I hate it when you go abroad and they don’t stamp your passport. They don’t bother with all that stuff in Europe these days, which is a shame - each stamp in the passport brings back memories of a trip.
So, what’s the coolest stamp in your passport? It could be cool because it’s from an obscure and far-off land, or cool because it brings back really strong memories, or just cool because it looks good.
Mine is a full-page visa sticker from Cambodia. It’s a work of the engraver’s art - all wavy lines and intricate designs, embossed on security paper, with “KINGDOM OF CAMBODIA” emblazoned across the top in English and in the wonderfully exotic-looking Khmer script. It has the date, and two official stamps stamped on it in different coloured ink, and my name and details laboriously Biro’d into it by an immigration official. And it only cost twenty dollars :rolleyes:
It brings back memories of the first week of my round-the-world trip. I was still a little culture-shocked, and pitched up at this chaotic border post where everyone wanted to carry your bag, show you the way, sell you a visa form for a dollar (when there was a stack of them inside for free, of course) etc etc.
They do stamp your passport in Europe when you first arive, and they do to get into and out of Britain. I’ve only been to Europe a few times though, and while the Eastern European stamps would be cool, they are just plan boring. The ones from Poland, Russia, Romania and Serbia all pretty much look the same, just a date in a box.
I think the neatest one I have is from Liechtenstein, it’s really big. Of course now it’s for the tourists. I wish I had a cool looking one in mine.
Stamped into the Phillipines (Manilla) – No exit stamp.
Stamped out of Indonesia (Bali) – No entry stamp.
Stamped into Japan (Tokyo/Narita) – No exit stamp.
The one that gives me the best bragging rights is probably Bosnia-Herzegovina, but it’s fairly ordinary-looking except for the bit in the Cyrillic alphabet. And I’ve got a full-page holographic student visa for Spain that’s rather pretty.
The one that brings back Really Strong Memories is the Canadian one, but since said memories consist of an exceptionally officious immigration guy interrogating me about my travel plans for half an hour and finally letting me into the country with a show of great reluctance, I try not to look at it.
Mostly because whoever stamped it could not see me either on entry or exit and I still think that is kind of odd. (On entry, a guide from Zambia took a stack of passports into the office and brought them back soon afterwards stamped. On exit, the three youngest members of our party (which included me) walked into the building with the guide(different guide) and stood back out of the way while our passports were stamped.
Twenty! Whinger :wally - I just dropped C$277 on a double enrty Nepal visa-and now the damn place is being intermittantly blockaded by cranky Commies who may shoot our truck driver!
And it’s quite bland.
Just another of my tiny ass whiny first-world problems…
For me it would be Morocco. It’s not necessarily the coolest place I’ve visited (though it was pretty cool), but it was the culmination of the coolest trip I’ve taken. I traveled by surface–train mostly, with ferry boats from South Korea to China and from Spain to Morocco, and a ride across Beijing in the sidecar of a BMW–from Seoul to Marrakesh. I traveled alone, except for the various companions one meets along the road. Wonderful trip, with all the usual discomforts and misadventures.
I went to Eygpt way back in the 80’s. The visa was a 2 page deal. Most impressive. One page was almost entirely what looked like postage stamps.
The other page was a very large stamp with many blanks that had been filled in at the embassy. The whole thing was all in Arabic so I have no idea what it said (this passport holder is a secret agent? ) but it looked very cool. I loved showing it off (ok…I was young!).
My first ever stamp was an Aussie one. One tiny little triangle. I think they should have made more effort
I almost forgot. My hardest won stamp was a Belguim one. We drove into Beguim in the small hours of the night. We drove right through the border before I realised we were in another country.
At that time I was an avid passport stamp collecter and I was outraged that I had entered a country all stampless. I made my boyfriend go back to the border and I tapped on the window of the border ‘kiosk’ till the nice man came and stamped my passport
I had to get a new passport a few weeks ago after the old one filled up. All that’s in it now is my Russian work visa which is a page full of cyrillic. Not bad for a first one.
Liechtenstein had a very pretty stamp (pre-EU), but it was silly, since we drove over the border without passing a gate and had to voluntarily go to the post office to get the stamp. It was optional.
The coolest one, though was when South Africa was still under apartheid law. They stamped a separate card that I could remove when I was done, which would allow me to continue on to Kenya, which didn’t allow travelers directly from South Africa.
I’ve had my current passport for a year now, and entered Australia, Canada and the US with it. However, it only has one stamp in it, from the last time that I entered the US. So the coolest (and only) stamp is my passport is a very uncool stamp showing that I entered the US at LAX.
(I have much better ones in my old passport, including a couple entering Hong Kong when it was still a British colony).
