This morning we had an appointment in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to get an international driving licence. This special licence is important to be allowed to drive in many countries outside of Europe. As we are going to drive a rental car in Thailand to move around, we for sure need it. Apart from that, because we are going to spend a long time in Taiwan, there’s a big chance we will need it there as well. In Taiwan we will have to register the licence, to keep it valid longer than a month after we arrive. In Vietnam we’re not allowed to drive ourselves, so we made other arrangements to move around the country.
Student job
A funny side story is that one of my first student jobs in Belgium was for the VAB (Belgian Car Association). A big part of this job was making International Driving Licences, I made hundreds of them :). I can assure you that after more than 30 years this document hasn’t changed a bit. It’s exactly the same booklet, with the same amount of pages, text written in many languages & still no Asian language in it. Lots of stamps are put in the booklet & your photo is manually glued in it, with an extra stamp on top of the picture. Society has changed a lot since then, but the international driving licence stayed the same.
