This past weekend I was having a drink with a friend who’s a frequent travel companion of mine and as we started to talk about our several vacations together, he turned to me and said “you know, as most trips go it’s not the monuments or the food that first spring to mind, it’s that one moment when “disaster” strikes!”.
I have several of those moments (I guess that anyone who has traveled for a while does too) that include a plane almost crashing (in the horror section!) but one of the most funny/wacky (out of several on that trip) has to be my arrival at the front desk at the Hotel in Dackar (Senegal). After an arrival that seemed just of a MacGyver episode and a nightmarish taxi ride, we arrived at the hotel at around 2 a.m. and this guy tries to take my luggage from me. I started to avoid him and started to walk really fast in circles, the Good Lord only knows why, and only stopped doing a fool of myself because after having the guy running after me for a good 5 minutes, my friend shouted from the reception area “drop it, D! He’s the bloody porter! “
Mine isn't all that funny, more ironic. You know how they say in Italy that if a pigeon poops on you, you'll have good luck. Well sure enough, I was standing on a very narrow sidewalk in Florence on my first full day there, sharing a gelato with my Mom and I thought I felt water dripping on my head. So I leaned down for my Mom to check and she just busted out laughing. Some very nice Florentine pigeon got a direct hit on me, right on top of my head. Needless to say, we had a great trip from that point on!
Posts: 119 | Location: New Jersey | Registered: 28 September 2006
While travelling on the Trans Siberian Railway from Irkutsk to Moscow (3 days travel straight) it was one of our travelling companion's birthdays and so we decided to throw a Cabin Fancy Hat Party. Our Cabin comprised 4 beds (2 bunks on each side) and a small aisle in between. We decorated the carriage with toilet paper garlands, sent out invites to our fellow travellers - there were 10 of us in total - once again on toilet paper and everyone was instructed to come wearing a fancy hat creation (many bearing the signatory toilet paper!). We pooled our plentiful snack items, had the obligatory vodka shots and a fun time was had by all. Most entertaining was the funny looks we got from our carriage attendant (provodnitsa) who was a very serious russian woman and the Russians standing on the platforms at our stops who peered in through the toilet paper decorations on the window to see these strangely clad foreigners!!
Here's a photo:
Posts: 158 | Location: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: 19 November 2006
Many years ago, I was in a very simple B&B in Istanbul. Our room had a shared bathroom in an alcove, shared with another guest room. We had thought we had locked the door. You can guess the rest.
In the middle of the night, a totally naked young gentleman wandered into our room, and sat down on the bed. We all looked at each other in alarm for a long few seconds, before he jumped up, shouted out apologies in some Nordic language, and bolted for the room next door.
To this day, all my husband and I need to do to give each other a laugh is say "Naked Guy."
Mine was probably in Thailand a few years back. In my trip report I wrote: "One of the real highlights of this vacation came one evening when we were going out to eat. We were trying to find a place to eat and this one guy came over to me and asked me if he could ask me a question. I said “sure” and then he started talking Norwegian and he asked me if I was Norwegian. I confirmed this and then he asked me if my name was Gard. This was really surprising and I said yes once again. It turned out that he had been on my homepage and he had seen pictures and he recognized me from that. That is quite amazing if you ask me. I travel half around the world and then I get recognized because one guy has been to my homepage. Quite amazing."
Deborah Horn In a previous life I was an Umbrian sunflower farmer. I want to do a past life regression and stay there. ----------------------------------- www.petsburg.com My blog: Old Shoes - New Trip
Posts: 5000 | Location: St. Louis, MO | Registered: 04 September 2001
Many years ago, I (male) and four females drove to the Grand Canyon from college. We put a Just Married sign on the back of the car and forgot about it. We kept womdering why so many people were looking at us so weirdly.
My wackiest moments happened years ago, as a young volunteer in Uganda. First, I was hitch-hiking west out of Kampala, Uganda's capital, planning on climbing the Ruwenzori mountains (the Mountains of the Moon) on the border between Uganda and (at the time) the Congo. After waiting by the side of the road for a couple of hours fifty or so kilometers outside on Kampala, I was offered a ride by a large Ugandan Army general in a large, black Mercedes (driver and all) and driven all the way to Fort Portal, my climbing start point. My benefactor was the future dictator, Idi Amin Dada.
