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Your funny travel stories from around the world :-)

Discussion in 'News from the UK, Europe and the rest of the World' started by aposhark, Feb 22, 2020.

  1. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    I thought it would be good if we related some funny stories from our many travels around the world.
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2020
  2. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    When I went to Cameroun, West Africa, in 1977 for the first time, one of the lads left the bar and went for a few beers (alcohol always played a part when we were young). He came back to the bar completely covered in dirt with scratches all over.
    He said he just walked along the side of the road and dropped into a big hole where a manhole cover was supposed to be. He completely disappeared from sight but managed to clamber up worse for wear and tear.
  3. bigmac
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    bigmac Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    i only got as far as benidorm.
  4. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    Benidorm is "around the world" bigmac ;)
  5. Druk1
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    Druk1 Well-Known Member

    Benidorm is like Gibraltar, a brit enclave, its almost like a micro-country.
  6. johncar54
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    johncar54 Active Member

    I have lived in several places on Costa Del Sol for over 30 years.

    I used to think Benidorm was an awful place.. However having stayed a long weekend there a couple of years ago, I changed my opinion. Its not that bad.

    Rather like Torremolinos, much better than its British reputation.
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2020
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  7. PorkAdobo
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    PorkAdobo Active Member

    I was followed by Transdniester police for 2 days due to suspicions over my Specsavers glasses case.

    When a taxi driver asked "you want girl?" when dropping me off at a budget hotel in Phnom Penh, I jokingly replied "tomorrow." The next morning, the taxi driver had me called down to the reception where he was waiting with the plumpest Cambodian lass I've ever seen who he had brought over from his village.

    I held my pee for over 24 hours on a Russian train from Petrozavodsk to Murmansk because I couldn't work out where the toilets were. Short of whipping out my willy, I don't know how more obvious my sign language to the train guards could have been.

    Was sexually abused for two weeks on a holiday in Torremilnos as a 6/7 year old.

    Was briefly held at gun point by the Israeli army as I entered the West Bank without my passport and did not realise I needed it for my return to Jerusalem.

    Slipped in to the sea at the harbour in Stockholm and managed to write off my mobile phone with water damage. I was only on a 2 day trip and had no change of clothes (except underwear, socks).

    Was hussled for about $100 in Nampula, Mozambique by the only cop in the entire damn country who understood English after I called him a f*king pr!ck after being asked to show my passport for over the 10th time in a single day.

    Did a day trip from Brussels to Luxembourg just to tick that country off the list. Paid for one of those red city sightseeing buses. Waited at the bus stop next to the ticket booth. 5 minutes later, the vendor informs me that of course the buses aren't running today. How stupid of me to think that. Unfortunately, said vendor refused to refund the €20 ticket.

    Proposed to the missus in Jollibee.
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2020
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  8. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    My driver and I drove through an army checkpoint in Barranquilla, Colombia in 1979.
    I was asked if I was carrying any drugs with me. When I told them I wasn't, they went straight under the car to find a bag of grass.
    I then remembered that I had a chat with someone in a hotel two days earlier who wanted to know what I was doing there and where I would be going......
    The checkpoint guards locked me up for the day until someone from the Oil company came to pay them $2,000 US so I could carry on with my job putting a Radar station in...

    Not a good idea to tell anyone where you're going in Colombia. "Loose lips sink ships #1".
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2020
  9. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    Gibraltar.

    Went scuba diving there once and was chatting with the dive guide on the RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat). Two things stuck with me:

    1) When we were sitting in the boat, a fast boat passed us and he tugged my arm and said "don't look!"
    Seems it was one of the many cigarette-running boats that was loaded up and heading for the Spanish coast not too far off.

    2) When he did the dive brief to two of us, he showed a little map and told us to descend down to x metres depth and when we got to the bottom, swim at xxx degrees, turn right at the pile of dope and head out until we saw the reef.
    Seems that smugglers drop stuff down there all the time. He also told me that if I went to the bars at night there, not to mention that I was a diver because people could proposition me to bring stuff up for them. I told him I wasn't interested in anything like that and wasn't really interested in drinking at the "Gib" pubs either.
    He told me one English bloke was told in a bar he could earn £thousands if he would just bring up x blocks near to where so-and-so buoy was. This diver did this and when surfacing he was lit up by police boat lights then taken to jail where he spent three years at her majesty's pleasure, if my memory serves me well. Seems he was in the bars boasting of the money he could earn. "Loose lips sink ships #2".
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2020
  10. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    Now there's some stories! I thought this thread was turning into a non-starter.
    Sorry to read of the Torremolinos story.
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2020
  11. bigmac
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    bigmac Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    my 2nd holiday in Benidorm was in 1981. i had gotten divorced earlier that year, had been living with "the other woman" since...but needed a break from her to try to make some sense of my life. i was 33.

