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I know that actually wanting to visit the USA goes beyond my tolerance for police states, queuing, and having nasty men with guns stare at you just itching to be allowed to use them, so I don't actually visit the USA.
My definition of itching to use them and police state is when one has an AK 47/uzi/M 16 with the safety off and finger on the trigger with 3 barking dogs by his feet yelling and screaming at you to lie prone on the floor.
My definition of a police state is Myanmar. I was first off the flight from BKK at something like 2330LT and hit this desk with three middle-aged female officers knitting and chatting behind this desk. They all look at me and smile like I was walking into their living. They take my passport and get back to their knitting and chatting.
Anyhow, so after standing there all alone like a leftover movie extra, and despite decades of passport & custom clearance experience, I suddenly imagine that Myanmar is different: they keep your passport and only give it back to you afer Customs decides you're okay. Why some folks on this planet will imagine such nonsense, go figure, but that's what hit me.
So I just wander past the trio towards Customs.
But after about 15 yards, I hear group giggling and anyone who knows Asia also knows that group giggling means only one thing: you've just done something really, REALLY stupid. You get a chill up and down your spine, stop dead in your tracks and turn around.
I do that. Then I see the three girls waving me back to their desk. So I do that.
We all wait till more folks turn up, they put down their knitting, man (so to speak) their individual counters and processing begins.
Dunno why, but I'd never dream of trying such a walk-by anywhere West.
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On another note, if you use the visa waiver thingie for the USA, you have to know that you, on your part, are also waiving your right to appeal before a judge in case some little hitler decides he thinks any presence of yours in the USA would somehow lower the general standard of quality of life for the natives there.
My (thoroughly respectable, honest, dedicated and hardworking) Colombian
friends in teaching and medicine got these lifetime multiple entry visas for the USA even though they had no intention of EVER setting foot in that country.
They did that because, if you have that visa (which outlives expiry of your passport -- you just present old & new passports simultaneously at INS), then it is MUCH easier to get visas for anywhere else you DO want to go to.
Happy Skies!