We are two Canadian travelers going through the Middle East and thought we'd share a story with everyone trying to visit Israel, Syria, Lebanon, etc.
We are heading north from Egypt into Turkey and thought we could visit Israel and continue north if we didn't get stamps from Israel. Well, we didn't get stamped, but when we got to the Syrian border, the officials noticed that the back of our passports were sticky due to removal of numerous security and baggage stickers from multiple countries. They insisted that we had been to Israel and removed the Israeli stickers. They did not have a sample sticker to measure and there was no writing and printing on the back of our passports, just remnants of past stickers. We left, cleaned the backs of our passports and tried entering Syria again later that night but were denied both times and we think we are now blacklisted. The Syrian officials did not do anything to our passport, but now we have two cancelled Jordanian exit stamps which we think may be a bit of a red flag.
We find this absurd. We thought we took all the precautions by not getting Israeli (or Jordanian border) stamps, but clearly this is not enough. We are now in Amman trying to figure out how to get to Turkey. We went to the Syrian embassy, but they wouldn't give us the time of day.
We really just wanted to post this as a warning, but were also wondering if anyone has had a similar experience and were able to do something to get into Syria after being denied entry.
capitanricard
