The time dad took my passport

We need our passports. Of course we do. They're what gives us legal access to countries and what gives us the chance to run to embassies if ever we run into problems abroad. You can't board an international flight without a passport.

The funniest thing that's ever happened to me with regard to travel happened in January of this year. I was trying to go to Indonesia, because I've never been (despite me living my whole life in Singapore, shame on me) and because I really wanted to visit my maid who lived with my family for 10 years and who I haven't seen since she left to go home to Indonesia in 2009.

Also, I really really wanted to see this:



Mount Bromo in Java, which is supposed to have the most amazing sunrises and is supposed to be incredible. I still really want to go.

Anyway, the story goes like this: I had planned my itinerary and everything, checked out hotels and even searched flights. I was all set and ready to go - all that needed doing was to actually book all these things.

As you know, when you book flights you need a significant number of details found only in your passport - your passport number, expiry date, issuing authority, and so on.

Because my parents are cautious (and I mean, over the top incredibly paranoid cautious) I was 20 years old and still made to surrender my passport to them the moment I got home if I'd just come back from a school trip, or if I was travelling with them they would absolutely refuse to let me even hold on to my own passport at all. So I didn't have access to my own passport.

In line with being incredibly paranoid cautious, my dad in particular was absolutely freaked out about the prospect of me going to Indonesia, even if I had a friend who was going to go with me. "It's not safe, what if you get raped/murdered/robbed, you are not going to Indonesia."

Despite all my protests and all my planning and showing him all my research, he still refused to let me go. It didn't help at all that I was going there to meet a person who'd lived with us for 10 years.

One thing you should probably know about me is that I'm not the type of person who needs permission for anything. In all honesty, telling anyone I was going to Indonesia was more of a courtesy than a request. Also, I am determined as hell - if I want to do something (like, for example, go to Indonesia) there is very little that can stop me. I'll pack my bags and leave out the front door if necessary.

The one thing that will stop me is if I'm going to wind up in a legal immigration mess - let's say, if I enter Indonesia without a passport.

And that's exactly what my dad did.

To stop me from going to Indonesia, and because he knew exactly what I'd do even if he said no, he actually took my passport, put it god-knows-where (I have a feeling he kept it in the bank safe deposit) and then told me firmly I wasn't going.

I was this close to just saying "To hell with it" and applying for a new passport from the ICA. But I didn't, in the end, and so I didn't go to Indonesia in January this year. Rest assured though - I will be going sometime in the near future, say maybe in December of 2013, about a year from now when I'm back in Singapore and considerably nearer to Indonesia than here in Edinburgh.

It wasn't funny at all when it happened - can you imagine doing all your research and planning and then your missing passport kills all your plans? - but now that I think of it in retrospect, it's one of the funniest things that's ever happened to me in travel.

Especially when you think that in April, I'm going to be hitchhiking from Edinburgh all the way to Morocco - which I think is considerably further and a lot more dangerous than taking a flight from Singapore to Indonesia, and there's nothing that Dad can do to stop me this time. But that's another story.

What's the funniest travel incident that's ever happened to you?