%¿ª#@&, LOST MY PASSPORT!

While working in China, I decided to use the one month long holiday to visit India and Nepal, so I organized my trip with the help of an agency in Hong Kong and as soon as possible after the end of the classes, I left for Delhi. I arrived couple of days before Independence Day and the city was more chaotic than usual with all the people coming to see and share in the celebrations that included a magnificent parade and lots of festivities mixing religion, politics and simple joy.

Delhi was and I believe has been for a long time a very populated place, where crowds are the rule and pushing and shoving are not necessarily signs of bad manners, simply there are more people than space in the streets.  It is somehow difficult to explain, but with such mobs there is always insecurity and risk, the least of which is to be robbed.  That is what happened to me.  I was out enjoying the sights and the different temples and views.

                                                   Street traffic on a regular day

At the time, credit cards were not as common as they are today and for the most part tourist used traveller’s cheques to cover their expenses. To cash a traveller’s cheque that bore your signature, you had to double sign it in front of the teller where you wanted to cash it and also it was necessary to identify oneself with your ID most commonly your passport and that is how I discovered my mishap.  I wanted to change a cheque and of course needed my passport and looked for it all over, emptied my bags and suitcase and all the little “secret places” one usually has to keep valuables but to no avail, passport AND traveller’s cheques were gone with the wind and had left no forwarding address.

I immediately reported the theft at the nearest police station, not that I expected them to launch global international search for theft of a passport and few hundreds of dollars, especially because at least at the time, a passport had a considerable value in the black market, even a Mexican passport although the most valued were from the u.s.a. or Europe.  I also reported the theft of my traveller’s cheques to the issuing company that tells you never to leave home without them, and there since I had the numbers they immediately started the procedure of replacement, but considering it was just the day before a long holiday weekend – the national day, remember, I was told not to expect them in less than a week and my plans did not include to have to wait in Delhi for the money.  They gave me some replacement cash – charged to my card of course and then the problem was the replacement of my passport.

 

I located the Mexican Embassy and went there to ask for a replacement passport, easier said than done, of course.  A consul or a similar official received me and the first thing he asked me was for my birth certificate to confirm that I was really Mexican.  As it might be easy to imagine, I do not travel with a copy of my birth certificate, especially because at the time I was living in Beijing, P.R.C. and there my passport was not really necessary. I had all my Chinese documents.  Also living in China I had forgotten the basic rules of caution and protection against theft.  Life was extremely safe there. My answer to the insistent request, stating that without one they could not really help me and the prospect of having to move permanently and totally unwillingly to India was as unattractive as being bitten by a rabid dog.  I was soooo angry at what I perceived as his lack of understanding or empathy or disposition to help that all the expletives I know came out, and believe me I know a considerable number of expletives as mild or as rude as they come.  They all came out of my smiling mouth with a clarity of meaning and such a feeling that after a while the embassy official told me to stop, calm down and that he would authorize that I was issued a Mexican passport just on the basis of my use of expletives.  He said, “no one other than a born and bred Mexican can use them so properly and with such accuracy”. So this was the second time my extensive knowledge and use of not very nice words saved the day (for information on the first time, read my blog about how I ended up living in China).

As I mentioned, I was living and working in China at the time and China had very strict rules for issuing a visa, even more so a working visa and of course my working visa was in the stolen passport but I had to have it reissued in Delhi for my return to what was home at the time.  The only other document I had issued in China was my yellow fever vaccination certificate.  I had had the shot done at the Beijing Central Hospital, and they had stamped the yellow little paper.

So here I go to the Chinese Embassy where I had to explain again my misfortunes, show them my brand new passport, as well as the police report of the theft of the previous one and request that on my word they reissue my entry visa to China.  Here I could not use expletives in Chinese as confirmation, first it probably would not have worked and second, I did know a few but certainly not enough. Besides I did not want to pass for Chinese, just wanted my re-entry visa.  I offered them all information about my work place, my supervisors, etc. and mainly make them consider that unless I lived really in Beijing, I would not have my vaccination certificate done there.  So after a while I left with my new visa on my new passport happy as a lark.

 

But not so soon.  At the time Mexicans needed a visa for India and once you got there, upon entry, you were granted a temporary resident status, without which you could not leave the country at the end.  Again the prospect of permanent residence in India unplanned and unwilling was scary.  To make matters worse, the colour of my skin could very easily make me pass for Indian, from the north or south depending on my tan, but I could get lost there and end up wearing a sari, which is nice when it is for fun, but I did not want it to become permanent.  At any rate, I went to the government office that controlled the stay of foreigners and to my great surprise, realized that passport theft could be considered a national pastime, as many of us were there trying to regularize our stay after the theft of our precious travel passpartout!

This last hurdle was easier that the other two, as the Indian officials had great practice and experience with the problem as long as you had a police report of the theft and they could find you in their interminable lists of foreigners arriving in India. You were already there, proof you had ha a visa at one time, so issuing a temporary resident permit and exit visa were easy.

Now I had all my documents in order and except for the money that would arrive some days later, I could continue a most enjoyable trip of discovery of that fantastic country, colourful, noisy, smelly – good and bad ones, religious and full of contrast.