[Misc] Holiday dramas

[happypig]

Other things:
In March 2020 we went to Spain for a month to chill out at the start of our retirement. Then covid lockdown hit and nine days later we were scrambling to get a flight home, managed to bag the last two seats on the last flight out of Almeria, wife up the front, me at the back.
In Crete in 1987 I was being a bit lairy on a motorbike, pulling wheelies outside the hotel (I know, what a ****) when I lost control and knocked an Egyptian fisherman off his moped. Under Greek law at the time, foreign nationals couldn't be bailed and as it was a Saturday night I was held in the police station until Monday morning. In court I got sentenced to 10 days in jail or an 8000 drachma fine (about £40).
In Dorset a few years ago we were queueing up to go in a stately home when an old woman in front of us in the queue dropped dead.

 

[sydney]

mugged in Morrocco , shot at in joburg shrapnel in calf , chased by wild animals in africa , my wife's cousin thought it would be a good idea to go to an african music festival in cape town , it wasn't ....all robbed again...!! 72 hrs on stand by in bangkok airport with a 16 month old baby ( nightmare) , stung by a scorpion looking for rock art in Zimbabwe , boat got flipped by a hippo on the Zambezi , 3 months in hospital after treading on a critter in the shallows at Mission Beach in FNQLD resulting in full on septicaemia, numerous wallets stolen , phones stolen , shoes and clothes stolen out of suit cases , got rescued by a Danish couple after getting spiked in Amsterdam , spiked myself in Amsterdam...

 

[sydney]

Other things:
In March 2020 we went to Spain for a month to chill out at the start of our retirement. Then covid lockdown hit and nine days later we were scrambling to get a flight home, managed to bag the last two seats on the last flight out of Almeria, wife up the front, me at the back.
In Crete in 1987 I was being a bit lairy on a motorbike, pulling wheelies outside the hotel (I know, what a ****) when I lost control and knocked an Egyptian fisherman off his moped. Under Greek law at the time, foreign nationals couldn't be bailed and as it was a Saturday night I was held in the police station until Monday morning. In court I got sentenced to 10 days in jail or an 8000 drachma fine (about £40).
In Dorset a few years ago we were queueing up to go in a stately home when an old woman in front of us in the queue dropped dead.

that's just reminded me , kicked my 175 trials bike over outside my hotel in Iraklion to start it not realising the throttle was stuck full open , took off down the hill at 80 kph and managed to get the front down just before ditching into the harbour , accidentally going over a jump whilst learning to water ski in Malta ( one and only time , never again) sledging in Switzerland after reaching a ridiculous speed steered myself into a snow man to slow myself down , it was frozen solid ...!! smashed glasses and nose.

 

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

In my late teens/early 20s I had a girlfriend with absolutely no sense of danger. A typical conversation would be me saying I didn't like the look of something, her going ahead away, and me deciding whether or not I wanted to tell her parents I'd abandoned her to her fate. We did a lot of backpacking together and drama was a regular feature to the extent that I ended up with a reputation for high-risk and when I got married (not to her) some of what happened to us was a thread through the best man's speech. I got seriously ill in Mexico, hospitalised and with a blood transfusion after she'd insisted I'd be ok for a long train journey and just needed to "sleep it off". Spent too long in the murder capital of Mexico too despite the warnings to go, and in another town after the police had told her (not me, I was in the loo) we should leave we stayed another night before she told me. There was a mass killing shortly after we were there. Got kidnapped in India, high-jinks on our escape and the long route back to the British Embassy in Delhi for help. Only time in my life I've ever had a proper panic attack, stuck in a small village waiting overnight for the next bus and waiting to be found by people who'd tried to harm us. After seeing a fatality on a bus in Morocco I suggested we stay put and get our heads back together, not least because the bus was several hours late leaving and it was a shocking thing to have seen. We ended up staying on the bus, arriving somewhere very remote and unnerving at 3.30am without a clue where we were and both of us trying not to go into delayed shock. Got lost exploring in La Paz, Bolivia and chased by a man with a knife. Stuck in a small dip in the Pyrenees for 36 hours in dense cloud...everyone else coming down the mountain while we were heading up was a clue not to keep climbing really. A lot of good times too, but I sometimes look back and wonder how I survived her relentless confidence that everything would be OK regardless of every sign pointing to the opposite. She went on to do a PhD and last I heard was making breakthroughs in cancer research. Amazing.

She sounds ****ing amazing!

Would have loved some of those adventures when I was a bit younger.

 

[essbee1]

that's just reminded me , kicked my 175 trials bike over outside my hotel in Iraklion to start it not realising the throttle was stuck full open , took off down the hill at 80 kph and managed to get the front down just before ditching into the harbour , accidentally going over a jump whilst learning to water ski in Malta ( one and only time , never again) sledging in Switzerland after reaching a ridiculous speed steered myself into a snow man to slow myself down , it was frozen solid ...!! smashed glasses and nose.

