Travel Horror Stories

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Does anyone have any travel horror stories? Whether it be losing all your money and belongings, car broken down in the middle of nowhere, stalked or followed by someone, being sick in a foreign place or anything else that has ruined your day?

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We were travelling to the south of France by train and had arrived in Marseille at around 2 am, so instead of going off to a hotel for a few hours while waiting for the train to go to Monaco, we decided to sit it out at the train station unbeknownst to us the train station was to close for a couple of hours whilst it was being cleaned. So we were told to wait outside the train station.

My cousin and I sat down and we saw a few travellers had fallen asleep who were also waiting for that train… next thing I see these two men sprinting across at full pace and grab the sleeping travellers’ bags and run off with them. Then as I watched them run off I saw two policeman just watching the whole thing and laughing their heads off and giving those two thieves a wave. At that moment, we all knew that they were in on the whole thing, those next two hours waiting for that train seemed like an eternity.

Station re-opened, the train arrived, we got on it and I glanced back to see the policeman laughing and waving to us.
 

raskolnikov

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Mugged in New York
Held at gun point in Kyrgyzstan
 

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Leper

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I was coming back to Jakarta via Bali last year and wanted to bring some drugs back but didn't want to get caught.

So I put the drugs in this bogan looking girl's bag as it was on the carousel (she was still in the immigration line), thinking I'd chat her up and get it back off her later. Last time I saw her she was getting dragged off into the customs officer's room, yelling something at them about not wanting to find another way to solve her little problem because they weren't hers.
 

raskolnikov

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Aquamarinejewel said:
Both terrible things to have to go through. With being held at gun point - guess it is something you will never forget.

I actually found the mugging more distressing and still shudder about it. I was shaking for a day afterwards. I seemed to get over being held at gun point quite quickly and tend to look back on it and laugh these days.
 

Fraser

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Interigated at Ft. Lauderdale airport...pretty much!

Was flying to California last year on 9/11 (yes, bad choice of day!) from Florida.

I had no intentions of returning to Florida so, I had a one way ticket. Now, at the time I did not relise that during 9/11 attacks in 2001, the planes that were high-jacked were all flights (almost) to California, early in the morning, on one-way tickets.
I was taken away from everyone else and put behind xray screens, held there for 30mins while they went through my passenger luggage. They went through everything including my underware :eek: and travel documents, and asked me every question under the earth.
Although I wasnt mugged, I felt very embarrised, hummilated, and was very upset. Thankfully, the staff at Jetblue come looking for me and delayed the plane by 15 mins just for me.

In NYC, I was threatend many times in Harlem but experienced an attempted mugging in time square mc donalds. I felt my bag being moved so without hesitations, turned around and pushed this thug flat on his arse (ala neitz on newman style) :)

My best was getting into a fight in Surfers Paradise one night and almost having the peanuts beaten out of me by 3 locals ehehe.
 

raskolnikov

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Aquamarinejewel said:
So the mugging was in New York? Where were you when it happened?

I had actually just arrived in the States so had my suitcase with me. I arrived at 10pm. I was staying with a friend of mine who lives in NY. He works on Broadway as a stagehand. He was working that night so told me to get a bus from the airport to Grand Central Station, then a taxi to his place. I was waiting outside Grand Central for a taxi when these two black guys came up to me. They looked very official, with orange safety jackets on. They asked me if I was waiting for a taxi to which I replied yes. They said I wouldn't get one where I was and told me to come with them to the taxi waiting zone. We walked around the corner and as soon as we got around the corner one of them takes out a knife and told me to give them all my money. I thought about saying, "That's not a knife. This is a knife", but decided against it. Luckily I didn't have much money at all on me so I didn't lose too much. They were happy with that then just walked off. About a minute later a taxi pulls up and takes me to my friend's place. I was shaking when I walked into my friend's place, who was home by that time. He looks at me and says, "Oh my God, you got mugged didn't you?".

Other than that I absolutely loved New York.:D
 

Leper

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Fraser said:
..... I felt my bag being moved .......

Last time that happened to me I woke up the next morning (well, 264 mornings later to be precise) and I was a dad. And.....then.... oops, I did it again. Cue now in the rack though.
 

DB10

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Stepping foot in South London.

*shudder*
 

nicky

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my brother is living in Berlin and last week him and his friend went to recycle some beer bottles. His freind put the bottles in a crate he found on the supermarket floor. They got a reciet for the bottles which included 1 euro for the crate (they didn't know the crate was included in the refund). As they left the supermarket the owner stopped them and called the police. They were arrested for shoplifting.

