…The Kazak border guard smiled – infuriatingly - as he said it. We were just north of Shymkent, on the Uzbek/Kazak border at 10:30 pm. Departure from Tashkent was three hours ago. A few minutes after schedule at 7:40. The Uzbek border formalities took about an hour, complete with two sniffer dogs, one of whom looked as if he might like to jump on my bed and be petted. Stupidly I thought that was it, had partially undressed and turned out the light. But we stopped; there was a loud bag on my door. The Kazak border now.
“I cannot get off”, I say. There is much commotion and three customs officials are examining my passport. Speak Ruski? They ask. That would be a Nyet. They manage to speak some English. They point at my passport and at the ominous stamp on my visa. It seems when the itinerary changed, due to the Coup d’etat in Kyrgyzstan and we got 24 hr visas to Visit Almaty Kazakhstan, upon departure an overzealous customs official gave me an exit stamp on my second visa and must have taken it upon himself to cancel the visa from Washington needed for transit on the train. I had not checked this visa recently– it was on another page. My mind raced. I had written earlier in the evening that I was slightly apprehensive about the border crossing – talk about a hunch. Outside it was pitch black. I felt truly alone.
Three officials were talking on cell phones, in the narrow corridor outside my compartment, deciding my fate. It had begun to rain and there was some lightening and I was beginning to wonder what I would do on the dark platform in the middle of nowhere on the edge of the steppe with my entire luggage at mid-night. I remembered taking the night train from Bangkok to NongKai on the Thailand/Laos borders years ago. The plan was to get a sampan across the Mekong to Vientiane. That time they told me I had the wrong visa. I could only leave Thailand by air and not by water. I had no recourse but to return to Bangkok. Not again. This can’t be happening. All of these months of planning and checking every detail over and over.
The cell phone calls go on. They come back to me. “Who cancelled it? Who did this?” I try to be very rational, tell them of the coup d’etat in Kyrgyzstan and change of itinerary. The visa must have been cancelled by mistake I say. Careful not to criticize the toad who did it. They shuffle through the passport eyeing every page minutely. Why did I go to Uzbekistan they ask? How long was I there, which towns? I hear them talk about the Kyrgyz visa. The calls go on. An hour has passed. Its now 11:30. The train cannot leave, the lights are all on. People keep coming by my door and looking in. “American” I keep hearing. The conductor is scowling. A couple of the officials come into my (small) compartment invading my little domain. Pick up books unasked, flip through them etc. They go away again.
All of a sudden I am through playing victim. I begin to formulate my speech. Shakespeare and Portia's "The Quality of Mercy"speech would seem tame by the time I had made my pitch. I quietly ask if I can return to Uzbekistan. "No!" Well I point out, since I don’t have a visa for Kazakhstan I cannot get out and in their country anyway. My mind is in overdrive. I decide that they cannot do this to an American Citizen. I shall demand to speak to the American Embassy. I shall not get off. I shall not walk out and they cannot bodily move me – or can they? Its now 12:30 and the conductor is really upset. We should have been on our way over an hour ago. The train is being delayed because of me – just what I need – a high profile - I hear the word transit in the conversation.
All of a sudden they come back to me. "Okay. Just tell the boarder when you leave Kazakhstan that we said down south it was Okay." Should I tell them in Ruski? Panic over. But boy that was a close one all alone at midnight in the middle of nowhere. Time to go to sleep. Tomorrow’s another day said Scarlett. TTFN
