[QUOTE] <nods> [/QUOTE] I saw what you did, you naughty boy. :-)
And me. I seem to take about two weeks to recover from a longish US trip at the moment - both of my recent ones have precipitated bouts of illness within a few days of return, and my sleeping patterns have only returned to a semblance of normality after ten days back home.
I don't really give a flying **** who's to blame for travel restrictions but the simple fact is that if you hit the country financially they'll drop them. I wouldn't boycott the country because of government policies per se but I'm not interested in going while they insist on making it uncomfortable to do so.
wrote: I may have that to look forward to soon. And by look forward, I mean I've managed to postpone it three times so far and have a plan in action to achieve the same again.
It was about 10 years ago I think. I arrived at the airport three hours before departure at something like 6 in the morning. There were two others with me. Queues were horrible. We were asked (in the queue) if we were travelling together and said yes. They then seperated us and asked us where we'd been, what we'd been doing, who we'd met with, why we met with who we met with etc. etc. etc. and then went through our luggage thoroughly. The three people who had searched and interrogated us then had a chat to compare stories. They then came back and double checked a couple of points. All the while there were people wandering around with guns (which I guess is the same in any airport) but it was unnerving. Didn't help that I lied slightly because it was early and the truth was too complicated. It was all very thorough.
Definitely not. When we had more people then for planned trips there'd be a main and a reserve. I was on reserve for a trip to Israel and in the planning TC with the local people we were asked about passport visas from Arab states. I had Egyptian and Moroccan, neither of which works to stop entry.
Used to be that the FCO would issue a duplicate passport for folks needing to travel to Arab parts as well as Israel. Not sure if, or when, this was stopped, but Merchant NAvy colleagues would quite often have two.
It hasn't been stopped. First thing I did when I was asked to go to Israel, shortly before my upcoming holiday to Egypt, was phone the passport office to find out if and how to get a duplicate. Seems it's simple enough - you just apply for a new one as normal, but include a covering letter asking for a duplicate because you want to go to countries that basically don't like each other.
I used to have two UK passports partly due to the problem of having 'dodgy' entry stamps and partly due to having to send one away to various embassies to have visas sorted yet always needing a passport for short notice travel. It's worth remembering that if you ever have to hand your passport over to UK vetting agencies only giving them the one with socially acceptable entries and 'forgetting' to tell them you've got a second passport at home will get you several hours in a windowless office being asked lots of questions. It's also worth noting that cracking jokes with the investigating authorities isn't really good and telling them that your reason for visiting remote areas of Pakistan was to set off explosives doesn't make them any happier. Happy days etc.
I know it's possible to have two, having an unwanted stamp would seem to be a good way to avoid travel to unpleasant places. Problem is which is worse, Israel or Saudi? I don't have any great desire to go to either.
AFAIK, they still offer the service, for people travelling to countries where they tend to seize you passport unless you pay a hefty bribe. Little Bruvver had two passports for just this eventuality, but that was a while back, now I think about it.
