The 1000 Day Holiday

We caught a Linea Dorada bus from Belize City to Chetumal, Mexico. This being an international route, you have to get off the bus and pass through immigration. The benefit of taking an International Bus is that they wait for you to clear immigration and take you onto your destination.

We even get added fun at Mexican border as you get to punch a button which displays a red or green light determining if your bags are searched.

I got though no problem, loaded my bag back on the bus and waited for my travel buddy.

5, 10, 15 minutes no sign, I told the driver my friend was still not there and I was going to look for them. He huffed and puffed a bit. But off I went to find her as he had parked so that you couldn’t see the bus when you emerged from security, and was no longer standing at the corner so people could find it.

5 mins more and still no sign. Finally shes through and I’m telling her to hurry up as the bus driver is getting impatient. I turn around and the bus is pulling out into traffic 100m away!

I sprint after the bus. no luck. Fsck, my bags on that bus and I don’t know if it terminates in Chetumal or continues all the way to Cancun. WTF.

I ran back to my friend and jump in a cab with 2 others who were also left behind.

We get to the bus station 20 minutes later just as the bus pulls in, I bust past security explaining my bags are on there, and then start shouting in my “most excellent” Spanish at the bus driver why the FSCK he left without us and with my bag on board. The only bad bit was that I couldn’t get my Spanish swear words working as they are unpractised.

He didn’t give much of a toss about the situation, but I didn’t get out his face until he had paid our 100 Peso taxi fare ($10).

He then spent the next 20 minutes giving us the bad eye as we waited in line for tickets for the next bus. At least it now had cost him money and that appears the only way he might ever learn his lesson.

Arriving in London from the Netherlands. Its supposed to feel kind of like home right.

The Motherland of our little colony at the ass end of the world.

But first you are greeted by immigration. Today is a good day. 60 People in the EU resident queue. 0 in the Foreigners. In fact there’s only 1 lady dealing with those called foreigners.

I approach in a happy mood, thinking this has to be the easiest border crossing. But things have already gone awry. Freshly back in the land of mobile connectivity, I thought it smart to store Jamie’s address at which I would be dossing on my new dutch Sim card. Which to my surprise on disembarking the plane has a default PIN.

Bummer. But I know the suburb, which Ive put on the form, and have a good memory of the map.

She: Whats your address in London

Me: I put it in my new phone, which has a PIN, And now Ive locked it trying to guess the default PIN. But I’m pretty sure I can find it, and if not, find an Internet cafe…

She: So you have no address

Me: I do, but I just bought this SIM, and now its locked, but if I get online I will have it.

She: How long are you planning to stay in the UK? Her flicking through my almost full 48 page passport

Me: About a month, I need a new passport, so have to wait for that.

She: What do you mean “about a month”

Me: Well the time it takes to get a new passport and see a few friends.

She: How much money do you have.

Me: $xx,000

She: What currency? You have been travelling a lot. When do you finish.

Me: Aussie Dollars, 8 Months left…

She: And then what?

Me: Find a new place to live and some way to make money.

She: Raising eyebrow…

Me: But the main requirement for where I’m going to live, is that it must have a nice beach, that’s warm, sunny and has good winds for kite surfing.

She: Well that’s not here then! STAMP.

The last 36 hours have been spent in a train from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to Irkutsk, Russia.

3 of us shared a cabin. An aussie tour guide, a Mongolian woman and I.

We arrived at the border ~4am. This means the toilet is locked from then until it departs at 3.30pm. The toilet on the platform was open from 6am.. not too bad so far.

9am arrives, which begins with us being locked into the carriage for 4 hours for Immigration processing, and customs checks. And since we’re still in station, the toilet is still locked.

The process involves customs searching the entire carriage. Checking underfloor spaces, inside heaters, in the roof, everything.

Before they arrived in our cabin, the Mongolian woman had arranged with the guide to put a pair of boots with his stuff. All fine and good, since they could converse in Russian.
She had a heap of new clothes, jeans, and around 30 pairs of socks. Which she was putting inside each other, taking the tags off everything then strategically placing the items around the cabin.
Once the customs agent came to our cabin he went through everything. The Mongolian woman on the trains get searched extra thoroughly, as ‘cheap Chinese warm socks’ (that doesn’t make much sense) obviously have a lot more value in Russia if they bother to smuggle them with such quantity! And since we were in the cabin with her. We get the twice over too.

Our packs get searched, and what do I find under my pack? another pair of boots! The customs guy starts shouting something in Russian loudly at me.. so I just kept saying yes, yes, yes….

In the end she ended up loosing a few pairs of jeans and top but she managed to keep some of the socks. Bummer that she forgot a pair of socks and her passport!

So for helping the Cheap Chinese/Mongolian Sock Smuggling trade I got a really crap pair of warm socks that had a hole after their first wear. And a really spongy apple that she gave me before the customs guys arrived..   And she thought I could be bought for cheap.. HUH!