All things forged & faked
 

I've heard of lots of people forging and faking stuff to get over those little hurdles that present themselves to the overland traveller: letters, drivers licenses, visas, carnets even number plates to name a few...

So what have you had to forge and fake to get past that pesky border guard or other form of authority in order continue your adventure? How did it go down and what happened when it didn't work? Was it a triumph or did it end in tears?

I am not sure if this is the sort of thing you are talking about, but we travelled with a colour photo copy (well several) of our V5 document (UK), which easily passes as an original, and hence we were happy to pass around to any dodgy looking official.

We crossed into Iran, from Turkey, and our carnet wasn't valid for another 3 days (we'd had to change our plans, and forgot about the carnet), we only noticed whilst it was being processed, but no offical did - phew!

Also we crossed into Uzbekistan, via the backdoor, from Kazakhstan. Our friend was in hospital in Uzbekistan, and we wanted to visit him ASAP, so we tried to cross the border 5 days early. We got into the Uzbek no-mans land, and just as we were about to exit, it was noticed. Oops .

The border guard told me we would have to stay in the unappealing looking no mans land until the visa was valid. Double oops. Then he took me to a computer, in another office, and typed in some Russian into translation software, and the word - Joke came up. PHEW! He had a sense of humour - and left us through with a finger to his lips and a shhhh.

We had debated forging the visa (it was hand written), but this time we were glad we didn't. We had lots of trouble at a Tajik border, where our visa had been scribbled over, not by us but by the embassy - in the end they let us in.

We got stopped by a dodgy Nicaraguan policeman a few months ago who confiscated our "international driving licences" but after about 45 minutes arguing he gave them back to us. We'd have been somewhat more worried if they'd been our real ones as it is a real palaver getting them back in Nicaragua - you have to take the ticket he issues to a bank, pay the fine, take the receipt to some office and hopefully swap it for your licence if it's arrived there by the time you get there.... see h...u..../tstories/dustyoldbags for the whole story...

I did travel once with completely authentic paperwork - but with a photocopied motorbike.