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Anish Badshah
Joined: Jul 15, 2002
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Country: United States
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Worst traveling experience
August 10, 2003 - 12:51 PM
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I was wondering what everyone's worst traveling experience was.
Here's mine:
I was going to the Youth Employment Summit in Alexandria, Egypt. The plan was, to fly from Seattle to Amsterdam with my dad, then, after a 12 hr layoff, fly into Cairo, where a car was going to take me to my hotel in Alexandria, while my dad takes a sidetrip to Senegal.
The first part went as scheduled, I got to Amsterdam, slept during the 12 hours, but emailed Dumi at YES to get the final details before I went to sleep (and did currency exchange, and whatnot). When I woke up, I had Dumi's number, and some details about the ride, but some were left out, and I just decided to deal with it when I got there.
When I got to Cairo (1 AM, on 9/5/02, I went to passport control, and went to the shortest line. When I got to the booth, the guy said it was only for Egyptians, so I went to the next line. When I got to the booth, I asked if this was where I get my visa, and he pointed me over to currency exchange, which I had completely bypassed since I did all that in Amsterdam. So, I was basically the last person out of passport control. Then, my bags took forever to come. I got my bags, and went to customs. At customs, they searched through my carry-on, and found my dad's digital video camera, that he put in since I was going early (He basically gave me everything he didn't need for Senegal), and I knew nothing about it. So, the people basically questioned me for half an hour or so, until they figured out how to use it. Then, I went outside.
Outside, there was nothing that resembled a ride. So, I'm thinking "Hmmm, what to do." I borrow a cab driver's cell phone, and call Dumi in Alexandria. One problem, the number I had was YES's fax number, so the only contact I had was email. During this whole time, since I'm an American of Indian heritage, people were coming up to me speaking in Arabic, I'm like "English please", they're like "Are you egyptian?", I go "No, I'm American", and they go, "What nationality are you?" and I'm like "Indian". So, after all this, I go to an airport helper, and ask if I can use a computer to email Dumi. He goes "This isn't America, you don't just get a computer". I'm thinkin "uhh, ok". So, I decide to make one last ditch effort by running up and down the terminal yelling "Youth Employment Summit", looking like a total ass. So, then, I go with the airport helper and the cab driver to a pay phone. First, I call my mom (it's later afternoon in Seattle), but she's in a meeting. Then, I called my younger brother at home. Since the payphone was weird (you had to pay as you go, and you didn't know when to pay, we kept getting disconnected). This, coupled with the whole situated, really ticked me off, and I just blew up on him. I was like "Dude, I'm f*ckin stuck in f*ckin Egypt, and you gonna help me get the f*ck out of the f*ckin place". The airport helper, who spoke English, told the cab driver, who spoke only Arabic, what I said (me cussing alot), and they both sighed, and went "Oh, Americans" in unison. Then, I called the US Embassy, and asked if they could help. They said they were closed till 8 AM. Now, I feel the only option I have is to spend the night here. So, I decide to go to a cheap hotel by the embassy.
The cab driver took me to the hotel, for 15 dollars. When I get to the hotel, I get out of the cab, and feel my pockets. I feel I have everything, except, my wallet. Now, I'm thinkin "Man, is anything gonna go right?" then remember I have 150 dollars in cash in my bag, and also that I need to call my mom to cancel my cards ASAP. After I get my bags, I look around in the cab one last time. I find my wallet, right there in the middle of the seat. It had fallen out of my pocket. I was so relieved by this. I then get settled down in my room, on the top floor, overlooking the Nile. Then, I decide that I need to get down to business. I call everyone who can help me, my bro, my dad, my mom, everyone. I tell my mom to put more money on my card, since I was losing it quick, and didn't know how long I would be there. I also had her email Dumi, telling him my contact info, name of hotel, and where it was. In about half an hour, Dumi calls, and apologizes, and Poonam gets on the phone doing the same thing and saying YES will pay for the hotel, etc. I thinkin "Whose paying is the last thing on my mind", and just basically tell them everything is okay, and that there is no need to apologize. Then, Dumi says that the car should come around 1 PM. I say it's too late, since I have to pay again, at noon, so he then says they'll come at 11 AM. Throughout the night, I couldnt sleep since I was jetlagged, so I basically counted my money, read magazines, or just chilled. Then, at 11 AM I went down to the lobby, no one was there, so I called Dumi. He said, the ride probably didn't get the message, and will be there at 1. So, I pay again, and then go back down at 1. Again, no one is there, so I call Dumi. Dumi basically said, screw this, the car obviously isnt working, we're putting you on the 4 PM shuttle to Alexandria. So, I go back to my room and sleep, since I'm jetlagged. At about 3, Dumi calls again, saying the 4 PM bus is full, and that you're gonna be put on the 7 PM bus, but someone will pick u up at 6. I'm thinking "its cool, more time to sleep" At 6, no one is there. Then, someone comes at about 6:30. and we go around Cairo for an hour, looking for the bus. I finally get on it, and am headed to Alexandria.
