The drive east towards Belarus from Warsaw was completely painless. Hardly any traffic or HGVs. The road was in an excellent state of repair, with a separate cycle lane alongside. We all wondered what the queue would be like at the border. Jon and Linda have experienced border crossings out of Europe and their record was 22 hrs. Naturally we didn't want that kind of wait to contend with. At the Polish side we were waved through quite quickly and were pleased, perhaps we were in luck. We had coffees and snacks, great to be in a motorhome. The people in cars were struggling in the heat. Mike chatted to people in the queue. A Russian man claimed to have set off from Paris that day, an 1800km drive. He was on his way home to Moscow following his two week family holiday. He had been to Venice, the south of France and Paris. They had wanted to visit Lisbon as well but when he reassessed the map they realised it was too far away. With that kind of itinerary perhaps he really had done that huge drive from Paris in the time he said.
After a couple of hours we had hardly moved at all, we seemed to jump forward in stages of a couple of car lengths and then be stuck again. Suddenly a car broke ranks, overtaking the whole queue in a bid for freedom. There were military personnel about, what would happen? It relieved the boredom for only a few minutes. At this point we were crawling over the two way bridge, crossing the river Bug. Aptly named for a country reputed to have a huge mosquito population. Finally we crossed the bridge, we could see another barrier and our single carriageway split into several lanes. There was a row of kiosks and some buildings to the left. Portacabins were sited on the right, with signs indicating that they sold health and vehicle insurance.
An immigration officer wearing an impressive high peaked green hat came over to our vehicles and explained we would have to join the red 'Something to Declare' queue, that was a shame. We knew it would slow us up, and we didn't have anything to declare. Eventually Mike and I made it to our lane, the final part of the ordeal. We cleared immigration quickly.I had managed to fill out the forms correctly after only one return. Then we hit another hurdle. The car in front of us had some kind of problem. We just had to wait. I walked up to other staffed kiosks who weren't examing cars but they weren't working on our lane. So all we could do was wait. Finally the driver in front accepted that he wasn't allowed to cross the border and he drove back towards immigration. Our customs officer indicated the exact point on the painted line that she wanted our van to stop at. She had seemed officious from what we had witnessed but Mike charmed her, she spoke good english and she even filled out one of our forms for us. Mike then had to visit various offices to change money, pay duty and tax. I bought our vehicle insurance at the portacabin.
We had done it. 9 1/2 hours. What a lot of beaurocracy, but we were through. Thank goodness we don't have to endure this kind of ordeal for our regular border crossngs in europe.
After a couple of hours we had hardly moved at all, we seemed to jump forward in stages of a couple of car lengths and then be stuck again. Suddenly a car broke ranks, overtaking the whole queue in a bid for freedom. There were military personnel about, what would happen? It relieved the boredom for only a few minutes. At this point we were crawling over the two way bridge, crossing the river Bug. Aptly named for a country reputed to have a huge mosquito population. Finally we crossed the bridge, we could see another barrier and our single carriageway split into several lanes. There was a row of kiosks and some buildings to the left. Portacabins were sited on the right, with signs indicating that they sold health and vehicle insurance.
An immigration officer wearing an impressive high peaked green hat came over to our vehicles and explained we would have to join the red 'Something to Declare' queue, that was a shame. We knew it would slow us up, and we didn't have anything to declare. Eventually Mike and I made it to our lane, the final part of the ordeal. We cleared immigration quickly.I had managed to fill out the forms correctly after only one return. Then we hit another hurdle. The car in front of us had some kind of problem. We just had to wait. I walked up to other staffed kiosks who weren't examing cars but they weren't working on our lane. So all we could do was wait. Finally the driver in front accepted that he wasn't allowed to cross the border and he drove back towards immigration. Our customs officer indicated the exact point on the painted line that she wanted our van to stop at. She had seemed officious from what we had witnessed but Mike charmed her, she spoke good english and she even filled out one of our forms for us. Mike then had to visit various offices to change money, pay duty and tax. I bought our vehicle insurance at the portacabin.
We had done it. 9 1/2 hours. What a lot of beaurocracy, but we were through. Thank goodness we don't have to endure this kind of ordeal for our regular border crossngs in europe.
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