The twilight Zone

At Karachi airport,at every immigration counter,there are face recognising cameras fitted."Uncle sam" owns them all.
Sam is remotely monitoring us.
All the Pakistanis carry computorised National ID cards.
These cards have our fingerprints,our addresses,and some electronic signatures.
All our data is in the Pakistan National Database,and UNCLE SAM has a copy of all that data since it began.IBM provided the computers for the National Database Authority of Pakistan,and they still have the main passwords.
Then there was 9/11,and all the terrorists involved in it(if they ever existed),were linked to Pakistan by CNN and other media giants.
Since i had my Belize experience an year before that,and i knew that how vigorously UNCLE SAM was monitoring all our moves,i doubted it to be a propaganda and a blame game.May be for some political reasons,i am not too sure of.
At the same time i was too confused that how come Al-Qaeeda dodge all those security measures,if all that was true.

The Mexican Police men became friendly after a few hours,and knowing that i am now stranded at the Mexico airport,they had their sympathies with me
They asked me why they were instructed to keep a watch on any Pakistani touching their soil,and i asked the same question to them.
I was not carrying any weapons of mass destruction,or any bombs
We had a chat with some difficulty because of the language barrier,they spoke "solo espaniol" and the only foreign language i spoke was Ainglish
The picture they gave me of Pakistan was that there is a war goin on there,with terrorists killing people in thousands on a daily basis,and that all the 140 million Pakistanis are linked to alqaeda.
Poor them,i knew that all their concepts are the result of the maas propaganda from media.
After an hour of talking they had a better idea of the life in Pakistan.
Well we were soon enjoying a nice Mexican Pizza.Ofcourse i paid for it.
It took me another 15 hours going to differant airline counters,and asking them about the next available flight.
British Airways finally agreed to take me in,and they confirmed from their head office that i will be allowed to transit Heathrow(London) without a British Visa.
I wanted to kiss and hug the BA cutie in front of me,who gave me the news,i would have wanted to do the same if he was a man,or a donkey.Finaly i was going home.
The flight was from Mexico-London-Istanbul-Dubai-Karachi.
Even the Mexican police was glad that i am going
Knowing that we may never meet again,i popped into the cheif immigration officer of the airport,and told him that i wanted to have a word with him.He knew about me being stranded there,and that finally i managed to book a flight home.First he congratulated me and then the conversation started.He spoke good english.
I asked him that why they put me under armed guard.He smiled and told me that he or his officers did not feel any threat from me,but that were the orders from their government.He too agreed that these conditions are politically generated,aand don't really help to improve public security.
Finally it was time to board the British Airways plane,the next eight hours,i was fast asleep.Transit at London Heathrow was smooth.
Then the plane arrived at Istanbul.Again the same old story,they plucked me out of the line,interviewed me,photocopied all my documents,and checked me all over.The rest of the passengers were either west europeans or americans,sothey were not bugged by the Turks.
I was so pissed off that at one point i even dropped my pants in fron of the officers and asked them to check me.Well i had nothing more to lose,they couldn't do more to me.
Dubai,and then atlast Karachi...Phew....Home sweet home...end of a nice trip,turned night mare,but memorable for the rest of my life.

After passing 15 days in the solitude of that lonely tropical country,the same solitude which i enjoyed for a month was no more enjoyable.
John and his wife always gave me company,and there were a few groups of tourits whom i ment.They stayed at the hotel overnight and i had a chance to chat a few new people.
Some of them used to be too rich,as they had their own private plane parked on the hotel's airstrip.
On 3rd December,i managed to book a flight of air France via Mexico city-Paris-Dubai-Karachi.
On arrival at mexico city, i was innediately asked by the official to go to a cellar,where i was interviewed and checked seperately from the rest of the passengers.
There were over a 100 people on that flight,and none of them was even asked to open their baggage,and i was the only Pakistani so i was given special treatment.
My flight to Paris was after 3 hours,and two armed police men escorted me to the departure lounge.
They said something to me in spanish,and i figured out that they want me to be in their sight.
Finally it was time to go to the airfrance counter for boarding,and the cops escorted me there.
A nice looking air france lady took my passport and ticket,openned them and returned them to me,saying that i need a french visa to transit Paris.
They told me to go to the French embassy in Mexico city and obtain a French transit visa,although my transit in France was only for an hour.
Now the Mexican officials won't let me out of the airport as i was only allowed to transit the Mexico city airport,and they said they need 15 days to process my visa application for mexico.Only then i will be able to leave the airport and go to the french Embassy.

In Dec 2000 i visited Belize,and stayed there for about a month.
This country is truely a tropical heaven,with sandy beaches and rain forests.
I decided to travel back on 20th of December,i had booked a flight via Miami,Florida about a month earlier.
There were very few direct flights to and from Belize,almost all are Via USA.While travelling from Pakistan,i got a BWIA flight Karachi-Dubai-London-Antigua-Belize City.So i did not have to touch US soil.
I had a nice time in Belize and the hotel i stayed in,most of the time was owned by an American from Texas,who was one of the nicest humans i ever met.
He was about 70 years old and was an airline pilot who's plane crashed some 30 years ago,and he built a hotel at the spot where he was rescued.He never went back to Texas.
On the day of my flight back home,i arrived at the Belize city airport and went to the airline counter,presented them my passport and the ticket.
The women looked at me,and went some where.After a while came back,returned me my passport and ticket,saying that they cannot board me on the plane.
I was shocked and asked her why,and she told me that my country is in a list of countries who's nationals are not allowed to transit Via USA.
I asked her why the airline issued me the ticket then.She said,it may have been an error.I asked her to let me talk to their manager,and she called him,a polite guy.
I told him that i have only 2 hours transit at Miami airport,and i don't have to go out of the Terminal.Why they don't let me go back home.He appologised and said it's not us it's the goverment of USA,and even showed me a detailed fax fron the US authorities mentioning the specific countries and the penalty if the airline fails to comply.
He suggested that i should go to the US embassy and ask them for a transit visa,as there were about 4 hours to departure.
I knew no body there,so i called john(the hotel owner),he immediately arrived at the airport and took me to the american embassy which was 45 minutes drive.
There were about 150 people in the que already.
My turn came after 2 and a half hours,and i was sitting in front of a yong american embasy official.He asked me why i want to travel to the USA,and i told him the whole story,that i had a 2 hours transit via Miamai and the airline says that i need an american visa for that.
He thought for a minute then returned my passport,saying sorry i can't help you,and gave me no resons.
John was waiting outside for me and he too was disgusted abut the refusal from american embassy to let me transit their airport for a mere 2 hours.
Now i had no other option,as all the rest of the flights were via USA.
I came back to the hotel with john,tried for another two days to find an alternative light back home,but there were none.Until evererything shut down for christmas and the new year.
I stayed another 15 days in Belize.These days were not good,as i was feeling too bad for what happenned to me,and it was not my fault that there were some taliban or suicide bombers in my country.
But i had to suffer for that,i couldn't see any other reason.