Corrupt Borders
Crossed in to Kyrgyzstan yesterday. The border crossing took 5 hours even though we were the only bus passengers crossing (20 of us), the rest were trucks. On the Chinese side, there was only one booth for non Chinese nationals, it took over an hour to get us all through (while two attendants in the Chinese offices watched on doing nothing). After that, the customs guys took all the bags out of the luggage hold and demanded a dollar or two to put them back in. If they weren't paid, I think they were threatening to go through the passengers bags in question - extra carefully. After that arrived at the Kyrgyz border checks. Before we got there, we had to pay a $12 customs handling fee! I think it meant that for the fee there would be NO checks! A poor Bangladeshi guy got special attention. They brought him into a room and searched him finding $500 on him. The army guy took it and put it in his pocket. When the guy protested, the army guy told him that he was in an angry mood and to get out! So he did. Thats alot of money to me, it must be a fortune to a Bangladeshi. If he wasn't on board the bus, I would probably have been brought in (with over $200 in my pocket). Had it been me, I wouldn't have left them off so lightly!
To top the trip off, the bus arrived at 4:30am in Osh. Could they not just have left a few hours later. On arrival I discovered my mp3 player missing. Another electronic device bites the dust! It must have rolled out of my pocket during the night and somebody then got light fingers.
The hotel I had planned has no answer. I can't find any other ones on the net and have no maps of guides of the place - or speak Russian for that matter.
To top the trip off, the bus arrived at 4:30am in Osh. Could they not just have left a few hours later. On arrival I discovered my mp3 player missing. Another electronic device bites the dust! It must have rolled out of my pocket during the night and somebody then got light fingers.
The hotel I had planned has no answer. I can't find any other ones on the net and have no maps of guides of the place - or speak Russian for that matter.
posted by Sean at 5:31 am
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