More from my travels

In the never ending quest for comments I will continue with the short snippets from my journey to Impolioto. I plan to make this a weekly thing, as long as it will stretch, with snippets about my current affairs in between. But there's not much that I want to talk about at the moment so on with the journey

Customs and exercise

After perfecting the technique of falling asleep whilst on an extremely uncomfortable surface that like to jolt around, changing speeds constantly and occasionally stopping to eat some grass, I finally arrived at Impolito. Or so I thought, but before going into the city itself you must first stop off at the outpost village of Rood, where rigorous customs checks are performed. They take this very seriously as apparently a lot of people want to bring explosives into Impolito, and after a short stay in Rood I counted myself among them.

The people of Rood have decided that the best way of opposing any would be felons is to accuse everyone of everything as they pass through, and then delay them while they search through their intimate belongings in front of everyone else. Then just to be sure they make everyone wait several hours in the open until everyone's really frustrated, which usually makes any villains confess just so that they can leave. But for the rest of us it's something of a bad start to the holiday.

I hopped off my camel and went up to the customs queue, which was beginning to peter out as the plane had arrived some time before me. I went up to the nearest customs officer, hoping to get my baggage through quickly so I could find a place to sleep that didn't have a mind of it's own. I hoped in vain.

"Anything to declare?"
"Um, well, there's some sugar, coffee..."
"No, any crimes to declare. Drug smuggling, armed robbery - come on let's get it out"
"But I haven't..."
"Of course you haven't, you just stole some sweets when you were little and things got out of control, we understand."
"But I'm telling you I've never..."
"Look mate, we already know about the bomb in your bag so you may as well give it up now."
"What the"
"Oh! A rude one eh? Well I just think we'll have to go through all your belonging just to make sure now won't we."

Before I knew it they'd taken my bag from me, emptied the contents onto the floor and then ripped the bag to check for hidden compartments. Finding nothing, they tossed everything into a cheap bin bag, which stretched so much it turned white and told me I had to wait for security clearance. When I asked what there was to do they pointed my to the gym, which consisted of a square room with mats on the floor, and a CD player with C&C Music Factory's "Gonna make you sweat" (more commonly known as "Everobody dance now") on repeat. Well they certainly weren't gonna make me sweat and as the drone of the rapper, clearly a relative of the tour guide, came on I slowly drifted off to sleep.

Word of the post - quintessential