At the moment, they face checkpoints run by armed Albanians.
Since Aug. 10, travelers have also faced checkpoint screeners who search for cosmetics and toothpaste, and then, often, a second rank of screeners at the boarding gates.
At night I slept in back of my Jeep facing the checkpoint, looking up every couple of hours to make sure I was still safe.
All that being said, if ever you find yourself facing a checkpoint where officers have no strict code of conduct to abide by and you're still desperate to get fucked up, be sure to choose your methods wisely and accept any of the repercussions if things start to get all gnar-gnar.
"I was infuriated," said Nancy Kricorian, a New York City novelist and poet who visited here for the first time as part of the Palestinian festival and faced military checkpoints and the separation barrier.
He says he has faced police checkpoints outside his house in Phnom Penh, intimidation from armed thugs and "car chases like in Hong Kong films" deep in the wilds of rural Cambodia, where he conducts most of his interviews.
They still faced Israeli checkpoints, and settlers still encroached on what they considered their land; nothing essential to them like the return of relatives, the refugees or the future of Jerusalem had been resolved.
Of the army checkpoints facing armoured vehicles driven by suicide bombers, of the Syrian missiles which can only hit them at 300 yards – too close for the defending soldiers to survive the explosion.
Re "At a Checkpoint, Facing Terror Fears and, Now, Testy Travelers," by Dan Barry ("This Land" column, front page, Nov. 23): We have sunk to a new low in this nation when we allow personal squeamishness to trump airline security.
