tell us about bad situations in foreign countries....

Met alot of people with an attitude problem when I was in LA!

Just some tips:

Never really and I travelled a lot. Okay in Scandinavia I had some bad feelings several times. The worst was in a countryside hotel where I was staying with a friend. During the night came a gang of Asian-looking people and started to open all doors to put things away. We blocked our door then and they tried to get in - but fortunatly no chance. They were so loud and the whole thing lasted more than half an hour without any police coming. Strangly also at the breakfast table no one wanted to talk about it... strange!

Also look out for the big numbers of drunken old guys in Finnland: it's hard to avoid them and once they get you, you can't get rid of them anymore... but they are harmless, just annoying.

In the US out of the East Coast don't get into political (or other) discussions as a European, even with higher educated people. It must be even worse now after 9/11 unfortunatly. But on the other hand: Americans are VERY nice and have a high hospitality!

Madagascar is generally a very safe place full of open and nice people. But if you are in the capital Tana, don't walk after dark - especially alone - even if it's only 100m. The police will come soon and will tell you, better take a taxi. If you are of brighter colour even looking poor: you ARE a target. Also during the day you will be followed everywhere around by street kids. These are not the ones you know from Souther Europe or Latin America: they REALLY all don't have anything and have to beg. Before you leave the country leave them some clothes and stuff, they really need it!

This goes generally for all "underdevelopped" (in economic terms!) countries and areas. But nothing is what it seems: I always bring some useful things as presents to helpful people but I also made once the experience in Sulawesi countryside, that a little boy that was helping us didn't want to to take the presents - only thing in english he could say was: NO! Money!!! :lol:

Take care in Moscow: it's a much safer city for tourists than the media wants you to believe: BUT the police is highly corruptive and even if you have a visum doesn't mean that everything is right: theoretically you need to get a stamp withing 3 days - in this time you are "free to hunt for a bribe" for the police for they know that no one has the documents or only part of them ;) Don't worry too much - they will avoid to take you to the station if you don't pay or the like.

Don't wear expensive things and show them around in Latin America. The countries are not that dangerous as everyone wants you to tell and the media there also live from the paranoia of the inhabitants and tourists. If you dress like them, avoid dangerous places and travel also with locals nothing will happen to you!

Okay in Scandinavia I had some bad feelings several times. The worst was in a countryside hotel where I was staying with a friend. During the night came a gang of Asian-looking people and started to open all doors to put things away. We blocked our door then and they tried to get in - but fortunatly no chance. They were so loud and the whole thing lasted more than half an hour without any police coming. Strangly also at the breakfast table no one wanted to talk about it... strange!
Damn... hopefully that wasn't in Denmark?

You should have called the police, and get those suckers locked up! :)


Personly I haven't experienced anything bad... but I have chosen to walk down the wrong streets alone in the states.. but nothing happened.

in Austria someone said me :"it's a pity that Hitler didn't killed all of you"
(he saw my magen david)

some jerk tourists in Toronto....French speaking. They blantantly skipped us while we all waited forever to get ontop of the CN Tower. And while we were taking pictures on the top--Asian tourists jumped infront of our pictures---something I notice alot about Asian tourists. I got jumped infront of by some while getting my picture taken in from of the silver bean in Chicago.

me and my dad were travelling around europe by rail. we decided to be smart and book an overnight train from milan to rome. but we were still up in bern in switzerland. everything was fine until we rolled into milano central. we couldn't find our train on the very confusing train boards and the whole atmosphere of the station was not good. we kept getting offered by taxi drivers " i take you somewhere, 20 euro! " and there looked some quite shady characters hanging around.
eventually we realised the last train had left and so we definately missed it :(
so we just camped out on the platform all night sharing it with some cockroaches ;)

the next day we got a fast eurostar train to rome but we got kicked off pretty quick because we didn't have any reserve seats and had to stand all the way (this with being exhausted from sleeping on a platform all night)
;) thats my story

oh I have another tale, while I was in Flordia.

While we were all sleeping, the fire alarm went off in the building--and the whole mini skyscraper hotel emptyed out of there. They said it was a false alarm and sent everyone back in. Right as I feel asleep again, the fire alarm went off again and everyone had to evacuate the hotel.

