I would like to tell you about the amazing and adventure filled life of a good friend of mine. He’s been through 15 different countries in which he’s ridden on, in, and over oceans, lakes, planes, trains, cars, trucks, trailers, bikes, motorbikes, dirt roads, concrete roads, and no roads at all. He’s seen minefields, sand beaches, rocky beaches, gone through jungles, up hills, sat in a desert, and has shaken the hands of a hundred people or more from all manner and walk of life. He’s been stared at and scrutinized, marveled at and coveted. Everywhere he goes the first thing that happens is he gets labeled and told how long he will be accepted there. Five months ago, he saw the inside of a washing machine and lived to cross even more borders, but that washing machine was the beginning of the end for him. I’d like to introduce you to my passport.
Since the washing machine incident, border crossings have raised extra eyebrows and invited extra scrutiny, but since we were always allowed through, I didn’t do anything about it. Other than my Cambodia visa now being blank, you can read everything else in there just fine (albeit a little faded in places), and my passport has 10 times the character it used to. However, I went to renew my visa on Friday, and they told me to come back when I got a new passport. Which brings on a whole lot of issues since by the time that can happen, my visa will have expired and they will expect me to have left the country. I think everything will be ok once I talk to the Canadian embassy, hopefully I’ll get some kind of temporary visa while I get a new passport, but be lifting this up for me all the same.
And yes, it really is that faded in real life, it’s not the angle or lighting, and those are threads coming off of it around the edges, not lint from my pocket. It’s the end of an era trading this one in.
