New Delhi, Aug. 27 -- The line up of grinning, life-sized robotic images instead of immigration officers at Bali's airport welcoming us with manic enthusiasm on Monday turned out to be a mirage. The passport scanning machines were brand new but not working, forcing most travellers into queues manned by very few officers.

This mechanical malfunction was after Indonesian e-visas and-e arrival cards had made the process both easier and more complicated. Indonesia requires pointless 'captcha' codes to be deciphered by visitors, but Indian e-arrival formalities are still more difficult to complete on a computer screen because a balloon unhelpfully obscures the code.

Meanwhile, in Europe this summer chaotic immigration queues even led to some...