Going back to my Toronto story---it was the day there was a terror threat against the city and some subway had to be evacuated. That made me a little nervous going ontop of the cities most visible landmark. :)

Catching a connecting flight at Frankfurt with only 15 minutes from leaving the plane on one end of the terminal to passing immigration and catching my next flight on the other side. It turns out the pilot was stuck in traffic and was late, but the monitors didn't indicate the flight was delayed. So I made a mad dash across the airport at 6am local time for nothing.

I had a couple of problems with various hotel rooms:
-A rat in my hotel room in Ayutthaya, Thailand
-A bunch of cockroaches in my hotel room in Melbourne
-A broken water pipe in the motel room above me, so the water started dripping from the ceiling in Salinas, California

You can also add highly paranoid cops in London shortly after the attack on the tube last July, who questioned me quite rude multiple times in a single night for walking around with a tripod and taking photos.

I was assaulted in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, with knives!
:(
I gave my money in Rio, but not in Buenos Aires.
:nono:

I know this isn't a foreign country, but whatever. I was driving to NY with my family and all of a sudden some psychopath comes roaring onto the freeway in his SUV doing at least 90mph. He turned to the left but was moving to fast and the SUV barrel rolled right in front of me, I jammed on the brakes. Scariest moment of my life.

Not many.
The worst was probarbly getting sick by drinking Istanbuls water. I thought it was safe lol. But it wasnt much.

Well, when I was backpacking threw Hungary (In the pustah) I was stoped by a crowd of Gypsies, and my friend had braces, so they thought we were rich... (The plastic green he had looked like jewels). And they kinda harrased us, but left us alone when we told them we weren't brittish.

Flying into Budapest (Hungary again) on probibly the worst plane ever... Hurricane storms... and I was so tired, I was just trying to sleep!! I didn't care if we were all going to die, let me die in peace. It was like that final destination scene. The oxygen masks poped down, the wings were flapping like a bird, and the engines made angry/scary noises.

Driving back from Del Rio (this winter) I was sick. I had to stop every 30 min.s to throw up on the side of the road. And I had to drive cuz we had 2 vehicles. Then I tried to fart inbetween San Antonio and Houston, and I craped my pants... going 80pmh on I-10. I think I cried that day.

Waiting 14 hours in London Heathrow inbetween flights...

well i got robbed the night before my birthday in czech republik... not funny at all since they stole my presents:(

I was assaulted in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, with knives!
:(
I gave my money in Rio, but not in Buenos Aires.
:nono:
Well done not to give the Argentinian!! :lol: - (the Brazilians hate the Argentinians)

About subway: I was always travelling by tube in London. I just came from a roundtrip that also included northern Ireland when there were some bombs found and as usual big controls in Belfast... anyway nothing happened. Then we arrived in Kings Cross and went directly to the tube. Suddenly there was a voice over: "Everyone leave the station..." the rest we didn't understand anymore. 40% left, the others stayed. We asked a man sitting next to us what is going on. He just said: "must be another false bomb alarm. Just hop into the next train if it stops here, don't worry...".

The train didn't stop - okay maybe this time it is serious and finally everyone was leaving the building. Outside on the street everyone is waiting that finally they can go in again and you heard things like "the third time this month - next time I defintily don't leave anymore!"

You always can be over-careful, also as police. But if you don't do anything, for sure it will happen... see recently :(

I was in Spain in this little city, Zamora, with a friend, suddenly we get harassed by 5-6 fat spaniards (and when I mean fat I mean FAT) who had heard us talk in french and started insulting France and stuff, started to push us around, we got a bit angry and it turned out fine in the end.

Back when I visited Miami we where in the car driving around town trying to get to the airport and at one time took a wrong turn and ended up in a ghetto (it was 23h), people started to look at us and stuff, and the renting car got out of gas (the sort of thing you think only happens in movies), in the end it turned out well but it was one hell of an experience!

Well, most of the time I'm the one who brings people in `Bad Situations`.
Like iritating people in Londen and the Czech Republic. That was a great time.
Badest situation for myself probably was the unfriendiness of Czech people...Czech people aren't famous about there hospitality I think, unlike what everyone says.

I was on a British Airways flight from London -> Nairobi, Kenya -> Lilongwe, Malawi.

