Sticking it to the man: how to thumb your nose at Sudanese bureaucracy and not pay for it.

As you may recall we registered our visas – for the not insignificant price of 103 Sudanese pounds – upon arrival in Wadi Halfa. When we got to Khartoum the man at the Blue Nile Sailing Club said that we'll need to go and register – but the office is closed already today – so go there tomorrow. We assumed that this would be just to register our presence in Khartoum (as we had to do in Dongola, Karima etc). We were wrong.

We go to the office at 3pm the next day. Closed: opening hours are 8am to 2pm.

We go to the office the next day and get our form and start filling it in. “Who's your guarantor in Sudan?” asks Bureaucrat. “We don't have one,” we say. “In which case get a letter from your hotel,” says Bureaucrat.

The next day, with our letter and completed form we go back to the office to the registration window. We need a photocopy of the letter so that there's a copy on each of our forms. Copy done (they have a copier in the building!) we go back.

“10 pounds to register your visa,” says Registration Man.

“But we've already registered,” we object, showing him the registration sticker in our passports.

“10 pounds to register your visa,” says Registration Man. These are the only words in English he knows.

So we simply picked up our passports, left our forms where they were on the desk and walked out. Would this cause problems later? Keep reading! In any case it was quite refreshing.