They've been banned from going back to the supermarket for 2 months adn they may have to go to court.
 

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Leper said:
I was coming back to Jakarta via Bali last year and wanted to bring some drugs back but didn't want to get caught.

So I put the drugs in this bogan looking girl's bag as it was on the carousel (she was still in the immigration line), thinking I'd chat her up and get it back off her later. Last time I saw her she was getting dragged off into the customs officer's room, yelling something at them about not wanting to find another way to solve her little problem because they weren't hers.
Why don`t you tell the punters about your oz customs story when one of them took a shine to the Cambodia/Vietnam stamps in you passport :D

Got up to the third knuckle i believe
 
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Mine was a "near miss" story .

Second night in Sans Sebastian in Spain ... we`d had big one the night before so my companians rather meekly decided to have a quiet one .

The "pencione" we were staying in literaly had a door adjoining a bar right next door .. thought bug.ger it , i will head down and have a couple of bourbs with the locals .

Would have been in there a little over an hour ... had three drinks , remember it vividly ... stood up and decided to call it a night , feeling a little woozy as i did so .

.... Woke up 14 hours later in my room in a pool of my own urine . Don`t remember how i got there . My friend just told me i staggered up the stairs , highly agitated and abusive , swearing and thumping on walls . He opened the door and dragged me in . Told me i just stood there tallking gibberish for about 5 seconds , my eyes rolled back in my head and i just tipped over and face planted on the floor and there i stayed for 14 hours .

... Read later about one of the favourite pastimes of the locals in Spain is drugging the tourists with "Absynth" and robbing them blind . I can just thank my lucky stars that i did not even have to walk a metre to get to where i was staying . Anything more than that and it would have ben ugly
 
This isnt as bad as being held up at gun point and being drugged :eek:

But anyway, i got caught in that NYC (well the whole eastern part of the US) Blackout a couple years ago. We were about to go on the subway, but my mate wanted to keep shopping. Lucky or we would have been trapped under there for hours!

Instead we had a 4 hours trek uptown back to our hostel.

Because the power was down, there was no power to lock the doors. The girl across from me had her wallet, credit cards, everything stolen! I was smart enuff to have my stuff in a locker!
 
IDGAF said:
... Read later about one of the favourite pastimes of the locals in Spain is drugging the tourists with "Absynth" and robbing them blind . I can just thank my lucky stars that i did not even have to walk a metre to get to where i was staying . Anything more than that and it would have ben ugly

A lot of that happens and I have heard a few stories like yours, scary stuff - just aswell you were close to where you were staying.
 
Shell said:
But anyway, i got caught in that NYC (well the whole eastern part of the US) Blackout a couple years ago. We were about to go on the subway, but my mate wanted to keep shopping. Lucky or we would have been trapped under there for hours!

So in this situation...shopping was the better option, just aswell your friend decided on that. Would have been terrible to be caught in that blackout in the subway, especially in NYC.
 
Aquamarinejewel said:
So in this situation...shopping was the better option, just aswell your friend decided on that. Would have been terrible to be caught in that blackout in the subway, especially in NYC.

Mate. shopping is ALWAYS the better option!! :D (it got me thru the Syd final debacle last year.. in fact im looking at the ring i bought the day after, right now!)

Anyway, yeah we were INCREDIBLY lucky not to be caught on the subway! People had to walk in the dark, apparantly to get out, and were trapped down there for hours as well! I would have freaked out in that situation.

We were in Chinatown and had to walk over a hundred blocks up to our hostel. BUt again, lucky as some people had to get to Brooklyn and other further away places.

But one surprising thing was the clamness, level headedness and just good nature of the New Yorkers. Civillians were out on the street directing traffic (we were walking up Broadway), people were gathered around cars listening for info on the radios. Everyone was really co-operative as a whole.

Very impressed :thumbsu:

I just couldnt get over how, pretty much a whole eastern part of the States could just blackout like that! (it was funny afterwards, Canada kept blaming the US for it and vice versa :) )
 

sawf

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breakfast buffet had no butter left one morning in kl

had to have jam on dry toast

still wake up sometimes in middle of night and have to check the fridge for butter
 
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Worst that has happened is Air Lingus 'forgetting' to put a trolley of luggage on a plane from London to Dublin. The way it was set up the plane was literally a stone's throw from where you checked your bag in. It only had to go down a conveyor practically to the cargo door.

Milled about at Dublin waiting with a dozen other people for our bags then got up a few of the dopey plodders they had lolling about in the offices. They were pretty slack with it all, bags didn't come in until the following evening. Semi-crappy day and a half trying to enjoy our Irish holiday in the same clothes.
 

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