The 747 was scheduled to stop at Kenyatta Intl Airport (Nairobi), for about 1 hour, and then continue on to Lilongwe, Malawi.

During that hour, we passengers were allowed to roam around the duty-free area of Jomo Kenyatta airport until it was time to board the plane again for Malawi.

It was whilst I was roaming, the news came that a mouse or rat(cant remember which) had been spotted on-board the plane by one of the passengers. This mouse/rat btw was never found.

As a precaution though, the pilot decided to ground the plane and offload all the passengers into Nairobi Airport.

So all the passengers of this 747 had to wait in an Airport lounge for 5 hours until BA sorted out some 737s to connect us onto Malawi.

All this because of a lil mouse that wasn't found. :(

Well, most of the time I'm the one who brings people in `Bad Situations`.
Like iritating people in Londen and the Czech Republic. That was a great time.
Badest situation for myself probably was the unfriendiness of Czech people...Czech people aren't famous about there hospitality I think, unlike what everyone says.


Yep people in the Czech republic are generaly pretty unfriendly. I also had a bad experience in a Czech bar when we got kicked out because they didn't want to see tourists in.

I have a few horror stories...

Probably the most unpleasant was getting 2nd degree burns across my back and sunstroke in Kenya (snorkelling without a T shirt). Screwed up the next week, it was awful.

Another time I was travelling along the Rift valley in Kenya when the fiercest electrical storm I've ever seen broke out and the road got washed away by flash floods in front of us and behind us. We were stranded in a little town called Marigat and had to hire migrant workers' lodgings (a tiny bare concrete room with no bed, basically). The toilets were barely describable.

Return flight with BA from London to Hamburg last year: We rushed to the check-inn counter with only 5 minutes left for check-inn, there was a short queue but only two counters open which were also very very slow. The business check-inn was totally empty and so we asked them for check-inn. After making it clear that it was really urgent, they made an exception for us. Rushing to the luggage control, nervously waiting there at the queue, rushing to the gate, arrived the plane totally exhausted and just on time. But then they had some water puddles in the rear of the cabin which they had to clean up first which caused the departure to be delayed by 20 minutes. The US passenger next to me was very unpleased because everytime she flew with BA there were delays.


Hamburg-Copenhagen with the EC-train (a train where booking a seat is required): We were four people with four tickets and for some reason only 3 seats were booked. We thought it wouldn't be a problem and choosed a four-seater which we thought was not booked. We had a lot of fun and packed out the beer etc. Later a danish traveler joined and demanded to sit on my place because he had booked it. But the train was so empty and the reservation display indicated no reservation! He still insisted on sitting there between us, which of course destroyed the good mood. We changed the compartment and had a lot of fun again. And we had to pay extra for booking a fourth seat afterwards.

Some overbookings and problems in the conexion. Once I had to travel 2h30' with my legs locked by another pax seat.

Travelling solo in Kazakstan in 2000, I was not given the correct paperwork, and the Russian military officers roaming the streets of Alma-Aty demanded $50 for forged documents. I almost went for it, but then thought those documents would not pass muster at the border, and I was not too interested in spending more time in Kazakhstan at that point. I found an honest bureaucrat in the cargo department at the main train station who gave me the right pass. But my travels in K-stan were otherwise AOK.

The rest of the trip, through China, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, SE Asia and the Andes was relatively unproblemmatic. Pre 9/11, of course...

Motion sickness in the plane, I even puked once!

Then, in Hong Kong, this miserable old Chinese bat called me off and shouted SHOO! when I was in his way, I was just taking some pictures! And then after shooing me, he immediately spitted at my side! That old hag! I shoulve told him the right ways to treat a visitor to your country!!!

Some people have had a really hard time during vacation I see...

Not a bad situation, but a strange one:

I was going to a research camp in North Sumatra on the border to Aceh in 94. We stopped in Kutacane to get the permits - means from the police to the park center, from the mayor to the local wild life ministry. One full day of running around even though everything was ready and prepared and we were announced.

