After a planned break and parking in Aqaba, we arrived in Amman, bought the Orange sim card (15 GB / 15 JOD / 28 days) at the airport, took a taxi to the city (30 JOD), and jumped on the bus back to Aqaba (Jett 🎟️ 10 JOD). The next day, we did some small reparations (1 worker / 15 JOD per day) and got the truck ready to drive back to UAE. After refilling the water (400 l / 3,50 JOD) in the morning, we moved to the Durra border. It’s a chaotic, disorganized border, so you must ask where to go. First, you must stamp the truck registration at the entry gate, get a stamp from customs, and then pay the exit fee of 10 JOD / person and 25 JOD / vehicle. Then, get another stamp from the man sitting outside. We also paid a penalty for overstaying 265 JOD for the truck and 220 JOD for the scooter. After that, we got a fourth stamp and white exit papers. Then we stamped our passports and exited through the gate. We spent there more than 6 hours.
After a few hundred meters, we arrived in Saudi Arabia at a pretty organized, modern border crossing. We got our passports stamped, and they sent us to the scanner. After that, they searched the truck again and let us go. You can buy insurance there, but since nobody pushed us, we ignored it. After a few kilometers, there were several gasoline stations around Haql; we took diesel as usual at Aldrees (1 liter / 1,18 SAR). We could not buy the sim card because all the shops were closed in the afternoon, so we drove towards UAE and stopped in Tabuk to get one from Mobily (the STC shop was closed).
To reach the Al Batha border, we took four days (2.600 km), including a one-day visit to our friends in Riyadh. We went through the same procedures as before, paid the truck insurance 210 AED, and drove towards Jebel Ali port.
Our NMT agent arranged all the necessary procedures and paperwork in Jebel Ali. It was pretty costly to send a truck to Mombasa (7600 USD). They asked us to picture the truck inside, and you should be careful now. It should look empty. Hide everything you want to bring; later, nobody will check it anyway. So we had a problem for four days getting through with a canister of AdBlue and a pack of Red Bull, which they saw in pictures on the floor. When we finally got the green light to bring the truck, they again created a mess at the gate; that foreign-plated truck must be towed and can’t be driven in, even though it is always like that; after some arguments, we were able to drive it to the parking next to the vessel. We have the necessary safety shoes, helmet, and vest we borrowed from the agent.