My second wackiest moment, I suppose, was probably the time I was driving along a dirt road in the Karamoja District in northeastern Uganda, and passed over a large snake that was crossing the road. As I skidded over it, somehow it ended up slithering up into the undercarriage of my Land Rover. When it became apparent that I had not just driven over it, I stopped, jumped out of my Land Rover and soon realized I had an 11 foot Black Mamba hiding in the engine well. I ended up whacking it with a spear I had bought off a Karamojong warrior earlier in the day. Since the interval between bite and death with a Black Mamba is a matter of minutes, if not seconds, I didn't feel comfortable pulling it out of the engine well, out in the middle of nowhere, even though it was clearly dead, until I got to the next village where they had a police outpost with an antivenom kit.
Ours was on our first trip to Italy in 1994. My wife and I knew almost no Italian. We were in Montecatini exploring the streets; so excited about all of the new things we were seeing. We saw blue and white signs printed on arrows that seemed to point everywhere. They looked very official, but we had never heard of the place that the arrows pointed to. We debated this for about three days. "It might be an important church." "Maybe it has something to do with the UN." We didn't know, but we knew it was a very important place because signs everywhere in town pointed to it. We felt like complete idiots, but had a great laugh when we finally figured out that "SENSO UNICO" was not a place at all, but "ONE WAY" in Italian.
Matt -- I literally laughed out loud at that one! TOOOO FUNNNNYYYY!
My most surprising moment was a phone call back in 1983, a few months before our vacation to Jordan and Israel. Back then, I was an Arabian horse breeder and had written to the registry in Jordan asking about visiting horse farms. The person who called me was HRM Princess Allia al Hussein, the eldest daughter of King Hussein of Jordan! Anyway, she invited us to visit the Royal Stables and gave me her phone number to call a week before our arrival. So, I called...and it was the ROYAL PALACE! Anyway, to wrap up this story, we spent an entire morning as guests at the Royal Stables where they brought every horse (100+) out for us to see and photograph! Princess Allia was away in Paris at the time, so we didn't get to meet her.
Our odd travel moment came on Prince Edward Island. After lost reservations at the B&B we reserved, we found another place, my husband ran in and made reservations and we were on our way for the afternoon. We met wonderfully warm people, one couple even suggested we stay in their vacation cottage. Young and too polite we said no thank you, we were heading off to the B&B. It was about 9pm and dark in the B&B, we went up to our room and got ready for bed. I thought the B&B was well-prepared for injured and/or mobility challenged people as there were grab-bars everywhere (shower, toilet, bedside). There was also many switches by the bed.
The next morning, rested and ready to go, we went downstairs. Much to our suprise all of the residents were already there, and very happy to see us. They loved having guests at their retirement home!
Posts: 595 | Location: Edmonds, WA | Registered: 01 April 2006
Not foreign travel, but when I was moving from Massachusetts to Vermont and had loaded the station wagon to the gills, I had my first flat tire on a lonely road edged only by dense woods for as far as I could remember.
I had seen tires changed, and knew that somewhere beneath that tightly-packed mountain of boxes, furniture & miscellany there was a compartment from which I should be able to lower a spare, and somewhere else there was a compartment that held a folding jack and some other tools, but I had serious doubts about remembering what to do with them.
However, it being over 20 years ago and there being neither passing cars nor houses, not to mention a cellphone, I began to unload the back and hope for the best.
And, it literally stepped out of the woods...in the form of a tall man in camouflage clothing, carrying a new age mechanical bow the likes of which I had never seen before. "Can I help you, Ma'am?" he asked politely. When I had recovered enough to explain the obvious, he went right to work taking out the rest of the luggage, found the tools, changed the tire, reloaded the car, said "Glad to be of help! - and then disappeared back in the woods while I was still stammering my thanks!
This is not for the faint of heart nor the weak of constitution. WARNING!!
I am a regular contributor on this site but I prefer you not know who did this stupid thing.
I went for an early morning walk around Paris while my wife stayed at the hotel. Well, as I walked I had to, well, find a restroom facility fairly quickly. STOP IF YOU ARE EASILY UPSET. I was getting desperate but I was only a block from my hotel. WHEW, I got to the hotel. I ran up to the room - it was locked (only 1 key). My wife had gone for coffee. I rush back down to the desk clerk to get the key but my wife didn't leave it. Oh-oh. I ran to the bathroom in the lobby (Whew), and I did what I needed to. I noticed the toilet seemed overly full, I looked again and saw my cap had fallen out of my waistband right into the toilet, it had fallen in before I had completed so it was full of ****. I grabbed the grubby cap before it could flush down and clog up the system. Which of course brought out a lot of water onto the floor. Oh ****. I spent a lot of time in there cleaning up and washing out my cap before I just threw it away. I still when I think about this.
