h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thanks for those, folks.

Amy, that's not boring at all. Me, I would have been really upset. But you and those orcas got to be illegals in Canada.

There may have been tears shed in private that night (of the failed crossing). Then again, that may have been the night we stayed in the middle of nowhere in a cabin with a slanty floor, before we figured out where we were going to go instead.

Exciting beginning.

As Amy has already taken the San Juans and Orcas, let me offer you this one;

In the mid 1980's my wife and I won a trip to the Cayman Islands for a full week. Our included airfare was from and to Miami Airport.
After flying over the corridor over Cuba, the only airspace that was available to commercial planes, we landed in Grand Cayman. The passengers were sorted into two queues, one short one for Cayman residents, another long one for the rest of us. When we finally reached the end of the line we were greeted by a border agent in a proper uniform. He looked at the names on our driver's licenses, opened one of several 3-ring binders and scanned down the list of names. As our names were not listed we were allowed freely into the island (this was long before the added security that followed the events of 2011).
Our adventures in a Crown Territory go well beyond this report.
At the end of the week we flew back to Miami International. We were all instructed to wait in the lounge for those who needed to clear customs until they announced our baggage had been unloaded. While we were waiting a huge 747 plane arrived from Heathrow. Only one family from that plane remains clearly in my mind. There was a father and mother with two young boys about 10 and 6 years old. The father told his boys 'This is the United States you will hear and see many new things'.

The two boys ran to the window overlooking the tarmac near where I was standing.
'Look Oliver' the older boy said, excitedly pointing' There is the lorry with the petrol! And here comes the trolley with the grips!'

I resisted the urge to begin his American education with corrections about the gas truck with the jet fuel and the baggage cart full of suitcases.

After we got downstairs and collected our luggage the customs agent asked if we had anything to declare. I honestly told him that I had packed a dozen bottles of Heineken beer in my suitcase.
'You owe the government of the United States 12 cents in duty!' He replied sternly, and pointed at the end of the hallway 'go through that door'

As we scrambled down the hall I searched desperately through my pocket for dime and two pennies (without the Queen's picture on them) - I was sure that a guard was waiting at the door to demand payment The hall just emptied into the main corridor of the airport.

I guess, at least back then, they did not worry about 12 cents.


F S
P.S.
Of course this is way to long, use as much or as little as suits your needs

That is an amazing story.

Thanks, I think I'll trim it just a little. You people are fantastic.

that should have been 2001, not 2011

I guessed that.

I am loving these stories

Slightly regretting that I didn't unsub as they are spoilers

This isn't up there with your stories, but I offer this snippet for your amusement.

We were going on the ferry from Dover to Calais, about the most boring, simple way to get from England to France. When we got to the passport booth, we handed them over... with all our money inside. It might have looked a little bit like a bribe! Thankfully they person appeared to have a sense of humour and let us through (and didn't keep the cash!).
Once inside we then realised we'd got in the wrong lane, so had to drive all the way around to the exit and back through again, only to hand our passports over to the same guard, this time sans money.

You don't want to make that mistake in China - isn't the penalty death for bribing a public official?

These border writings are amazing! I know they're appearing in the Post but too late I'm reading them now. .

I'm trying to remember crossing a border. I have done, this I know. .

Perhaps this means that I was:

a) unconscious at the time

or

b) I am older than I once was and my memory is blurred.

I suspect b) , but I'm working on it. .

Write on travellers!

That's great, Vip.

I remember Dover. I got off the train with two friends. One was Canadian and one was German. We ended up in three different lines back then - Commonwealth, EEC, and 'Other'. Since I was in the 'Other' category, I got the guards with the beady eyes, who thought I looked suspicious.

Trig, you're old enough to remember when the InterRail card included Morroco? Wow, I figured you'd be too young for that.

Anyway, my own story dates back to the late 1980ies when the InterRail card still covered most of Europe and Yugoslavia still existed.

I and a friend of mine had set as our goal to go as far as possible with the InterRail card: Istanbul.

The journey was pretty uneventful until we got to the Turkish border. In the middle of the night (somewhere between 2-3 am) uniformed border patrols shook as all awake, shouting 'Visa! Visa!'.

We tried to explain that we were 'Schwedisch, keine Visa' (we had found out that in Eastern Europe, German was more useful than English).

They still ushered us out of the train.

Emerging, we found ourselves in a fenced-off area, surrounded by barbed wire fences, spotlighs, German Shepherds, soldiers carrying AK47s.

And a small booth manned by two soldiers who checked each and every passport and put a stamp of 'entrance' into it.

Two.

And a whole train of passengers.

I think we queued for 1½ hour before we were done.

The odd thing is, the same thing happened on our way back home - obviously, we needed an 'exit' stamp. This time, we were prepared, so we ran out of the train as soon as they woke us up.

Thus, we were able to back to sleep after just 10 minutes of queueing.

What's even odder is that this border control wasn't included in the timetable, so passengers that had planned to switch trains in Trieste missed their connection the next morning.

One year later, my friend flew to Istanbul and reported there were no such controls at the airport.

Clearly, terrorists travel by train.

How annoying. The only thing worse than bureaucracy is - slow bureaucracy.

That and armed people waking you up from a nap so they can shine a torch under your seat.

*watches the reference zooming right past her*

Under the seat?

Oh, they did that in Hungary, back in the old days. Looking for capitalists trying to smuggle themselves in, no doubt.

Under seats? Hmmm.

As you pobably know the East German border patrols (in Warnemünde and elsewhere) had perfected both their skills and their equipment. Among other things they had mirrors mounted on sticks so they could look for illegal migrants hiding under train coaches. This way the "Grenzschützer" (border protectors) didn't have to bow down all the time.

Imagine hanging under a train going 120 kilometres (75 miles) per hour in order to get out of your country. Some of these fugitives even survived...

Thank you for all the stories, folks! They'll be in the Earth Day edition of .

Keep talking, if you like. And if we get more stories, we'll run them in a future issue.

Very good stories. I tried to think of one myself but although I crossed the border very often already I can't remember anything interesting.