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Are You Missing Pages From Your Passport ?
The passport. Probably the most important of all
travel documentation. Closely followed by your travel
insurance details and your credit cards. Anything
else can either be bought from where you are going, or
just plainly be left at home.
How many of you have actually noticed that the pages
are numbered? My new UK passport has 44 pages. These
numbers are very very important. It was on my first
trip to Russia that I realised my old passport had a
page missing!!
After a long drive across Europe, then Poland and
through Lithuania and Latvia I sat there nervously
waiting my turn at the Russian border. I was sure
everything was in order.....
Passport with huge full page visa – check.
Vehicle documentation – check.
A route plan and itinerary – check.
My Russian dictionary and phrasebook – check.
A pleasant, but not cocky, smile – check.
So, my time arrives. I pull up to the immigration
window behind two other cars. Climb out and start
looking for the appropriate forms to fill out. The
people ahead of me are decent when they see my
confused look and very foreign number plate on the
car. I soon get the form and realise I can no longer
read.
My eyes go blurry and I blink a few times. Am I
dehydrated or over stressed? Was it the horror
stories about the Russian mafia? Then things become a
little clearer, I can recognise a few letters, the
occasional word sticks out (not that I know what they
mean!). I now, after many days of driving and
sleeping in my car, have to fill out an immigration
form written in the Cyrillic alphabet.
Just where do you start? Where exactly in a
dictionary does a backwards looking E or R come in
comparison to a B or a T for example.... and what the
hell was the number 3 doing there???!!!!
They say us humans have the ability for a sixth sense
but haven’t developed it yet. Well I must say that
the people in front of me in the immigration queue had
their abilities down to a fine art . Or was it the
fact that I was turning the form over and over and
even upside down that gave the game away? I was told
what to put where, on the form, not in a language of
words but in a sort of game of passport charades!
After as many versions of thank you as I could think
of – I even bowed – the form was filled in and it was
my time at the counter. There was a young lady sat
there in a very cool looking Soviet era uniform –
damn, it made her look powerful but feminine at the
same time! As I handed everything across the counter
I put on my polite ‘May I come into your country’
smile. But after a short conversation with a female
colleague I was handed everything back, a brief word
or two was spoken then she said ‘Next’ – I think
that’s what she said because I was pushed rudely
aside.
I looked everything over and over. All seemed well.
In fact I even re-wrote everything on a new form just
to make sure my handwriting was clear. When another
two people went through it was my turn again. The
same thing happened. To be brief – it happened many
times, even with me using my dictionary asking if
there was a problem.
After a while the colleague indicated, using hand
gestures, that there might be a page missing from my
passport. Due to my many years of travel experience I
immediately knew what she was on about. Had I been
more awake, less stressed and had more moral fibre (or
balls!) I would have asked to see a supervisor.
Instead, I gritted my teeth and found that 'missing
page' from my passport.
Funny enough..... the page looked to me just like a 10
Euro note..... and she was only just happy with
that!!!!!!!
Posted: 02 April 2008
Comments
Posted by Gerard on 20 April 2008
HAhaha, good one.
Money makes things happen everywhere.
I had to pay to speak to a gvmnt employee in Russia concerning marriage, the reason being that their time is valuable and they are busy, there was no-one else there.
A gvmnt official in Manila said my application form was no good because I used blue ink instead of black, so I slid a green across the desk.
It just works.
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