Do you think that perhaps you may be accident-prone?

 

[Happy Exile]

She sounds ****ing amazing!

Would have loved some of those adventures when I was a bit younger.

Thanks for all the comments folks, really made me laugh!

She was amazing (probably still is!) She didn't see the world as some kind of sanitised Disneyworld, and it wasn't that she couldn't see more than one step ahead, it was just she always seemed to see the excitement/experience pay off as worth it for the risk - I was unfair when I said no sense of danger. It was more a far higher risk tolerance than most, and when she asked herself "what's the worst that could happen?" she never seemed to come up with an answer that put her off. So that India kidnap for example, that started with me refusing to go with the people because we still had a chance to run and create enough of a scene to hopefully get some help. Her view when we spoke after about why she didn't want to run and had been pretty passive while I was getting animated about it, was that she knew it wasn't right, but hadn't seen enough to make her think we wouldn't be able to get out of it if we had to so we may as well take the chance that I was misreading the situation and see what happened.

We were together for 7 years, and when I look back at many of the best experiences I've had travelling/backpacking/abroad - all were with her, and all came about because that attitude that sometimes got us in trouble worked out for the best far more times than it went wrong. We were a rubbish couple in the end, but nothing but fondness for those times. I can see why she's a research scientist - you probably need a bit of the mindset for speculative risk and that setbacks and unexpected outcomes are all part of a moving towards something better.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I'm a nervous traveller, prone to error...

I arrived niceley early for a flight to Frankfurt at Heathrow 30 years ago. Only to realize the flight was from Gatwick. The nice Lufthansa man booked me on to the next flight from Heathrow nevertheless. No extra charge.

On another occasion I got the 11 bus from Chelsea to Victoria with my various bits and bobs to get the train to Gatwick and a flight somewhere or other. I arrived early at Victoria and sauntered into the station. I bought my train ticket then thought 'where the **** are my passport and plane ticket? I've left them on the bus!'. In a fit of unjustifiable optimism I grabbed a cab and said 'please head down Victoria Street - there is a bus I need you to catch up with'. We got to Trafalgar square and there was the bus in stationary traffic. The taxi driver let me out and I ran after the bus. As I got to it the conductor saw me and in one sweeping move I leapt onto the platform grabbing the pole, he handed me my ticket and passport and I swung like good 'un round the pole and off and out, legged it back to the taxi, jumped in, and managed to get back to Victoria in good time to catch my train. I gave the taxi driver a tenner for his two quid fare.

 

[The Wookiee]

In my late teens/early 20s I had a girlfriend with absolutely no sense of danger. A typical conversation would be me saying I didn't like the look of something, her going ahead away, and me deciding whether or not I wanted to tell her parents I'd abandoned her to her fate. We did a lot of backpacking together and drama was a regular feature to the extent that I ended up with a reputation for high-risk and when I got married (not to her) some of what happened to us was a thread through the best man's speech. I got seriously ill in Mexico, hospitalised and with a blood transfusion after she'd insisted I'd be ok for a long train journey and just needed to "sleep it off". Spent too long in the murder capital of Mexico too despite the warnings to go, and in another town after the police had told her (not me, I was in the loo) we should leave we stayed another night before she told me. There was a mass killing shortly after we were there. Got kidnapped in India, high-jinks on our escape and the long route back to the British Embassy in Delhi for help. Only time in my life I've ever had a proper panic attack, stuck in a small village waiting overnight for the next bus and waiting to be found by people who'd tried to harm us. After seeing a fatality on a bus in Morocco I suggested we stay put and get our heads back together, not least because the bus was several hours late leaving and it was a shocking thing to have seen. We ended up staying on the bus, arriving somewhere very remote and unnerving at 3.30am without a clue where we were and both of us trying not to go into delayed shock. Got lost exploring in La Paz, Bolivia and chased by a man with a knife. Stuck in a small dip in the Pyrenees for 36 hours in dense cloud...everyone else coming down the mountain while we were heading up was a clue not to keep climbing really. A lot of good times too, but I sometimes look back and wonder how I survived her relentless confidence that everything would be OK regardless of every sign pointing to the opposite. She went on to do a PhD and last I heard was making breakthroughs in cancer research. Amazing.

Have you ever had anybody refuse to go on holiday with you when you’ve asked them ?

