height=2.62m – are:

We paid €1,400.

In addition, the following costs are added:

Taxi from Mersin port to Adana airport: €50

Flight tickets for 2 people from Adana to Tel Aviv: €240

Total costs Turkey: €1,690

Air Travel to Tel Aviv

We arrive at Adana airport an hour before our flight departure. It’s exciting to see if we can still get on it, but luckily that doesn’t seem to be a problem. Once we have checked in, the announcement comes that the plane is delayed by 2 hours😞. For us this means that we cannot make the transfer to Tel Aviv in Istanbul😫. We just have to endure it.

In Istanbul we are offered another flight to Tel Aviv. Quickly, quickly through passport control and screening, we catch the plane just in time. We land in Tel Aviv at 1am.

We take the taxi to Nili and Hanan’s apartment, which we can use until we have to go to Haifa.
Our adventures in Tel Aviv are in this blog.

Two days later we leave by train for Haifa.

The port of Haifa

The procedure

The car insurance

In Haifa we are in contact with Ofir Waizman (email: ofir@pal-ltd.org; mobile: +9720528730490=WhatsApp). Once we have checked in at our hotel, Haifa Tower Hotel, his partner picks us up and drops us off at The Pool Company insurance office (coordinates: 32.816397, 35.001919).

Here we spend filling out forms and translating documents from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Unfortunately the main insurance office closes at 4pm, so we have to return the next morning.

Fortunately, it was quickly arranged the next morning and we get on our way to the port. We will meet Ofir at the passenger terminal of Haifa Port (coordinates: 32.822278, 34.998620).

Ofir picks us up there and after the necessary formalities at the gate we can drive to Milady Landy in his car. She is neatly parked in the harbor, between the trucks at the bottom of the ro-ro ship ramp.

We then have to cover many kilometers in the port. First to the security checkpoint where we have to unload some of the luggage and receive a stamp on our gate pass.

We then have to drive past various offices and agencies until we finally complete the complete quartet.

This way we can leave the port at 1:30 PM with papers and park Milady Landy in Haifa.

The cost

The total costs we incurred in transporting Milady Landy and ourselves to Israel are:

Conclusion

The total costs for transport of Milady Landy and ourselves from Turkey to the Middle East are: 2.828,60 Euro.

On Monday morning we delivered Milady Landy to the port of Mersin. On Thursday afternoon we drove off the Haifa port area.