Originally Posted by
CDTraveler
The first time I landed in Manila was 1976, traveling with most of my family to attend a wedding there. One of my brothers, who is an MD, had refused to get a smallpox vaccination, which was required at that time. Immigration threatened to quarantine and/or deport my brother. Fortunately we were met by one of the staff of the father of the bride, who "somehow" managed to get through the various layers of security and immigration to join us in the holding area. He asked my Dad for $100 in small bills, and then took the immigration supervisor aside for a few minutes. Then suddenly the supervisor decided that since my brother did not have a fever or signs of active smallpox, he would be allowed to enter the country.
The rest of our Asian trip went smoothly, as long as we kept a supply of $1's, $5's and $10's handy for bribes.
Yeah. Traveling in Africa the group leader knew to give us faked smallpox stamps (he had a rubber stamp made up for the purpose) in our health cards to avoid such shakedowns. Their laws still required smallpox shots even though this was long enough after smallpox was wiped out that even those of us who were vaccinated no longer had current shots.