It’s amazing what you can get away with using laminated stuff, attitude, and mutual incomprehension. I got a fake student ID card made up on the street in Bangkok when I was backpacking around Asia. It came in useful several times:
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I had purchased a “local price” train ticket in China instead of a tourist one. When getting on the train, was accosted by the ticket inspector, who called over the stationmaster, who got the army. Surrounded by guys pointing guns at me, with imminent incarceration in a Chinese jail on my horizon, I produced the fake ID. I waved it and brazened it out, until they got someone who could translate the word “student”, and they let us on.
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The next day, crossing into Vietnam, the hatchet-faced immigration inspector “confiscated” my passport, and demanded “five dollah” for me to get it back. Whipped out the fake ID and slammed it up against the glass authoritatively. She went white, and handed my passport back with no further ado.
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A couple of weeks later, arrived late into a town with only one place to stay, that was a five-star Communist Party only hotel. Walked in covered in crap (we were riding motorcycles), to be greeted with head shaking. Smiled and produced the fake ID. Bada bing, we were ushered to our plush air-conditioned room with a smile.