My new hobby

I know, I know... it's been a looooong time since my last post. In that time, I've traveled to Bangkok and Mumbai (once again). Tomorrow I head back to SF for a couple of weeks (sooooo exciting!).

Anyway, this is just a short post about my new hobby, which is 'attempting to board all my flights in India using only the email printout of my flight itinerary'. This will probably come as a surprise to all of you living in the land of Homeland Security, but it's true: In India, you usually don't have to show any form of identification whatsoever at any point from check-in to boarding. You hand them your printed out e-ticket, and that's all you need to get in. I could hand them something that said, 'Macho Man Randy Savage', and 75% of the time I'd have no problems boarding my flight (every so often someone does remember to ask for ID).

Even weirder, I can hand my ticket over to a friend and let them check in on my behalf -- so I don't even have to be PRESENT to get a boarding pass. Who knows. I think only a statistician or security expert could tell us whether all the hoops we pass through in the rest of the world are actually any more effective than the Indian way, but at least they give the semblance of increased safety. Hmm...