 

[Munkfish]

In my late teens/early 20s I had a girlfriend with absolutely no sense of danger. A typical conversation would be me saying I didn't like the look of something, her going ahead away, and me deciding whether or not I wanted to tell her parents I'd abandoned her to her fate. We did a lot of backpacking together and drama was a regular feature to the extent that I ended up with a reputation for high-risk and when I got married (not to her) some of what happened to us was a thread through the best man's speech. I got seriously ill in Mexico, hospitalised and with a blood transfusion after she'd insisted I'd be ok for a long train journey and just needed to "sleep it off". Spent too long in the murder capital of Mexico too despite the warnings to go, and in another town after the police had told her (not me, I was in the loo) we should leave we stayed another night before she told me. There was a mass killing shortly after we were there. Got kidnapped in India, high-jinks on our escape and the long route back to the British Embassy in Delhi for help. Only time in my life I've ever had a proper panic attack, stuck in a small village waiting overnight for the next bus and waiting to be found by people who'd tried to harm us. After seeing a fatality on a bus in Morocco I suggested we stay put and get our heads back together, not least because the bus was several hours late leaving and it was a shocking thing to have seen. We ended up staying on the bus, arriving somewhere very remote and unnerving at 3.30am without a clue where we were and both of us trying not to go into delayed shock. Got lost exploring in La Paz, Bolivia and chased by a man with a knife. Stuck in a small dip in the Pyrenees for 36 hours in dense cloud...everyone else coming down the mountain while we were heading up was a clue not to keep climbing really. A lot of good times too, but I sometimes look back and wonder how I survived her relentless confidence that everything would be OK regardless of every sign pointing to the opposite. She went on to do a PhD and last I heard was making breakthroughs in cancer research. Amazing.

She must have been incredible in bed.

 

[atfc village]

My snoring in Cyprus caused one of my mates [ i didn't know at the time he was an unstable chap] mates too have a breakdown and i mean full on . Not divulging too much but he was taken away in an Ambulance full Hanibal Lechter style spitting at us and proclaiming we were trying to kill him . Last seen by us having been jabbed up having been released lying on a bed as we returned home .

 

[Swansman]

My first holiday alone was in Corralejo on Fuerteventura. First thing I did when I arrived was to find some shady Moroccans that could sell me some weed. Unfortunately they also wanted to sell me bad coke, and wouldn't take no for an answer, effectively blackmailing me. They gave me the coke, I had no money out for anything but the weed but told him to come to the same square next day.
I didn't. I soon realised Corralejo is quite small and that the Moroccan I was talking to was part of a gang that pretty much wandered the streets day and night. When I went to the night club area I tried to avoid them the best I could, and I accidently bumped into my hotel clerk who didn't tell me what I thought - "they wouldnt do anything to a tourist", but instead telling me "they are very, very dangerous".
I snuck down to the beach, made a joint and thought about the situation. I was low on money but should probably pay them, was my conclusion. But then randomly I bumped into a couple of Finnish guys and told them about the whole thing, and they wanted to meet the Moroccans so they could buy some shit. If I introduced them, they would also pay my debt.

So I went looking for the Moroccans, finally found them and told them to meet the Finnish guys. They did not get along, the situation was pretty bad and pretty soon turned into very bad. For reasons unknown the Finnish guys started running and I just ran with them. They drove me to the house they were renting (to grow weed), I gave them the shite cocaine and we smoked and drank all night before it was time for me to walk home to the hotel.

The rest of my vacation I was laying very low, avoiding the Moroccans. Was not a very fun journey, very panicky, but today it is a nice memory.

 

[Gabbafella]

About 15yrs ago, I went on a family holiday to Barbados for Christmas. On one of the days, we paid for a trip on a glass bottom boat to go swimming with Black tip sharks and Hawksbill turtles. The group was me, my girlfriend (now ex), my dad, my sister and about 10 other holiday makers we didn't know.
The local guys that took us out were very lax with any health and safety, their safety measures consisted of them telling us "don't put your fingers near the sharks mouth", genius. I'm already nervous about getting in the water (can't stand the sea but couldn't pass up swimming with these animals.)
We arrive at the diving spot, we're told to put our life jackets and snorkels on and jump in when ready, that's when all manner of shit went down. Me and my dad have jumped in, I'm holding on to the side of the boat until I can pluck up the courage to move into open water, my dad is to my side encouraging me that all is ok. With that, a fat bloke and his 10yr old daughter cannonball into the water between us, the girl instantly starts shitting herself and starts dragging her dad under the water, he panics and starts using my dad as a buoyancy aid, pushing him under, my dad keeps coming up for air and when he can, shouting at the guy that he can't breathe, I have to let go of the boat to save my dad by smacking the fat guy in the face, the current then starts dragging me under the boat towards the propeller (albeit slow moving, but the local guys hadn't switched the engine off) so I'm now thinking "so this is how I die" when luckily my dad has broken free of the fat man's murderous clutches and has managed to grab me as I'm disappearing and got someone on the boat to pull me up.
All of this happened in the space of 60 seconds or so but it felt like an eternity. The most hectic and scary 60 seconds of my life.
The argument between my dad and the fat bloke back in the boat last way longer than the rest of the ordeal.
Managed to finally get back in the water after a while and ended up seeing a few sharks, a couple of turtles and actually had a nice day in the end but I still have a fear of the sea and fat blokes.

