crossing from Israel to Jordan: Allenby/King Hussein Bridge

DISCLAIMER: I’m writing this because we encountered such a dearth of English information on the border crossing and Amman, in general.  It will probably be quite boring to read.  Consider yourself warned.

There are three land crossings between Israel and Jordan and we had a really tough time deciding which one to use.  In the end we went with the Allenby / King Hussein Bridge crossing which is red on the  map below.



At this crossing you must have your Jordanian entry visa in advance.  We got ours at the Jordanian embassy in Tel Aviv and it was pleasantly straightforward.  We filled out a form, attached a passport sized photo, paid 400 shekels ($105) for the two of us and picked up our visas an hour later.   A single entry visa at the border (at the crossings which grant visas) is supposed to cost only 20 JD ($30) per person, so it cost more the way we did it.  The hardest part was finding the building because our map (on the iPhone) only had Hebrew street names on it. The embassy was open from 9:30 to 1:30 Sunday through Thursday.

Israel doesn’t have a fee for a tourist visa, but they do charge and exit tax of 334 shekels ($88). We paid it (cash only) at the post office bank on Jaffa street. 

On the day we crossed the border, we took a minibus from the Damascus gate rather than taking the Egged bus (expensive with terrible customer service) or a taxi (it’s challenging to negotiate a price while you’re using up the last bit of a given currency).  We paid 15 JD ($21) for the minibus and rode it through an Israeli check point to the Israeli border terminal. 

 

 

At the terminal, most people have to pay Israel’s exit tax.  In our case, we waited for the manager to come help us because the employees we talked to had no idea what to do with our paper from the post office bank saying that we already paid.  It turns out we saved 10 shekels of commission by paying in advance), but it probably wasn’t worth the hassle.

From there we boarded a Jett bus, which is a Jordanian bus service that is the only form of public transit allowed to drive over the actual border bridge.  We naively assumed that this 10 minute drive over the bridge was free.  It cost 8.5 JD ($12) for two people and two bags.

At the terminal on the Jordanian side of the bridge, there was an ATM (which was out of order) and a currency exchange booth.  We usually rely on ATMs, but here I had to exchange some USD to pay for the Jett bus.

In the same terminal we got our passports stamped.  In fact they actually stamped a separate piece of paper.  I’m pretty sure this was because having an Israeli stamp prevents you from entering several countries, and having an stamp from a land border with Israel is just as incriminating.  We aren’t going to any of those countries and this is the last trip on these passports, so we would have rather had a stamp but I was unable to convey this.

Next taxi drivers swarmed us with offers for expensive (25 JD) rides to Amman.  We read on a Jordan tourism page that there are minibuses and regular buses to Amman.  At one point we found some buses, but a police officer bent over backwards to insist that these were “Arabic buses” and that we absolutely could not take them.  Then we found another bus and taxi terminal with signs saying “bus” but we were told that the buses only run in the morning.  As you know, we’ve become pretty suspicious so I don’t know if people were telling the truth or not.  We ended up taking a taxi to Amman for 13 JD ($19).   We asked to go to the Abdali bus station but that was lost in the hand off from the English speaking hustler to the actual driver.  The language barrier was enough that he also couldn’t point out to us where we were being dropped off on our map.  We got to our hotel after two hours of walking.  The streets felt safe and there were occasional street signs, but the city is extremely hilly, the bags were heavy and I had to pee the whole time.

Jordan also has an exit tax but when you depart from the airport, it is either not charged or is included in the price of the airline ticket.  No one mentioned any exit tax to us at the Queen Alia airport in Amman.

QUESTIONS AND … A FEW ANSWERS


Here’s a list of related questions we were struggled to answer using our 2006 Lonely Planet and the English internet -

• How does it work to get the Jordanian visa in the Tel Aviv consulate?  What do you need and how long will it take?   You need a passport sized photo, 200 shekels and less than 2 hours.   The price is higher than at border crossings.
  
• Is there a bus from the King Hussein Bridge crossing to Amman? I googled some more and I still can’t say.  Jett bus lists a bus from Amman to the bridge but not in reverse.
  
• Is there a Jordanian exit tax when you fly out?  No.

• What bus stations exist in Amman?  Together we spent about 10 internet hours trying to figure this out and I still have no idea.  The oft referred to Abdali station, is now closed.  The Google map of Amman has only hotel listings and the bus stations have multiple names with multiple Latin alphabet spellings.  The best thing I can say is to get a 2012 Lonely Planet or to learn Arabic.