Anyway: I had to go to the toilet and was only at the local police station. They said there is no toilet, but they have a solution: they were leading me into the back of the small one-floor building into the prison cell!!!! There were about half a dozen prisoners sitting on the dirty floor in this unconfortable place. The policeman sent me to the corner with a hole where I could do my business while he kept the prisoners away from me pointing the gun at them. That was REALLY weird!! :rofl:

I just remembered: I was today scanning some old photos here in the office and amongst them was also one from the Kutacane police (plus me and my then girlfriend) :lol:
http://www.socio.ch/maro/images/kutacane.jpg
It was the guy right of me who was leading me to the toilet. This is only half the police staff. They were very happy and pround that some Europeans passed them by! So they all wanted to be on the pic. I had another one with more cops, but I don't find it anymore :(

-My family almost got robbed in Rio de Janeiro. It was generally very dangerous there, you couldn't really walk around freely because there were kidnappings at that time. Very unsafe place.

-On my way to the Heathrow Airport on an early morning last month the underground train didn't come. The custodian told me to run to the "bus stations", but they were way too far away and the bus drivers refused to tell me how to get to my destination. I spent half an hour running around with my luggage in the cold, then decided to go back to the underground station and the train actually arrived. Awful system.

-On my trips in the US I found Americans to be extremly rude. I have never experienced such bitter, demotivated, angry and racist staff (I love America, though. You just have to make sure you know how to speak with an attitude). My trips on Greyhound buses weren't very pleasant, either.

-On a bus in Italy with a Russian tourist group my mom tried to open the window because it was way too hot. Once she put the window down with her hand still being in the open space, some Russian man lifted the window and clenched my mom's hand yelling that the wind would ruin his wife's hair.

-Russians are special people when it comes to vacationing abroad, though. Once my family and I were stuck at the Bangkok Airport and couldn't move because we were in the middle of the crowd. Some man accidently pushed a woman and her husband cought him and yelled: "You liked the trip? You enjoyed your time here? Well, if you wanna get back safely, then you better disappear right now". Lots of incidents like this´, usually in combination with alcohol.

-On a Virgin Atlantic flight to London the 747 plane looked more than half-empty after the boarding and I was sitting near a man who wouldn't stop coughing. I thought, after the take-off I'd ask the FAs if I can change the seat..from my previous non-Russian experiences I thought that's how it's done on long-haul flights (ie, on Lufthansa). However, once the plane was airbone, it looked like all British passengers jumped up and RAN through the plane occupying every empty seat they saw (even 4-seats!). I kindly asked if I could have one of those but they would just put their bags on empty spaces and turn away. It's not like it was a bad experience or anything, but I always thought that this behavior is uncommon in the Western world and only applies to Russians. I was wrong.

Wow, you got a lot of bad experiences!!! :eek: I heard about the Russians in hollidays although I didn't encounter them like that yet - but the Swedes are not much better ;)

A propos airport: I once had to fly to Inari. From Zurich over Helsinki to Turku first to visit a friend and then later back to Helsinki and straight up to Inari... Arriving in Turku I didn't have my rucksack (all my winter clothes and equipment for a 2 week snow hiking trip in Lappland was in :eek: ). They found out the lagguage is on the way to.... BANGKOK!!! Two days later I was flying with some borrowed equipment from my friend back to Helsinki just to get my rucksack ONE HOUR before my flight to Inari - UFF!!!

Wow, all a lot of bad experiences. I travel quite a lot and never had really bad situations. One that could have been bad was when the Russian "militsia" came waking me up in my hotel because I had "illegaly" taken pics from the Novosibirsk station. Fortunately they believed me when I told I didn't know it was forbidden (which was true) and that I would never do it again (which wasn't true).

Another one was that I became sick from some bad food in Czechia two years ago. Northing horrible, but I felt really really really really really bad. I threw up about 10 times in an hour or so. And that continued for about two days. Not nice.

-On my trips in the US I found Americans to be extremly rude. I have never experienced such bitter, demotivated, angry and racist staff (I love America, though. You just have to make sure you know how to speak with an attitude). My trips on Greyhound buses weren't very pleasant, either.


I hope that your experiences were limited to airports and Greyhound, which I will agree (as an american with much experience with both) are probably the least friendly spaces.

Especially Greyhound.

I rode once from Phoenix to Indiana (36 hrs), and twice drivers threatened to take passengers directly to the police station if they broke any of the "rules"--it was like detention, without the comfortable schooly chairs. Absolutely the worst, and cheapest way to travel in the US.

May you have a better experience next time!