Day 173: Deportation from Turkey

Our next destination was Turkey, the start of our Middle East journey. Our plan was to go overland to Iran, Syria, Jordan, Israel and Egypt. With the help of my good, old watch alarm, we reluctantly woke up at 5am and was at the Basel airport by 6am. The plane landed on time at Istanbul. Everything was fine, except when we were at passport control. They would not issue Katy a visa on arrival. I explained them that my research from the Internet stated that a one-month visa on arrival was granted to Taiwanese passport holder. “No” said the police. I also asked them if they could issue Katy a transit visa, so we can fly to other countries without entering Turkey. They would not budge an inch and started the deportation paper work. So we were promptly put on the same flight back to Switzerland.

While airborne, the pilot was very kind and chatted with us. He even offered to drive us to his place, so we can use the Internet to book a new flight out of Switzerland. When we landed, there were two French police officers already waiting for us outside the airplane. The pilot went with us to the police office. After the French officers were done with us, we were passed to the Swiss police officers because we wanted to go to Basel. We felt bad to let the pilot wait any longer, so we told him that we would try to contact our friend in Basel. Apparently the airline would be fined US$5,000 for letting us on the plane without proper visa at the first place. Ouch.

I made a phone call to Andrew from the Swiss immigration office and he picked us up at the bus station. It took a couple hours of searching to find a “cheap” flight the next day to Egypt, which would issue visa on arrival to Taiwanese. So our next destination was now Egypt, instead of Turkey. BTW, the Swiss officer handed me our deportation forms from Turkey as souvenirs. I will frame them somewhere in my house after the trip.