Some countries ask for proof of a ticket for onward travel before they let you clear customs. I hate this rule because I don't like to commit myself to any hard dates ahead of time. So, I've made a habit of forging a flight confirmation email before I attempt to enter a country, but up until now nobody had ever asked to see it. This time, when I was transiting through Kuala Lumpur, the lady at the Air Asia desk asked me for a copy of my ticket out of New Zealand. It suddenly hit me that I had forgotten to create a forgery this time. I immediately lied and said that I had a ticket, but that I didn't have a copy with of it with me. Luckily, there was a long line of people, so she had to deal with me quickly. She asked me to write down the airline, date, and airports of my outgoing flight and sign it. I wrote down that I was flying on United from Auckland to Los Angeles on the 27th. I didn't want to claim I was on another Air Asia flight because I thought that would be easier for her to look up. When I handed her the paper, she typed it all into her computer and I thought for sure she was going to tell me that she couldn't find my reservation, but instead she printed out my boarding pass and let me go.
Luckily, the airport had free wifi, so while I was waiting to board my plane, I looked up the details of the United flights for the day I had claimed and created a forged confirmation document. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a valid United document from any of my past flights to base my forgery off of, so it was certainly the worst forgery I've ever done. However, all of the information it listed was valid except for the confirmation number, which was a complete fabrication.
When I got to Passport Control, the woman at the counter immediately asked to see my onward travel e-ticket. I told her that I only had an electronic copy and that I'd have to boot up my computer, which she said was fine even though the line behind me was quite long. When I pulled up my forgery, she looked it over and then gave me a big smile and let me pass. Wow, what a relief. Little did I know, it was all about to go downhill fast.
I had met a German guy on the plane and he didn't make it through Passport Control so easily, despite his documents being valid and mine being anything but. He was interrogated for several minutes before they finally stamped his passport. I don't travel with any checked luggage, but I was standing next to the luggage carousel while my friend waited for his checked luggage and I repacked some stuff that I had pulled out on the plane. When I was done, I got out a pad of paper and we exchanged contact information since we'd both be in Christchurch for a few days. A moment later, a small dog on leash held by a customs official came up and sniffed us followed quickly by other officials coming up to us and asking to see our passports and e-tickets again. We had already been through Passport Control, but we hadn't cleared customs yet, so we were still in their jurisdiction. I got out of showing my forged e-ticket again by saying that I'd have to boot up my computer and that I'd just showed it a minute ago to Passport Control. My friend and I were split up and taken to separate areas to be searched. Apparently, a customs official had been watching us and had seen me repack my bag and then "give something to the other man". All I had given him was a scrap of paper with my contact info on it, but apparently the whole thing was highly suspicious and was behavior typical of drug traffickers.
The official told me that he didn't care if I used drugs, only if I was brining them into the country and then proceeded to ask me about my drug usage, which I assumed was a ploy to get me to confess to illegal activities. They guy was very friendly and professional, but I wasn't fooled. I was very cooperative, but also measured and wary. He was immediately further suspicious of me because he said my bag was "very small for staying three and half weeks" and asked me whether I was sure that I didn't have any other luggage. I laughed and told him that he was right, the bag wasn't for three and a half weeks, it was for a year and that I was sure that I didn't have any other bags.
He meticulously removed every item from my bag, giving my motion sickness pills an extra long look. At the very bottom of the bag he found a tin of sardines from weeks past that I'd totally forgotten about and a solitary pumpkin seed from a bag I'd been munching on months earlier. He also found a tiny clump of mud on the bottom of my shoe. Each one of those items, since I did not declare them, carried a $400 fine, for a total of $1200. The official then swabbed my cell phone and put the sample into a drug testing machine. After a few seconds, a siren on the machine started blaring so loud that it sounded like it'd just caught someone on the Most Wanted List. He walked back over to me and told me that my phone had tested positive for cannabis residue, which meant that I'd handled cannabis in the last seven days, total nonsense.
My first reaction was to assume that he had pushed a diagnostic button on the drug machine to manually force it into a positive detection, but in hindsight, it's impossible to know whether it was intentional or simply a random false positive. He launched into a new speech about how I must have some explanation for the drug residue on my phone and asked whether I was ready to change my story and whether I was sure I'd just met my German friend today on the plane. When I held my ground, he asked to see a copy of my e-ticket. My heart sank at that point because I knew that was the one thing I had to hide and if he discovered the forgery, he surely would deport me. I replied that I'd already showed it to Passport Control, but that I'd be happy to show it to him after my computer had time to boot up, which would be a few minutes. To my relief, he decided that would be too long to wait, told me not to worry about it, and then left to supposedly consult with his boss. He came back about five minutes later, swabbed my phone again and this time the machine was silent.
Another official came over and told me that because of someone else's mistake, I'd been detained before I reached the customs screening area, they couldn't fine me for my contraband. They decided to let me go and in the end it worked out quite well. I may have saved $1200 by being searched and in addition to that, during the search they found a thermometer I thought I'd lost and they cleaned my shoes for free! I found out later that my German friend didn't fare quite as well. He couldn't prove that he had sufficient funds for his three month trip, so his visa was cut from three months to two weeks.
It's hard to believe, but downtown Christchurch still hasn't been reopened since the big earthquake there and won't be reopened for years to come. Buildings that were destroyed are still in the process of being removed and their fall safety zones require that most of the city center be fenced off and closed to the public. The whole place is a mess. There are tons of empty lots where buildings once stood, but now it's just dirt. The city still experiences significant aftershocks on a daily basis, including some while I was there. I actually liked the aftershocks, but it wasn't a city I wanted to spend much time in.
As a side note, the U.S. pizza chains seem to make pepperoni differently here. It tastes extra porky. Maybe it has to do with livestock diets.