I get to Alexandria at 1 AM on 9/6/02, exactly 24 hours after I came to Egypt. After I got off the bus, I had to help around for a bit. Then, I went to sleep, and in the morning emailed my parents that I was there safely. Now, my friend (girl) was coming the later in the day (at night), and she told her parents what had happened to me. Her parents said that she wouldn't have kept her composure like me, and would have probably cried. So, it was my duty to make sure she arrived in Alexandria without any trouble, and that I was supposed to personally be there at 4 AM on 9/7/02 to greet her when she got off the bus. Basically, I kept getting hourly updates on her, and heard that she was provided an escort right from the gate to the bus.
The rest of the Egypt trip was fun, and I had a blast, and I also know I can handle myself in stressful situations, especially in a foreign country.
By the way, the reason the car never showed, was because they had left. This was because I had taken so long in passport control, and customs, so they had thought someone else picked me up.
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Terri Willard
Joined: Jul 27, 2001
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From the "definitely don't try this at home" category
August 11, 2003 - 04:20 AM
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Usually I have great luck travelling and have had amazing experiences by meeting and trusting people along the way.
Excpet for the time I was travelling alone from the Philippines to the US through the South Pacific after a 1 year internship. I was 23 years old, had some of my fellowship money left over and I thought I should see the Pacific islands while I was in the region. As soon as I left the Philippines, though, I was completely homesick...
My first stop was the Solomon Islands, where I had planned to learn to SCUBA dive. Getting off the plane, I met an Australian expatriate who was working in the construction industry. He was joking around with a nun in the baggage line and seemed pretty nice. He was staying at the same hotel I planned to and had a friend picking him up. So, I accepted a ride. And, when we got to the hotel and found it was overbooked, I agreed to split a room with him. It had two beds, so I figured no problem.
Wrong. Problems. Big problems. Different expectations of what was involved with sharing a room entirely. Fortunately, he was by and large a nice guy and nothing happened despite his repeated overtures and attempts to pyscho-analyse me.
The first night, no prob. The next day, I agreed to go with him and his Aussie and NZ friends deep sea fishing. I've never been so sick in my life. Picture me with 4-5 large men on a tiny boat in the middle of the ocean with little food, no water, no washroom, huge fish (tuna, marlin) being gutted on the deck, and men with blood up to their elbows reaching into the cooler for the next beer. When we got back to shore, this guy and his friend took me out to a Chinese restaurant in Honiara. When he started laying on the pressure again (while his friend was in the washroom), I burst into tears. The poor waitress (who only spoke the local dialect) was trying to figure out if I needed help or how she could intervene.
I got up the next morning to go to my SCUBA diving class, but changed my mind and went to the travel agent's office instead. There was a plane leaving 1 hour later for Fiji via Nauru (next one four days later), so I spent all I the money I had on me to change my ticket, grabbed a taxi to the airport and fled the country. I was fortunate enough to end up sitting next to a Filipino fishing crew on the flight... it turned out that one of them was from the town next to where I had been working. They made me laugh and restored my faith in humanity.
Until I arrived in Fiji and promptly had a guy originally from Hong Kong (but living in Australia) hitting on me over breakfast. He wanted to tell me all about his import-export business and cut me in on deals. I only managed to escape him by hiding for a few days in a) a Western Samoan circus show, b) the movie theater (The Crow), and c) my hostel, which turned out to by run by a couple of Fijian gay men who took great care of me and refused to let the other guy enter the hostel.
Let's just say that these interactions (and the fact that a random Filipino parasite had caused me to drop 20 pounds in weight), helped me to decide to cut my trip about 4 weeks short and fly straight home from Fiji to my parents' house in Texas.
Someday, I hope to get back to that part of the world... but I think it would be much more fun to NOT hang out with expats there. I'd much rather go and hang out with people working on cool ICT projects... I'm not a very good tourist. But, I'm a great work traveller.
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Sunny Yeung
Joined: Aug 5, 2003
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Re: Worst traveling experience
August 11, 2003 - 12:17 PM
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I was traveling with my family of 5. We went up to the Quantas check-in counter of the Auckland airport to depart for Hong Kong. The bad experience starts here:
She starts off by weighing our carry-on luggage. We had two -- each weighing approximately 8 kilograms. The per-person quota was 7 kilograms. So let's do some math here... 2 x 8 = 16, 5 x 7 = 35, and 16 < 35, right? Not under her books! She made us split it up into five separate packages.
After that, she checked our ID. We gave her our US passports and then she said that we had to go to the customer service desk to buy tickets to the "final destination." We refused to leave. We went on a long argument about how we have citizenship to Hong Kong and we can stay as long as we want (or "illegally immigrate" under her books). To prove it, we gave us our Hong Kong passports.
To make things worse, the computers went dead. Throughout all this time, we refused to give up our spot in the long line. We passed through after more checks. After we got our boarding passes, we thought about how stupid she was as we reassembled our carry-on luggage right in front of her.
When I got home, I filed a customer complaint demanding an apology. I never got it.
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Roentgen
Joined: Feb 25, 2003
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Re: Worst traveling experience
August 21, 2003 - 12:05 PM
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I and my friends got robbed in the Netherlands. We were on our first leg of our tour after attending a student conference in Germany and one guy approached us, asking for directions. We told him how to go to his intended destination but two guys later cornered us and got our money. The police explained that most probably, the lost guy and the two others were in cahoots. I never thought it would happen to me personally. I've never been robbed and it was a lesson learned. Sometines,even approaches for help need to be met with caveat.
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