Crossing the border from Bahrain to Saudi Arabia on the King Fahd Causeway

I live in Bahrain and work in Saudi Arabia. The process of crossing the border is as follows:




The connection between the two countries is the King Fahd Causeway. The causeway is 25 Km in length with five bridges, totaling 12.43 km in length, along the route of the entire causeway. The first three bridges measure 934 m, 2,034 m and 5,194 m in length and form part of the Saudi side. The Bahrain side of the causeway contains two bridges measuring 3,334 m and 934 m in length. The bridges are interconnected by islands and dams. Approximately 12.5 km of the causeway has been constructed as a dam.


http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi-arabia/one-stop-crossing-on-king-fahd-causeway-to-start-on-monday-1.1988414

The process of crossing the border is simple. The process of crossing the causeway starts at a set of booths that are for paying the Saudi Insurance.  If you do not have Saudi insurance you will be stopped from crossing the causeway.  You can buy Saudi Insurance by the day, week or month.  A month of insurance will cost you 25 BD ($66.50).  The second stop is at the entrance of the causeway where you stop and pay a toll of 2.5 Bahrain Dinar (BD) ($6.63).  You also will pay 2.5 BD ($6.63) on the return trip.  Daily toll cost is $13.26. 

I go to work at 05:30 am when the traffic flow is low.  There is one large island where the customs and passport control for both countries has their facilities.

 

The causeway is a four-land divided highway until you reach the first bridge where you are on a two lane bridge in one direction.  The speed limit is 100 Km but on the Bahrain side of the causeway there are no speed cameras and many people speed.  If you happen to be in the left lane when one of these speeder approaches, they will flash their light telling you, they are more important then you and you need to get over.  It is not uncommon for the speeding car to pass you on the shoulder should you not move to the right fast enough.  There is not much to see, just water on both sides of the bridge and most days the haze is so bad you cannot see the horizon.

The third stopping point will be the Bahrain custom booths.  There are thirteen booths (two lanes for diplomat, fast pass and students) but at this time in the morning two or three are open.  At his customs stop they will take your license plate number and check to see if your registration is up to day and that you have insurance.  They will provide you a printed ticket with all your details, name, nationality, car, insurance, etc.  You need to keep this ticket to be use later.

The fourth stop is at the passport booths.  There are about the same number, thirteen or so (two lanes for (students, diplomats and fast pass), and only three or four are open.  It takes a little more time to have your passport check.  I hand them my passport open up to the Bahrain visa page.  Passport control will check the passport and will sometimes stamp the visa page or sometime they do not stamp every day.  The next stop, the third set of booths, will be the Saudi Arabia passport control.  At this stop I hand over my passport showing the Saudi visa page.  It takes between one and three minutes to verify my information. 

The fifth stop is Saudi Customs.  You stop at the covered entrance and wait to be directed where to park for inspection.  When you park, you are expected and required to exit the car, open your trunk and back door for inspection.  This is where the ticket you received is given to the custom inspector who will check out your car and finding nothing will stamp your ticket.  You close your trunk and back door and drive to the six set of booths, one or two booths are open out of four that are provided.  At this last stop you give the man in the booth your stamped custom ticket. 

You are now free to exit the island and to drive west towards Saudi Arabia but beware, there are four or five speed cameras which will take your photo and send you a speeding ticket should you exceed 105 Km.

The process going from Saudi Arabia to Bahrain is about the same, first stop will be at the toll booth. Second stop you pick up your custom ticket, but on the Saudi side it is stamped at the third booth where you passport is checked.  At the fourth set of booths you hand in the stamped custom ticket then proceed to the fifth set of booths for a Bahrain custom inspection. The six set of booths eastbound is to purchase Bahrain insurance.

It is noted that going from Saudi Arabia to Bahrain at the passport booths, some of the booths have two booths in a row.  The first booth is for female passengers to show there ID and face for proper identification.  Sometimes the women are in the wrong lane and have to get out and stand at the window to be identified.

One observation I would like to make is that some of the travelers on the causeway try to make it a game as to how quickly they can make the crossing.  They start off on the Bahrain side where they exceed 150 Km/hr. (93 mph).  As you enter the passport island there is a stoplight.  It is common for a driver behind you to race around you to beat you to the booths.  At the time I cross the causeway early in the morning, sometimes a third or fourth lane will open up.  When this happens, watch out! The people behind you will race around you like a bronco out of the shoot just to get one or two cars ahead.

On several occasions the traffic has been heavy with the lines extending onto the two lanes of the cause way.  When this happens the time to go through all of the stops is between two to three hours.  When in line, no one is polite, it is bumper to bumper and no one will give an inch.  When the cars are piled up this way, sometimes a line will not be a line or two lines will merge into one.  Neither the Saudi drivers nor the Bahrain driver will let you in, I have meet many rude drivers on the road but the ones at the causeway are by far the rudest.  

The bigger the car the ruder the drivers are.

Twice, I fell asleep waiting to move when in line.  One time I tapped bumpers the second time I dented the other guy bumper.  The other guy wanted to report the accident which took about an hour and the result I paid a 10 BD ($26.60) traffic ticket.