Originally posted by JChrisP: My wackiest moments happened years ago, as a young volunteer in Uganda. First, I was hitch-hiking west out of Kampala, Uganda's capital, planning on climbing the Ruwenzori mountains (the Mountains of the Moon) on the border between Uganda and (at the time) the Congo. After waiting by the side of the road for a couple of hours fifty or so kilometers outside on Kampala, I was offered a ride by a large Ugandan Army general in a large, black Mercedes (driver and all) and driven all the way to Fort Portal, my climbing start point. My benefactor was the future dictator, Idi Amin Dada.
My second wackiest moment, I suppose, was probably the time I was driving along a dirt road in the Karamoja District in northeastern Uganda, and passed over a large snake that was crossing the road. As I skidded over it, somehow it ended up slithering up into the undercarriage of my Land Rover. When it became apparent that I had not just driven over it, I stopped, jumped out of my Land Rover and soon realized I had an 11 foot Black Mamba hiding in the engine well. I ended up whacking it with a spear I had bought off a Karamojong warrior earlier in the day. Since the interval between bite and death with a Black Mamba is a matter of minutes, if not seconds, I didn't feel comfortable pulling it out of the engine well, out in the middle of nowhere, even though it was clearly dead, until I got to the next village where they had a police outpost with an antivenom kit.
I LOVE IT! But I think I'll stay of Uganda
Posts: 327 | Location: Mississippi | Registered: 31 October 2004
Awww ... YunkaDunka! I don't want to turn this into a potty-tales horror thread, but much the same thing happened to my husband some years back only over a (ahem) squalid squatter on a Greek ferry. And it was his money belt. Took him days to recover from the experience.
To make up for that bit of awfulness, here's my own tale. Some years back in Milan we were waiting to get into some museum or another and I turn around and there's famous soprano Carol Vaness inches behind me. Now I'm a big opera fan, but I'm also about 5' tall and at the time maybe 100 lbs soaking wet and wearing something decidedly inelegant. And Carol Vaness is (or looked) about 7' tall and was wearing a massive fur coat and was UTTERLY the diva. So what did I do? I stalked her throughout the museum for a good hour looking for an autograph opportunity. She must have thought I was a demented madwoman. Surprised she didn't call security.
But I got my autograph (very graciously given) and I slunk off in abject shame at my innate insignificance.
Cheers! Alecto
Posts: 92 | Location: Arkansas | Registered: 06 August 2004
A couple of years ago, we were in Paris with friends. We hailed a cab after dinner one night, and the driver began to sing as soon as we pulled away from the curb, "Fools Rush In", the old Elvis tune, and he even sounded like Elvis. At the end of the song, he asked us, "Do you know the king"? "Which king?" we asked. "Elvis, the king of rock and roll" was his answer, and then he broke out in song again. The five of us sang Elvis tunes all the way back to hotel, swaying and clapping to our own music all the way. As we got out of the cab, the driver hugged each of us then threw his hands into the air and shouted, "I love America, vive America"! It was a wonderful ending to a memorable evening.
My husband and I were in Spain and Portugal last month. We rented an apartment in Seville, so we headed to a little grocer to get a few things for breakfast the next morning. Rather than retrieving items yourself at this place, you just tell the person at the counter what you would like (and they grab it for you in a back room). We started listing the items that we wanted. My husband speaks Spanish, and I really do not, more than some basics. However, I thought I would chime in with "burro" - and my husband supplemented that with "mantequilla", the appropriate word for butter. I then realized that I tried to order donkey! "Burro" = donkey in Spanish (butter in Italian)! We laughed for a few blocks on the way back to the apartment!
Five years ago, I had some work in Andalusia and was there with a colleague. It was December and the weather wasn't bad but my colleague wanted to buy some gloves. We drove to the Carrefour near Jerez de la Frontera and as we walked in, we were met by an attractive lady in a red blazer (who was something like a shopping concierge??). She asked in Spanish if she could help us. My Spanish isn't good so I had retrieved my handy little Langenschiedt Pocket Spanish dictionary. Apparently, my finger dexterity wasn't good that day either.
I responded with the word I have retrieved from the dictionary, as my friend Charles was making sign language by rubbing his hands. The lady gave us a VERY STRANGE look and pointed to an area a couple of aisles over. We found ourselves in ladies' underwear and wondered why she had sent us there...until I looked back at the dictionary and discovered I had chosen the word above the word for gloves. I had asked for a girdle!!!
Fortunately the check out registers were not close to the entrance so we didn't face the lady who was probably still wondering why two old guys would be buying a girdle!
Slow Travel Talk 
when I think about this.