Border crossing

I was reminded of all the border crossings I have known as I made the Peace Arch border from the US to Canada and back on foot.  This is clearly a car centric culture. A pedestrian at this border is a suspect. The circumstance of my ambulatory arrival at this clumsy frontier was simple. I had purchased a car in the US and it had to clear customs. The border says the car stays for three days to clear customs. I have to leave the car in the US for three days to examine criminal history of said conveyance.  So I, shanks mare proceed  to the country of my origin. Passport in hand I cannot be denied entry to my own country.  Entering Canada on foot I  look around at a bleak fog and serious highway and realize I am not going to meet the hoped for horde of Taxi drivers who frequent all the other border crossings I know. I ask a customs agent how I might find public transit. Laughter is followed by a a helpful call to a criminal taxi. My situation seems so unusual that there must be a financial penalty. The taxi fare is the fine for the strange act of arriving at a border on foot.  My crime is not only pedestrian it is that I am a pedestrian.  Three days on I am back at the border and shanks mare again I now have to enter the new USA.
 I have my documents for the vehicle and after a half hour of polite interrogation I am left to find my way through bleak frontier to bleak town.  The scarified stretch you see on pedestrian examination is clear. This is the border.  Ford provides the shelter for the border guards who nap on side streets.
 This crossing complicated by cars made me think of all the border crossings.

Costa Rica to Panama on the east coast was memorable. It was the rainy season and I was wandering. At this border the car did not prevail. In fact it was a border a car could not transit. The Dole company provides an abandoned railway bridge which serves as this border crossing.  The history of this bridge is the history of capitalist empire. The history of the Dole company is a worthy read.  On my rain soaked crossing I met a poor German whose papers were not in order. For him this crossing would be a 3 day ordeal as he ignored my gesture to throw a few pesos into his passport. Perhaps he desired that adventure. I walked the rain soaked trestle into Panama.

Flying into Delhi India with an undocumented film crew was curious. The crew was not at all a love fest. I was trying to figure out who was who and early on discovered our prima dona camera guy would be a problem. He was not fit for the task at hand. We were going into refugee camps on the India Pakistan border.  It was not to be a four seasons trip. We arrived with way too much gear and the customs agent wanted it all documented. After an 18 hour day in the air I wanted us hoteled quickly.  By good fortune the flight behind us was from Sweden and as the Indian officials turned their attention to blonde travel we walked through forgotten.  A crossing unnoticed. The best kind.