Never carry weapons in your hand luggage

THERE I was, locked up in a room with walls made of bulletproof glass with two Jamaicans smelling like a fire in a dope house, five Russians who made Arnold Schwartzenegger look bulimic and an incredibly gorgeous Vietnamese girl who was crying her eyes out.

Oh, and an Iraqi wearing a turban fashioned out of cloth with a camo pattern.

Heathrow Airport has these holding rooms with glass walls for those looking dodgy, and who don’t make it through customs with a stamped passport and an ‘Enjoy your holiday in England, mate’ send-off.

I was in serious trouble…

Broken rules

Why me, the innocent looking guy from Richards Bay?

Because I broke rule one, two, three, four and possibly some more in the Shoestring Traveller’s handbook.

Rule one:

‘Don’t carry edged weapons in your hand luggage’.

In my defence, it wasn’t Conan the Barbarian’s scimitar, but a small (by Zululand standards) knife.

Okay, I forgot about it and it shouldn’t have been there, but what were they thinking – that I had travelled halfway across the globe to slice off Prince Charles’ royal jewels?

He’s really not worth the effort, and if I was planning some royal slicing and dicing I would have taken a panga, because that’s the weapon of choice for any respectable Zululand murderer.

Rule two:

‘When travelling to countries where the national pastime is paranoia, don’t make friends with Iraqis wearing camouflage turbans in flight’.

This rule is even more important if Al Qaeda happened to have blown the ‘Circus’ part out of the Piccadilly Line two days before.

Again, in my defence, we Zululanders are friendly people, and if you’ve ever experienced Diwali in Richards Bay, then a few kilos of Semtex is really not such a big deal, as long as you don’t stick it up a dog’s rear end or the neighbour’s.

Rule three:

‘Don’t call the person swinging the rubberstamp a bitch.’

Not even in Afrikaans and while smiling, because no matter where in the world you go, there will be expats from SA.

In my defence, she really looked more Kensington High Street than Kerkstraat, Bothaville.

And in her defence, she gave me her phone number two days later.

Yes, I sat in that blooming glass cage for two days!

Deportation

The first to be deported was Achmed from Baghdad.

He just vanished…

Then the KGB bodybuilding team was put on the next flight to Moscow, because throwing your weight around really doesn’t help your cause when held captive by Heathrow Airport security.

Third to be sent packing were the two Jamaicans, purely out of stupidity, because the moment they were told they were being cleared, the one asked a customs official if he knew where in London they can buy a kilo of Purple Haze. He said they want to build the mother of all spliffs to celebrate.

When the decision to let them in was overturned, they cheered loudly and said that the moment they touch down in Kingston they will make the mother of all spliffs and celebrate.

That left only Miss Vietnam 2004 and me, but I couldn’t speak Vietnamese and her English was limited to ‘I love you long time’, with the result that she was unable to talk her way out of it, so it didn’t work out for us.

I, however, did talk my way out of that glass cage and ended up working three jobs a day for a year in

London on a six-month holiday visa.

One was at a circus in the north.

The Bothaville girl was right when she said I ‘do not look the National Gallery type’, but in my defence, my pet name for her was Mona Lisa.

It’s amazing how far Model C English, a little patience and smiles can get you.