The Department of Homeland Security has got your Number. Literally.

by Grant Martin on

Naturally, I left my passport at the Detroit airport last Monday. At 9:35 as I lay in bed gchatting Saturday morning, my phone rings.

“Hey, this is so and so at the Mac Terminal customs office. Just wanted to let you know that we’ve got your passport.”

“Really? Didn’t even know that I lost it. I’ll pick it up on my way to Prague next week.”

Et cetera.

It gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside when the bureaucracy actually does its job, things find themselves in the right place and the system works. It gives you a creepy feeling inside though when you realize that the business card I have taped to the back page of my passport doesn’t have my mobile phone number on it.

I wonder what else is in my file at DHS. Personally, I don’t care how intrusive it is — I’ve got nothing to hide. They can implant a tracking device in my arm and send helicopters to follow me around, as long as my passport finds its way home before I go on my next journey.

I never liked that passport picture. It’s no wonder that I can’t lose it.

The Thai Women’s Guide to Scoring a Foreign Man

by Martha Edwards on

I love Thailand. It’s a great place to travel to and is brimming with gracious people, good food, rich history and amazing scenery. But one of the most disturbing things about Thailand is the sex trade, which is literally everywhere. Beautiful Thai women (and ladyboys) crawl over one another for the chance to ‘entertain’ fat, balding foreign men (or women!) who they believe can be their passport to a better life. It’s really heartbreaking.

A new book is coming out aimed at Thai women, which gives them step-by-step instructions on how to get — and keep — a foreign husband. The book, called “Foreign Boyfriend, Foreign Husband”, paints a romantic vision of Western men, claiming they are respectful and kind, unlike Thai men. Um, right. The point of the book seems to be this: Old, Western men might not be handsome but they’re loaded.

This is a tricky issue — on one hand, I think it’s appalling that women would be encouraged to marry for money and a passport. But at the same time, I’ve never known the desperation of poverty, and as a Canadian, I’ve always enjoyed all the benefits of a first-world passport. Is marrying for love a luxury that people in poorer countries can’t afford? Call me a romantic but I sure hope not.

The Passport Crunch is Over!

by Catherine Bodry on

The State Department optimistically announced September 7 that Americans can now receive passports “in a timely and secure fashion.” The wait is allegedly back to to 6-8 weeks for a standard application and 3 weeks for expedited service. In order to deal with the massive backlog of applications, the department hired hundreds of new adjudicators, temporarily transferred employees to passport centers, and opened a new facility. By September 30, it expects to have issued 17 million new passports since last October, up from 12 million the previous year.

As for me? I’m going to wait until after the New Year to renew mine, just in case I want to leave the country over winter break…. I guess I’m just not as optimistic as the State Department.

Surge in Passport Applications Makes Wait Even Longer

by Catherine Bodry on

My passport expires in June 2008, and I guess I better get on renewing it if I want to travel anytime soon.

We’ve already reported on the major delays at the passport office. But it’s going to get worse before it gets better. The Associated Press reports that by 2011, more than half of all Americans will have passports (or the equivalent — the “passcard” has yet to be created). Before Congress required Americans to have passports when flying to Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean, only 1 in 5 Americans had one. Now that number is 1 in 4. And next year a new wave of travel rules will be unleashed that will require passports for land and sea travel to the above countries, and it’s estimated that 1 in 2 citizens will have passports in 4 years.

Customers can no longer pay $60 and expect a 3-day expedited service, either. Now the State Department is giving itself 10 days for internal processing. That makes a total wait, for expedited service, of about 3 weeks. Right now the wait for a regularly processed application is 12 weeks — at the least.

I’m almost too late to leave the country by Christmas.

[via msnbc.com]

How does your passport photo look?

by Martha Edwards on

I miss my old passport, the one I did much of my world travelling on, and not just because it is filled with colourful Visas from Southeast Asia. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but that passport had a great picture of me. With a wide grin on my face, I looked breezy and confident, a seasoned traveller who was loving life (tooooot!)

Then my passport expired, and I was told I couldn’t smile in the new photos. To avoid looking like I was just arrested, I tried to do a subtle-yet-coy smirk. The result was what is know known as the ‘smell the fart’ photo. Seriously, I look like I am taking a big old wiff of something and am trying to contain either my laughter or my disgust. Plus, what is with my hair? I’m not particularly vain (hey, I’ve posted it for the whole world to see — that’s at least slightly brave,) but I’ll admit I cringe a bit when the customs guy examines it more than for more than 2 seconds. At least I’m not the only one.

Apparently, you can do your own passport photos at home, which doesn’t do me much good because now I’ve got 5 years left until my current passport expires. But hey, that’s 5 years I can spend practicing ways to differentiate my ‘coy’ look from my ‘something stinks’ look.