When traveling by train be aware of corrupt border guards.
I was on my way from Budapest to Trieste and once the train stopped at the border with Austria, one of the border guards came by and checked our passports and moved on. 5 minutes later, another guard walked buy and asked for our passports. The only word he said was "problem" and tried to indicate we didn't have our passports stamped on entry.
The other guard came back and they began to argue with each other, which attracted the attention of 2 other guards on the platform. So now we had 4 people on the train arguing over our passports.
The "bad" guard asked for more ID so we gave him our drivers licenses. He checked everything under a blacklight and then left the train with our passports and IDs. We asked the other guards what the problem was and they said "I don't know". They waited a few minutes and left.
The other guard finally returned with our IDs and asked us if we had any cash on us. We only had US and Canadian dollars, and the guard then asked for Hungarian Forint, which we had none. He then argued with us (he spoke no English) and gave us our passports and IDs back and ran off the train.
Obviously, he was trying to get some cash out of us, and only Forint would work. It would have looked a little suspicious if a border guard went to a money exchange with US and Canadian dollars. The best way to avoid this happening is to make sure your passport is stamped on entry.
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on Nov 8, 2004
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