So I arrived in Almaty all ready for the Central Asian experience and was pleasantly surprised at their brand new terminal. I was told it was only about a year old. After disembarking it was off to immigration where we lined up in front of the booth and had our digital photos taken and after making sure we wern't wanted by Interpol or something, given our stamp. As is always the case, I had to be in the slow lineup which had the most thorough immigration officer. And then of course, there were the couple cases where people who knew people were escorted to the very front of the line. I guess this was my first exposure to the realities of life in CA.

Anyway, after that it was just a matter of picking up my bag and heading off...or so I thought. Ever vigilent of not doing the wrong thing, I followed the lead of others and put my carry on through an x-ray machine and then proceeded to the baggage carasouls. However, then I noticed a little stand with posters related to customs and so started to look for a form in English. And that is where my frustrations began.

At that point a female customs officer approached me and seeing I was a foreigner told me to go over to this nearby machine. I had never seen one like this before....it looked pretty high tech. She then placed my passport on the reader which scanned it and then pulled up a menu for which a non QWERTY keyboard appeared on the screen. I then had to navigate this touch screen typing in my name etc. Seemed pretty simple! However, using a non QWERTY keyboard is slow and then I made a mistake and didn't know how to correct it. I was told don't worry. But then I had to enter my country and this involved scrolling through an incredibly long list of which Canada was near the bottom. So after about 10 minutes we get that far. Then the officer hits the wrong button and it's back to square one!!! Argh!!!

So she steps away and I start over again. Meanwhile she gets another officer over and is talking about this high tech equipment with him and then I screw up and yes....back to square one. I am just a bit frustrated now as many of the other passengers have long since gone with their bags. So this new guy explains a few things to the lady and then they both wander off again leaving me to plug away again. Finally I get through to the next page and after struggling a while at trying to enter some numbers, it finally works out and I get to the end. It has been about 20 minutes now. So the screen says I am now ready to print and to hit the print button. When I do this, I get an error message saying I must start again...... !@!*^!+@!!!!!!!

At this point, I have had it with this piece of high tech crap and walk over to the original paper forms, fill one in quickly, pick up my bag and head to the exit. And then of course noone even takes a look at the form!! And to make matters worse, the paper copy I did up was never asked for even when I exited Kazakhstan.

Gotta love technology!! If you are ever confronted by such a device when you arrive at an airport, my advice is to stay clear!!