What's the worst border crossing/customs & immigration experience you've ever had?

[YaTingPom]

Being stuck at a border crossing and reading this post.

[RickyBobby]

It's usually the return home as a middle-aged single male that gets the most scrutiny, but my most memorable was when I first arrived in Cambodia totally green and it was obvious. The guy holding my passport was asking me for tea money, but I just pretended I did not understand, and he finally stamped my page and waved me through. These days, I look a lot more like I know what I am doing, and they have either cleaned up their act or it's obvious they cannot con me now.

[spitthedog]

The Bo Y border on the Laos side was what one could be decribed as very very very laid back. Went through the Viet side with the usual several quick checks of passports.
Got to the Laos side and it was one woman and a dog. She asked us could we call a number written on the empty border control post. We said we didnt yet have a sim so she called someone for us. About an hour later after cycling / pushing bonkers hills all day a plain closed guy and lady arrived in a car, unloaded 2 boxes of Chang and then processed our VOA.
Welcome to laid back Laos.

Not the worst but....


The best experience of a border crossing i've had is the Mae Sot/Myawaddy border. The burmese immigration guy even filled in my girlfriends arrival form.

[over the rainbow]

Crossing from Jordan via the King Hussein Bridge to Israel...1974
took over 14 hours, confiscated all my drugs, ( prescription, as was headed overland to Nepal) cut my toothpaste and soap on half, xrayed my boots, took everything out of my pack, stripped searched me
Interviewed me in a locked room for hours about why i was crossing the bridge to Israel
after 4 hours i asked to be allowed to return to Jordan, but was told i wouldn't be allowed to as i didn't have a Jordan visa

[long in the tooth]

from Detroit, Michigan to Windsor, Ontario. 1975. on my Schwinn Varsity 10 speed with a few friends.
yes it was the 70's.
yes we had very long hair.
yes we a bit cocky.
but when i started laughing when they took our seats off the bikes and began looking down into the metal tubing... things got worse.
that's when they decided to have a look down into our tubing.
first and last "finger check" by anyone other then a doctor or a hooker.
made for a very uncomfortable afternoon bike ride around Windsor.

[batshitcrazyweirdo]

Hmmmmmmmmmmm, worst or most painful? I remember being shot with a .38 special hollow point and blowin my ankle out. Got to the Mexican border and fucked if they didn't think it was a ploy to smuggle drugs and made me get out with half the floor ankle deep in blood. Made me open the trunk and then when didn't find anything passed me through. Luckily the US side waved me through and made it to a private hospital in San Deigo I couldn't pay for and passed out as I got through the doors.

Better than the good Catholic sisters offering to cut my foot off and sew it with sheep skin.

[kinard]

Hmmmmmmmmmmm, worst or most painful? I remember being shot with a .38 special hollow point and blowin my ankle out. Got to the Mexican border and fucked if they didn't think it was a ploy to smuggle drugs and made me get out with half the floor ankle deep in blood. Made me open the trunk and then when didn't find anything passed me through. Luckily the US side waved me through and made it to a private hospital in San Deigo I couldn't pay for and passed out as I got through the doors.

Better than the good Catholic sisters offering to cut my foot off and sew it with sheep skin.

C'mon man, you can do better than that.

[batshitcrazyweirdo]

Hmmmmmmmmmmm, worst or most painful? I remember being shot with a .38 special hollow point and blowin my ankle out. Got to the Mexican border and fucked if they didn't think it was a ploy to smuggle drugs and made me get out with half the floor ankle deep in blood. Made me open the trunk and then when didn't find anything passed me through. Luckily the US side waved me through and made it to a private hospital in San Deigo I couldn't pay for and passed out as I got through the doors.

Better than the good Catholic sisters offering to cut my foot off and sew it with sheep skin.

C'mon man, you can do better than that.

So what! Are you some agency? That was true, but I've had worse. I'm not sayin diddly squat. Monster.

[paul jordaan]

i am 70 now and don't feel ashamed anymore and actually its quite a funny story if you are not involved
was 16 and came from Holland on the boat to Sweden and people told me that Swedish girls liked my type (indonesian) but you had to have a moustache.
Won't bother you with the way i had to buy this moustache but was also a strange experience (are you an actor sir ?)but coming to the border i did not wear my moustache and had it in my bag and upon entering customs found out i had a bottle of whisky which was forbidden so i was taken apart and had to open my bag.
opening this bag customs see this small box and ask me whats in there and only once in my life i tried to be invisible or disappear completely from earth especially when he was opening this box,looking at me with a dreadful smile on his face and calling out to his fellow customs and showing this moustache around.
Anyway it was my worst experience crossing a border (and i did not get any swedish girls with or without)

[Lucky Lucan]

More than 20 years ago I decided to go from India to Nepal. The closest entry point was in the very west of Nepal. The nearest Indian town was a fucking shambles, there were so many blaggers chasing the bus before it even pulled up that the police were whacking people left right and center with their big bamboos. One guy in the station tried to swing a punch at me and he got fucked up. We stayed in that town the night and then crossed the border the next day. The difference on each side was astounding. There wasn't any road for starters, it was just a track. On the Indian side there were a whole load of vendors selling chillums and other paraphernalia outside the customs house. Then you could go on through an orchard and across a very narrow bridge and next thing you're in Nepal.

There was a dozy but friendly officer manning the Nepal side. There were posters up with a cannabis leaf in a red circle with a stroke through it, but everywhere we looked there were cannabis plants growing in the ditches and fields, it was ridiculous. Anyway it turned out I didn't have the right currency, and he just let me in saying there's a bank in the town a few KM up, just get your money changed and get back later on so I can stamp you in. So I went into town on some jalopy and asked this cop where the bank was, he nonchalantly took my hand and walked down the main road, I thought that was fucking weird but he just showed me where to go and went along with his business. We booked into a hotel and I went back and got stamped in after a few momos and beers. So not the worst by any account, just a bit weird.

[kinard]

More than 20 years ago I decided to go from India to Nepal..

Ha, less than 30 years ago I went from Nepal to India, crossing at Raxoul. Border towns always seem to evoke a sense of frustration in me and Raxoul was no exception, arriving just on dark didn't help matters.

An hour after handing over my passport, my mispronounced name was tying its hardest to be heard on a clapped out tannoy. I walk in to a dilapidated hut, and sitting at a desk piled with passports, sits a portly immigration chap in an immaculate uniform, and without looking up at me, says "You have something to give me?"

No, I have nothing to give you, I say.

You have something to give me? he repeats. somewhat sternly.

No, I have nothing to give you, I asserted.

Silence, easily 5 minutes, and I'm getting a little bit concerned about his attitude and of course the oz of hash I have on me.

Silence, bar the flicking of pages.

BANG! he stamps my passport and hands it to me. He had not made eye contact the whole time.

I walk in to India and board the forlornest of buses, even by India's standards, a story in itself.


I much prefer the more direct approach of the German border guards. Driving to Berlin when the wall came down, the big fat German guard stuck his enormous swede through the open window and yells "Ver is all the 'H' ?! Get out of zee car! Surrender your passport!"