Guts Gone in Guangzhou

-by-

Roger Cummings

Our November trip to Bangkok was really good and my wife even thought the Texas was a great place. . . .  She didn’t know that Kent had called ahead and told all we were coming and for all to be on extra good behavior . . . lol  and they were . . . thankfully.

We traveled on China Southern from LAX to CAN to BKK and return.  In LAX they were not going to let us on the plane because we had no visa for China.  I explained that we were just transferring and going to BKK; finally the lady said "Okay."

We had a great flight.  We went business class (thanks to miles) and since they don’t have first class we were in the front end with sleeper seats. . . . very nice.

We arrived in Guangzhou and followed the signs to transfer and immigration.  After explaining again to officer that we were transferring and thus no visa he called over for an officer to come to his gate.  The officer then motioned for us to follow him.  He took us back of the immigration desks, where we were told to have a seat next to the wall.  He then asked for our tickets and passports.

it was 11:00 P.M. with no one around.  Since there did not seem to be any choice, I gave our tickets and passports to him.

As he walked away, I had a somewhat empty feeling in my stomach and my wife was near hysterics.  I tried to explain to her there was no choice and we would hope for the best.

After half an hour had passed, I thought I would walk over and see if I could see any action at the China Southern ticket counter, but a guard motioned for me to go and sit down.  This did not help my feeling as we were very exposed, with no resources for this sort of situation at all.  

However, after about one hour has passed, a guard showed up with our passports, tickets, boarding passes, and luggage transfers, then escorted us through a private screening machine and into the China Southern lounge . . . all very nice.

We did have a couple of stiff drinks to celebrate the return of our documents.

On the return leg of our trip the same thing happened except when we were escorted to the holding area there was another worried person who did not know what was going on.  He was traveling from Dubai to LAX.  We explained what was happening, thenhe was a little relieved, but said he had a green card and worried that they would take it.  But all ended well. . . .

Hopefully in the future they will improve their process as I don’t know what would happen if thirty or forty passengers  were transferring.