Friday, June 17, 2011

Corruption at the Border

Ok, coming to the Hungarian side of the border from Romania, the driver of the bus, is talking in Romanian (for 10 mins before hitting the border), I asked the guy sitting next to me, what was going on, and he said, basically they wanted everyone in the bus to put 5 Euro into a bag to give the customs agent so they wouldn't check our bags on the bus, 5 Euro for people here is ALOT of money, hell, it's like a good meal + a beer at a nice restaurant here. anyway, it was optional, I didn't understand any of it... so didn't put anything in... altho I was tempted to put all those 1 Euro cent coins I had saved up!

Customs Checkpoint, Crossing into Hungary
On the bus, with cards/passports getting checked.

My Passport was taken, along with a few others, (had to be stamped), this process took about 20-30 mins, normally at the airport it is like 30-40 seconds... my Friend sitting next to me, (who had crossed the border several times said, they are waiting for you to go give them 20 Euro to get your passport back) WTF, I was prepared to play the waiting game... anyway, none of the other people that had there passports taken went down to pay the money...

Also I got told because I had a NZ Passport, they wouldn't harass me as much.

When you think about it, 5 Euro per person, 50 people on a bus, 250 Euro a Bus, 40-50 Bus's a day... you do the math..

Anyway after all that, no baggage check I get the bribe was enough

No comments:

Post a Comment