    a few days into the holiday--staying in a very nice hotel in the northern end of the town--i noticed a very attractive woman giving me the eye. next morning, i walked along the beach into the town center--and got a bus back to the hotel; the same woman was also on the bus, again eyeing me up..and got off at the hotel. i spoke to her after we got off the bus--saying something like--"arent we at the same hotel"?..she replied.."no inglese".....sh*t--i had "no espanol"

    cut it short a bit--we went into the hotel bar, she asked the barman for a pen..and wrote 108 on the palm of my hand. the barman then said to me--"she says go to her room at 11 in the morning"

    i did.
    and the following morning too.

    i never saw her again, but it sort of helped me make some sense of my life.
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  12. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    Leningrad (St. Petersburg) 1978

    Heading back from Indonesia after a job.
    The plane had lots of problems with weather trying to get back.
    Couldn't get out of Moscow so a plane took us to Leningrad and would leave the following day.
    Spent the night in a massive hotel there. All food and drink free, courtesy of Aeroflot.
    Everyone got smashed and I remember a couple of waiters offering me good money for my "Levis". I only had one pair so refused their offer.
    After too many Armenian brandy's, I made an exit from the restaurant and had to navigate my way along a very curved corridor back to my hotel room, bouncing off walls along the way.
    Got into bed and was dozing off in a drunken stupor. Ten minutes or so later there was a knock on the door.
    I opened it and a very friendly Russian bloke, speaking in broken English, asked me if I wanted to join him "We saw you at the restaurant having fun and do you want to join the party next door".
    I was full of enthusiasm, as you are in your early twenties, and went next door.
    As the door opened there was a stunning blonde in full sexy regalia lying on the bed and there was also a camera on a tripod.
    I saw "Nooooo" and nipped back to my room sharpish, smiling to myself saying "no-one would ever believe this, it's a funny old world".
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  13. Druk1
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    Druk1 Well-Known Member

    I wasn’t allowed to own a RIB in gib,I had to moor mine in La Linea,there’s a law against it now old chap :ninja:
    Oddly enough I have open an invite to visit two of Columbia’s largest cannabis grows,both set up by Canadians,big business there nowadays.The last time I greased any palms was 4000 quid I had on me at the time,always best to be friendly to the first official you meet,it starts to get decidedly expensive the further down the chain you go :)
  14. Druk1
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    Druk1 Well-Known Member

    Lucky he wasn’t taken out and sank in the strait,lot of strange people down there,I heard some odd tales indeed:ninja:
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  15. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    La Guajira, Druk1 ?
    I spent most of my working life having to grease palms. Politeness always works, as you say :like:. I was up in Santa Marta, back in '79 but that was as an electronics technician. Went into logistics with a seismic company later.
    Learnt reasonable Spanish in Chile.
  16. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    Si senor y buenas tardes a ti ;)
  17. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    You can't always get what you want
    You can't always get what you want
    You can't always get what you want
    But if you try sometimes, well, you might find
    You get what you need.

    ;)
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  18. Druk1
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    Druk1 Well-Known Member

    Santa Marta gold and punta rojo were Columbia’s two famous weed strains back then.All legal nowadays.
    As for baksheesh the most I ever personally gave to an individual for services rendered was 20 grand sterling equivalent,it’s nice to be nice :)
  19. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    Wow, that is a lot. :eek:
    I used to often pay people off in large amounts but it was always put on my oil company expenses, never from my own pocket :rolleyes:
    Used to pay off immigration at airports for oil companies mistakes. I paid because the oil company could not be seen to be involved in corruption. I was working for a sub-contractor so it wasn't as important.
    I was caught with a satellite phone in the Congo brought in on a chopper from a pilot (mate) from Angola and had to pay off a high police officer.
    Apparently he was in the casino later the same day.
  20. Druk1
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    Druk1 Well-Known Member

    Speculate to accumulate,it’s nice to be nice :)

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