Traveler’s Stress

Each and every time I traverse an international boundary, I get massive
butterflies and I start worrying that any second I’ll be yanked off the
train and be forced to relive the Russian border experience.

In 1996, my friend Erika and I were traveling from Berlin to Helsinki,
via the Baltics and a dip into Russia. Unfortunately, our train from
Warsaw to Vilnius also dipped into Belarussia and the border guards were
not happy to find us without visas to their still-Soviet land. A lot of
yelling, bitching, and finally crying, later, we were allowed to continue
on our journey after one third of our precious Russian visas was torn off
kept by those Belarussian thugs.

Both E and I knew that this would mean trouble at the Russian border,
but we were confident that once we told our story, they would understand
and let us through. Yeah, right! Four in the morning found us standing
outside our train at some little hell-hole of a station, with our
passports in the hands of the chain-smoking border guard chief and my
sanity in the hands of ‘Deep Purple’ Serge.

No, he didn’t get that nickname from the color of the bruises he left,
he’ll always be ‘deep Purple’ to me cuz he seemed to have
learned his few English phrases from the radio. His favorite, which he
repeated any time he was stumped for a word, was ‘And here’s Deep
Purple, from Manchester, England,’ done in a perfect radio announcer
tone.

Over the course of the next several hours (or was it an eternity?) I
learned quite a bit from Serge. First, he had an amazing gift for bullying
beer money off the sleeping locals waiting for the morning train and then
opening the beers with the few teeth he had left. I was getting close to
hating this guy for keeping me awake while E peacefully slept in the
station, when he told me his story.

When he was eight, his Mom and Dad somehow went west, and as a
condition of the trip, they had to leave little Serge behind as insurance
they would come back. While in the West, they defected, abandoning little
Serge in what was then the USSR. Now they live in Canada, with a new life
and young son, and poor Serge was here at some dive border crossing
escaping the pain in the bottom of a beer bottle.

All my compassion for Serge died in the morning however, when I gave
him $20 to change into rubles so E and I could buy a ticket back to Riga,
Latvia. After he was gone way to long, I flipped on his supervisor who
found a passed out Serge with only 50 rubles on him. As our tickets were
100 rubles, I swiftly kicked Serge into consciousness and screamed another
50 rubles from him so we could end this nightmare. With the world’s worst
dubbing of the Jumping Jack Flash movie blaring at us, E and I slumped in
our seats for the long ride back to Riga and the mental scaring that has
not left me since.

Why do I write this three-year-old story to you today? Because I have a
sick feeling I will be reliving it tomorrow afternoon when I try to cross
into China. My passport, after two tears of wear and tear in my pocket and
eight years of border stamps, is looking a bit haggard. My photo is
delaminating and every border guard in the last year has taken a special
interest in its validity.

Crossing into Mongolia, I had to argue with the guard just for him to
stamp it. I guess he was afraid of leaving proof that he admitted me. Now
with the super-strict Chinese border looming in front of me, I’m preparing
for a five hour maneuver to get into China or a long, sad ride back to
Ulaan Baatar. Once in China, I’ve learned my lesson, and I will get a new
passport so I can make it across the next border with a smile.

Until then, wish me luck!