How it looks like traveling with an Egyptian Passport

Disclaimer: This post was published in one of my previous blogs on 22/2/2020.

Every time I travel for a business trip with any of my European or American colleagues, I bit them about how special I will be treated by just showing my green Egyptian passport compared to their ordinary European passports! And I always win.

To put some context, I am a typical Egyptian with a very long regular Arabic name who lives in Germany for a very long time! I also speak little German, which always raises the question of how I have a German permanent residency.

So what makes me different as an Egyptian passport holder?

• I always need a visa (sometimes even to enter the bathroom)

• I am randomly selected almost every time — I wish I have the same luck for the lotteries!

• I always travel with an extra book, so I don’t die from boredom in the airports waiting for my passport checks.

• I always have a good reason to book long transit time and walk my legs a bit!

• I enjoy the feeling of having a unique passport with high artistic value, especially when the controller shows it to his colleagues or calls his boss to come and see it.

Initially, I was irritated by all these extra checks until I understood the novelty around owning such a green passport; it gives you a rare opportunity to experience your trip with more stories to tell. These are some of my best:

• During my first trip to the USA, the controller (in Amsterdam) took my passport to check my VISA. Initially, he checked the passport himself, but after two minutes, he called another controller, and then another one. The three guys spent altogether around 15 minutes checking every page of my passport. I initially thought that they were studying the pharaonic drawings inside the Egyptian Passport, but after 15 minutes, I figured out that they were struggling with my very long name.

• Within the last 5 trips to the USA, I had to visit the extra security check room. They took my passport and asked me to wait. After an hour or so,
  they always return my passport without a single question.
  The first time, I was irritated, but now, I am sure that the real intention is to give me a bit of rest before I take the taxi to the hotel. Why should I rush anyway!

• I was surprised two times in Ukraine on how they like my Egyptian Passport. Once the passport controller noticed it, he took it and asked me to wait because many people would like to see it. I saw four officers checking it and enjoying looking at the visas and the colors of each page. It took them 30 minutes to enjoy all the pages and take a picture for each one, but I enjoyed the VIP treatment of the empty queues and empty bag queues afterward. Probably they delayed me intentionally as part of a VIP package I signed to unintentionally.

• In China, when they saw my passport while leaving the country, they immediately asked me to wait and relax. First, on the check-in counter, they called the airline manager who in return, called the German counsel to check my passport. After 30 minutes, they gave me my passport back and allowed me to leave my bags. They probably wanted to do an extra check of the “cleanness” of my passport, so I do not catch any illness (that was just before the Corona Virus breakout).

• The best experience of all is when I get a special treatment without even showing my passport. Like in Munich airport when they asked me (and everyone who had a similar skin color) to enter a special VIP queue for better checks. On that day, I knew that I am pretty special.

OK, enough teasing and some serious talk. I can understand all these fuzz of all these extra checks and exceptional treatment, but it is annoying to always plan for the worst. As an Egyptian, I always have to travel with a lot of documents and papers. I also must plan for the delays. It is very annoying to be the one who always needs to go to a special queue or who delays that whole queue behind you. It is becoming better, but it is still happening in many of the eastern European countries and the USA.

In my last job, they did not even hire me till they checked that I could get the VISA to China as the many middle eastern employees in the company had their VISA rejected!