FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Benicia, California, USA
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Posts: 10,820
I was in Varanasi, India back in April 1980. I was under the influence of (ahem) a local product that is gradually being legalized and decriminalized in the United States today, when I went to the city's swarming train station to buy a ticket. I got back to my very basic hotel and my passport, which I carried with me to the station, was gone!
Not only did this mean backtracking to New Delhi, which was sweltering in 110 degree heat, to get a new passport (and I was not exactly traveling in style at that point, so the journey would have been a PITA); it also meant that I could not go on to Nepal as planned.
I raked my mind to try to recall whether and how I might have lost it. Hmmm...there was a group of guys who'd approached me at the station, apparently just being friendly and practicing their English. This was not so unusual in India. But maybe they'd picked my pocket???
Just as I was resigned to my fate, the hotel manager called to say my passport had been found at the station! I ran over there and met the very nice head of the railway police there, who handed over the document. Apparently I'd left it at the counter when buying my ticket.
The the hotel manager had told me that offering cash to the honest police officer would have been inappropriate, but that if I could give him something from the West (like a pen) it would be appreciated. (My, ahem again, state of mind was such that I had no idea which ticket agent to thank in person, but I could at least thank the police.) The ironic problem was, traveling on about $4/day, I had nothing from the West to offer! But my gratitude was profuse.