Please Let Me In
This is probably more a sliding doors/near miss thing than a butterfly effect one.
All the way back in 1989 I was on a round-the-world trip. I had been travelling through Australia, South-East Asia and China. To get back to Europe I decided to take the Trans-Siberian railway through Mongolia and what was then the Soviet Union. In pre-internet days and with China and the Soviet Union not exactly tourist-friendly countries at the time, this wasn’t super-easy.
I had to organize all my own visas, train tickets, etc. When I got to Beijing, the hotel I stayed at had free loan bicycles and so I grabbed one and made my way around to the city to try and find the Mongolian embassy to get a visa.
There was only one train running each week, so I was desperate to get this organised as soon as possible, partially because I was low on money, but I was also quite homesick by now. I’d already gotten a train ticket and a Soviet visa in Hong Kong, but I still needed a visa for Mongolia. Again, this is pre-internet, pre-google maps days. I had a street map but just couldn’t find that bloody embassy.
At long last I got lucky and found it. But by then they were just shutting the gates. Business hours were over for the day (at 3pm!). If I couldn’t get a visa, I’d not be able to get on this week’s train. My train ticket would be worthless and I’d have to wait a full week for the next train, plus I’d need a new Soviet Visa too.
So I pleaded with the guard. Eventually he relented and let me in. There was still someone in the office and because they were keen to finish off for the day, they pretty much just put the sticker in my passport and shuffled me out the door.
All set, I got on the train the next day and had an amazing time, going through Mongolia, the Soviet Union, spent a few days in Moscow and then headed via Finland and Scandinavia back home.
The week after I’d been on the Trans-Siberian train, a massive gas explosion caused by a leaking gas pipeline triggered a huge explosion on the train. Over 500 people died. If the Mongolian embassy guard hadn’t let me through, I probably would have ended up being on that train.
Story credit: Reddit / saugoof