My Intriguing Experience Flying With Cigarettes Out Of India

While each may have their own opinion regarding what should be allowed versus what shouldn't be allowed, none of this made a lot of sense to me.

For the next portion of my trip, I had to leave Delhi to fly to Paro (Bhutan). Having just landed 3 days ago and having no problems bringing in cigarettes, albeit also having no problems having a couple of smokes in India I thought that I would be fine to bring them through security.

While it's not such a big deal as I will explain later these are the rules

You are allowed to bring cigarettes into India for personal use

You are allowed to smoke in certain places in India

You are not allowed to bring cigarettes through security (leaving the country) even if the airline says it's okay

You can buy cigarettes straight after security at Duty-Free.

This makes absolutely no sense at all in my opinion as I went to duty-free and bought a couple of packs 5 minutes after security.

One Guy At The Airport Had It Out For Me

I like to think I am quite a friendly person in general and even started talking with the officer who searched me. However, the person checking the bags had a vengeance towards me for some reason to be unknown. He stripped my bag looking for cigarettes (I mean stripped it, without saying a word and being so disrespectful for no reason). I tried talking to him asking him "I'm sorry but is everything okay, is there something you're looking for which I can point you to". Nope, no response, he just looked at me in disgust. Eh it's fine at the end of the day, life continues but I do think that there is no reason for that. He could have just taken the cigarettes and said "I'm sorry but this isn't allowed, have a good day".

Moral of the Story is, if you are going to bring cigarettes out of India stick them in the checked luggage.