Traveling to Saudi Arabia

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Leap3D
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Traveling to Saudi Arabia

Post by Leap3D »

Hi,

In a few weeks we will be traveling to Saudi Arabia for a scanning job.
A Faro Focus as hand luggage normally is no problem
Does anybody have experience with bringing a scanner into this country?

Thanks
Bas
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Re: Traveling to Saudi Arabia

Post by bdawood »

I did not do work there, but I know some who did, make sure that your scanner takes some breaks, it is very hot and you can burn your mother board, an 8000 fix, also cover your unit, not for religious reasons but because it is dusty ;)
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Re: Traveling to Saudi Arabia

Post by steves01x »

Are you allowed the scanner in hand luggage with the route your taking? As if the laptop ban is still in place the scanner will come under that!

Take your invoice and all visa related documents!
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Re: Traveling to Saudi Arabia

Post by Peyman Bashiri »

One more thing that you may need to know is that they wont let non Moslem people in their holy sites like in Mecca or Medina. So if your scanning job involved in those places, you may need to find local guy ! or make leap of faith.

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Re: Traveling to Saudi Arabia

Post by Macgyver »

A couple of years ago I got a scanner through under a carnet when they were under the process becoming a participating country. It went pretty smoothly. I am not sure what they use now, maybe a temporary import form specific to Saudi Arabia. Ensure that you have accessories listed such as chargers including the serial numbers as they will check everything.
The only issue I had was going in between Saudi and Oman. Oman use their own temporary import forms and then coming back through to Saudi they did not recognize the carnet.
If you are contracting to a local company I would definitely recommend having them provide you with an escort to get around and 'negotiate' with the officials.
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Re: Traveling to Saudi Arabia

Post by Leap3D »

Thank you all for taking the time to comment.
We went to SA and were able to scan 3 days out of our planned week.
We were told by the SA embassy that we didn't need some kind of letter to bring our scanner into to country, but we did need one.
The officials at customs confiscated our scanner and it took the factory representative 3 days to get it back.
When leaving the country we were stopped again at customs and they told us they would make sure the scanner would be on the next flight :?
Again it took the representative a lot of persuading to make sure we could get our flight and leave with a scanner.
My advise is to get in contact with your local representative and make sure all paperwork is solved before flying to SA :)
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