Getting in and out of countries

The well traveled tourist paths are often well traveled for a reason. The locals are used to visitors and know how to deal with them. Travel slightly off the beaten path, however, and you find yourself coming head to head with the dreaded government officials. That's when the fun starts.


The biggest impediment to traveling to some of the world's odder location is getting that little stamp that says you need to go. With internet travel bookings, it's super easy to book that flight to Yangon, but will they actually let you in when they get there!

My experience of the traumatic visa application was when I went to Prague. At that time, I needed a visa. This involved making a trip to the Czech embassy. This is where all hope leaves your body and you start questioning if you really want to go to Prague after all.

First of all, there was the queue. It was out the door and around the corner. On a bitter winter morning, this was no fun. Then there was all the paperwork. You had to have exactly the right form, the correct number of photos and all the associated paperwork. You then had to turn up on time.

The visa section was only open in the morning, so you had to get there early. They had a strict quota for each day. Once they reached that quota, they shut up shop and went home. Too bad if you had already waited in line for three hours. You just had to come back again the next day. Talk about a drama! I think the "soup nazi" from Seinfeld must have been a visa processor prior to making soup.

On the other hand, I have some friends who are a bit jealous of all my stamps. Citizens of the EU do not get their passport stamped when they visit another EU country. The up side, is that they get to go through the special express line at airports. I think I'd much prefer the express line to a bit of ink on my passport!

Some visa policies are designed to annoy. Arriving in Istanbul, everyone is required to get a visa. It's a straight forward process. You go to the visa counter at the airport, pay your cash and they give you a little stamp to stick in your passport. The odd thing is the amount it costs. As far as possible, the Turks charge visitors the same amount that Turks get charged to get a visa in your country. This meant, that if you were from the UK, USA or Australia, you paid a different fee! In the end though, it ended up being determined what cash you had on you at the time, rather than your nationality. I think paying in Aussie dollars cost about half, when converted, compared to paying in pounds. Weird.

Then there are the countries swamped in forms. Arriving late on a Friday night in Tunis, I was directed to a line with some other recently arrived tourists. The man behind the visa desk was visibly distressed. He knew there was a lot of work coming his way. First of all, we had to fill out the forms and pay the fee. The fee could only be paid in Tunisian Dinar. Small problem - it's a non convertible currency, so you can't get any outside the country. Bigger problem - there's no way to get cash inside the airport!

Rather than letting that bother them, the Tunisians had a practical approach. They allowed you to pass through customs and immigration to go outside the airport and use the ATM there. Yes, that's right, I went all the way out, then all the way back again! Not real secure!

In the end, the visa in my passport was rather grand. It featured a scanned photo of me, lots of anti forgery features and a whole bunch of paperwork. I can see why the visa man was so distressed. It took him about twenty minutes to process each one!

The Indonesians also love their big visas. Each one takes up an entire page of your passport. This gets to be annoying. After a few full page visas, your passport rapidly starts filling up! I had to renew my last passport five years early, because it was full of dodgy full page visas!

Today, I was pleasantly surprised. I'm getting organised for my trip to Cuba, so I had to go get a Cuban visa. Generally speaking, the communist countries are the worst when it comes to bureaucracy, form filling and pointless delays. Cuba seems to be going on a big of a friendliness push. I filled out my form at home, had all the many required documents with me and headed to the counter. The nice lady looked at the form, smiled, took my cash and handed over my visa. I had packed my iPod, reading material, a small snack and was prepared to be waiting all day. I hope this is a good omen for my trip!

Once you actually have your visa, the processing by immigration when you arrive is the next hurdle. I remember China being especially bad. At Shanghai, they have a massive new terminal, a huge number of counters, but it still took ages to get through.

My worst experience though, was in Cambodia. I picked a counter manned by Satan. He was an old guard Communist agitator I think. His dream job was obviously as a torturer, but he was making do with immigration work until an opening came up. I look with disbelief, as my line did not move at all, but the line next to me zoomed passed. I eventually did a bit of timing. My guy was taking 5 minutes to process a passport. I did a quick check. Even though I was about fifth in line, it was still quicker to join the line next to me and be number 40 in line than stick with this goon.

I jumped lines after the usual should I or shouldn't I thought. The guy behind me was elated. This soon turned to dismay as I was checked through and he was still fifth in line. I'm glad to say, with the new terminal at Siem Reap, this has all been changed, but at the time, it did not create a good impression of the country!

The level of democracy in a country is not always a true indication of how efficient the process will be. I'm always annoyed when I go home to Australia. I have to fill in an immigration form every time I enter or leave the country. What a hassle! Then there's all the fun surrounding a visit to the US. That used to be a breeze, but of late, it's become a major hassle. It's bizarre that getting into Myanmar and Cuba was much less of a hassle than visiting the US

Ultimately, the dramas involved in getting permission to visit a country form part of the overall texture of the visit. Waiting in queues is never fun and mean spirited immigration officials can drive you nuts, but that's why we travel - to see how other people work, or don't as the case may be.