Sex toys and stinky cheese: how to transport quirky souvenirs, from a hand luggage pro
He was enormous, heavy, with a fat tail and an open mouth which seemed to be grinning at me. I couldn’t resist. But how to get a 12-kilo wooden whale home to London from Cape Town? ‘I’ll take him onboard as hand luggage,’ I told my friend confidently, as I picked up the whale and felt my knees buckle. My journey back was indirect, via Dubai, which would mean a lot of carrying and forcing the poor whale into overhead lockers, but I’d definitely manage. I had to. I loved him instantly.
I have form in the unusual hand luggage department. Three years ago, I fell for an elephant’s head I found in Sri Lanka. Not a real one; it was made from steel but that too was vast and cumbersome, with large, protruding metal semi-circles for ears. But I wanted him because he’d look splendid on my sitting room wall. As if the elephant was the prize in a game of Pass The Parcel, he was encased in bubble wrap, then several bin bags, and I lovingly carted him from Colombo Airport back to South London in my arms, leaving a trail of bemused airport security officials in my wake.
Transporting large, unusual objects from one country to another as hand luggage is a habit I’ve picked up from my step-mother. Shaunagh is an avid traveller who has, over the years, schlepped back various pieces of treasure via the cabin. It’s a list which includes but is not limited to: cushions, a log basket, multiple piles of fabric, Iranian carpets, ceramic lamps, silk lampshades, a papier maché tortoise and, on one memorable occasion, several folding chairs from Ireland. My four siblings and I each had to carry a chair too, although they were quite handy for the long check-in queue since we unfolded them and sat down.
It may seem like a mad odyssey at the time, but such prizes will make you smile when you return. I knew the whale would perk up my flat, a constant reminder of a magical time in South Africa. It’s the same with my dad and step-mother’s house: every room alive with colour and mementoes from a foreign adventure.
Similarly, while in Borneo, my friend Adam decided that he simply had to bring home a metre-long blowpipe, with an attached bayonet, which also required him to get a Malaysian arms export license for the airport. Meanwhile, in Bhutan, my friend Dominique visited a Buddhist monastery famous for its phallic carvings and decided she needed a hand-carved wooden dildo (decorative) which made her quite nervous every time she slid her bag through the security belt. Still, well worth it. Photos are fine but you can’t run your fingers over them while remembering that weaver in Fez or that monastery covered with phalluses. And actually, the more troublesome the item, the more joy you’ll feel when you (eventually) heave it over the threshold, like a weary caveman dragging an elk behind him for dinner. Unless, like one friend, you go to all the trouble of lugging back a Moroccan stone table, with wrought iron legs, only for your husband to declare he hates it when you get home.
Food is the other classic. A friend who took a whole Vacherin cheese on a flight to Luxor for her lunch was asked to put it away by an air hostess after complaints from other passengers. My father was once stopped and quizzed over a large lump of cod’s roe he was carrying from London to Istanbul. ‘I shouldn’t really tell you this, sir,’ said the security guard, ‘but our general rule is, if you can stick your thumb in it, it’s a liquid.’ Fortunately he showed no signs of wanting to stick his thumb in the cod’s roe and Dad was allowed to keep it.
As for the whale, well, having borrowed a pair of hotel scales to work out its weight, I realised that he was simply too heavy and too large to smuggle through as hand luggage, so I had to admit defeat and check him in. I bought a large, padded bicycle bag, and wrapped in him in several pairs of jeans for protection, then looped two luggage straps around the bicycle bag to secure him. ‘Is it a bicycle, madam?’ the man asked at the check-in desk. ‘No, it’s a wooden whale,’ I replied. He made it home safely and now lies across my hallway table. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Remember that the next time you’re gazing longingly at a large and unwieldy object on a foreign market stall.
Five unusual hand luggage rules from around the world...
Should you be the proud owner of a falcon, Abu Dhabi’s airline Etihad will allow you to travel with the bird in the cabin (I’ve checked in behind an Emirati carrying a falcon on his arm before so I know this to be true). If you’re in economy, you’re allowed one falcon. If you’re in business or first class, you can bring two.
On the other hand, if ferrets are more your thing, then you need to travel on Greek airline Aegean Air, which allows one ferret per passenger in the cabin, so long as its weight doesn’t exceed 8kg (if your ferret is over 8kg, can I suggest it goes on a little diet?)
America’s transport body, the TSA, stipulates that passengers can carry bowling balls in their hand luggage, although bowling pins must be checked into the hold since they could be used ‘as a bludgeon.’
In the UK, you can carry formula and cow’s milk in your hand luggage so long as your baby is travelling with you, while bottled breast milk is allowed even without a baby. Don’t ask me how security officials can tell whether it’s breast milk or formula.
Virgin Atlantic will allow you to carry your wedding dress or wedding suit onboard in addition to your hand luggage allowance and, if space permits, hang it up for you.
