Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/03/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Warning, there is no Leica content in this message. But it does contain a little photography and airport security. In 1990 I went on a climbing expedition to Pakistan. When we arrived in Islamabad after a long, 15 hours or so, flight and got of the plane at 6 AM, (dressed in downjackets and climbing boots, to avoid to much overweight on the checked in luggage). One in our party took a picture of the rest of us next to the plane. It took only 30 seconds before a jeep came screeching to a halt next to us with 5 military police with M16īs. Oh s***t, we all thought, we are all going direct to jail without passing immigration. Luckily they only wanted the film, and we didnīt think that it was a good idea to argue. Later we were taking a flight from Islamabad to Skardu and the security at the Islamabad airport was a real adventure. Apparently a Pakistani plane had recently been blown up in midflight so they were a bit nervous. But the funny thing was that they were really paranoid about batteries in the carry-on luggage. (Normally, airlines seem to dislike electrical equipment in the checked in luggage, and prefer it to be carried in the carry-on luggage, but here it was the opposite.) So they confiscated batteries from cameras and portable stereos. They did a really thorough search, we even had to take of our boots. Then, again, disaster struck. They found Olaīs pocketknife, a big Clip-it with 10cm sawtooth blade. Immediately we were again surrounded by 6 security types that were passing the knife around and inspecting it carefully. Finally the commander folded the knife handed it back to Ola and wished us a nice flight. Go figure. /Anders Nygren