Bandar Abbas to Sharjah Ferry
I booked into a hotel (Amin on the front...not a great place, but a bed at least) in Bandar Abbas and after a very welcome shower, went to find a travel agency that Lonely Planet recommended. The temperature is in the mid 40s and as humid as anything and the healthy walking option soon became a silly idea, but it was too late and I arrived at the agency not looking or feeling my best. I was offered lots of tissues.
This is when I was told that the ferry was full for a week, I could not f....ing believe it. Nothing in what i had read or understood had given any hint of it getting booked up so. It was when she did not know about the bike's price that I started thinking that there was a lot of communication failure getting in the way. It was too late by then to do anything other than go back to the hotel.
I got on one of their very slow Internet pcs to see if I could glean some more. Luckily I found a new thread on Horizons Unlimited (Thanks Margus) that thankfully gave the shipping company name and address, which are:
South Shipping line office
Boulevard Iman Khomeini, Sorou Area, B. A.
Co ordinates:
N. 27 09.261
E. 056 12.243
The coordinates for Shahid Bahonar Docks, (4km west of Bandar Abbas).
N. 26 09 266
E. 056 12.279
So along I went in the morning at 8.30. What followed was a near 10 hour bureaucratic trail that took me to over 20 offices for parts of a puzzle that I had absolutely no idea had to do with what. At last by six in the evening I had my passenger ticket and Batty was ready for embarkation. 2 hours was spent sitting around and another 2 involved going back to the hotel to check out and collect Batty, but it had been a marathon. I read of others taking half a day.
Once the process was in play and I was confident that I would go that evening, I was surprised at how relaxed I was, pretty confused but relaxed. All the guys in the process were warm natured and happy to take this dumb foreigner through the ordeal. The night before I had been on quite a decline with the prospect of a week in one of the hottest most humid places I had encountered.
After all the shouting was over I think it was between $400-500 to get Batty and self to UAE.
Extracted from vegibike.com
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