An Australian traveler found himself in hot water after he was denied entry into Indonesia for his friend’s wedding.
Matt Vandenberg was traveling from Sydney to Bali on June 6 to celebrate his close friend’s wedding. Unfortunately, when he arrived in Denpasar, he was denied from entering the Indonesian country due to a tiny tear on the corner of his passport, according to the Independent. The traveler documented the wild experience on his Twitter page.
Vandenberg said the 1-centimeter tear on a page in his passport wasn’t an issue when he departed from Australia. Once he arrived in Bali, he said he was “brought into an office to be told that my passport tear isn’t acceptable and I won’t be allowed into the country.”
“I’m not disputing the tear—but it wasn’t even noticeable until you bend it back (and immigration officers in Sydney were fine when they scanned it),” Vandenberg said.
Airport officials then confiscated Vandenberg’s passport while waiting for him to be transported back to Australia. While he waited, the traveler was forced to sit with police chaperones for 12 hours before boarding his six-hour flight home.
“I’ve had two airport police by my side the whole day—to be fair they are the nicest people you could have stuck by my side,” he said on his Twitter.
Upon arriving back in Australia, Vandenberg obtained an emergency passport and booked a flight back to Bali for his friend’s wedding. He said the situation left him feeling “disappointed” and he believed that “if I had gotten a different officer on the day, I would have been let through.”
Vandenberg isn’t the first traveler denied entry to a country due to a damaged passport. In 2019, traveler Ben West was denied entry to Qatar because a page in his passport had separated a few millimeters from the laminate.