 

[The Clamp]

Gran Canaria. 1996.

Had a bust up with the Girlfriend. Went off on my own and got shitfaced. Made friends with other Brits and a Spanish barman. All signed a postcard slagging her off and sent it to her parents house where she lived. Stole a golf cart and dove it off the end of a jetty for a laugh. Got arrested. Girlfriend came to station in the morning. We made up and had a nice rest of holiday. Went home. Having a big breakfast round her parents house with all her family when the letterbox clanked and a postcard hit the mat….

 

[Guinness Boy]

In my late teens/early 20s I had a girlfriend with absolutely no sense of danger. A typical conversation would be me saying I didn't like the look of something, her going ahead away, and me deciding whether or not I wanted to tell her parents I'd abandoned her to her fate. We did a lot of backpacking together and drama was a regular feature to the extent that I ended up with a reputation for high-risk and when I got married (not to her) some of what happened to us was a thread through the best man's speech. I got seriously ill in Mexico, hospitalised and with a blood transfusion after she'd insisted I'd be ok for a long train journey and just needed to "sleep it off". Spent too long in the murder capital of Mexico too despite the warnings to go, and in another town after the police had told her (not me, I was in the loo) we should leave we stayed another night before she told me. There was a mass killing shortly after we were there. Got kidnapped in India, high-jinks on our escape and the long route back to the British Embassy in Delhi for help. Only time in my life I've ever had a proper panic attack, stuck in a small village waiting overnight for the next bus and waiting to be found by people who'd tried to harm us. After seeing a fatality on a bus in Morocco I suggested we stay put and get our heads back together, not least because the bus was several hours late leaving and it was a shocking thing to have seen. We ended up staying on the bus, arriving somewhere very remote and unnerving at 3.30am without a clue where we were and both of us trying not to go into delayed shock. Got lost exploring in La Paz, Bolivia and chased by a man with a knife. Stuck in a small dip in the Pyrenees for 36 hours in dense cloud...everyone else coming down the mountain while we were heading up was a clue not to keep climbing really. A lot of good times too, but I sometimes look back and wonder how I survived her relentless confidence that everything would be OK regardless of every sign pointing to the opposite. She went on to do a PhD and last I heard was making breakthroughs in cancer research. Amazing.

mugged in Morrocco , shot at in joburg shrapnel in calf , chased by wild animals in africa , my wife's cousin thought it would be a good idea to go to an african music festival in cape town , it wasn't ....all robbed again...!! 72 hrs on stand by in bangkok airport with a 16 month old baby ( nightmare) , stung by a scorpion looking for rock art in Zimbabwe , boat got flipped by a hippo on the Zambezi , 3 months in hospital after treading on a critter in the shallows at Mission Beach in FNQLD resulting in full on septicaemia, numerous wallets stolen , phones stolen , shoes and clothes stolen out of suit cases , got rescued by a Danish couple after getting spiked in Amsterdam , spiked myself in Amsterdam...

Christ on a bike, you two win by a country mile.

My first day in Taipei was in the middle of a rancorous election campaign that HR had all briefed us about (avoid it, essentially) but there was a DPP rally just down the road from our hotel that sounded fun, we checked it out and it was, er, fine. The domestic flights were more scary. Aeroplane maintenance isn't really a thing there and apparently a kit bag full of balls, cones, 22 shirts and a pump is hand luggage.

Bribed our tuk tuk drivers in Chennai to race each other with us in (not a proud moment). Pulled over by the police. Realised instantly they needed paying off and it was, er, fine.

Hooned it down a mountain side in Slovenia on giant scooters after a few beers. Not a scratch, but probably lucky. It was fine. Canyoning with a couple of mental Czechs on the same trip? Brilliant fun.

The moral of the story is that any paid for and organised adrenaline experience will, in the modern world, be fine and if you want a real seat of your pants experience, go fully dark.

 

[BN9 BHA]

The moral of the story is that any paid for and organised adrenaline experience will, in the modern world, be fine and if you want a real seat of your pants experience, go on holiday with @sydney.

Slight edit

 

[Guinness Boy]

Slight edit

Imagine if syd met Happy Exile's ex!

 

[driddles]

On holiday about 30 years ago a friend of my Dad's took me up for my first ever flight in a 2 seater plane. Everything went fine, however the next time he took the plane up it crashed and was found upside down in Lake Ontario. Dad's friend was reported as dead (presumed drowned) on all of the local media... incredibly he wasn't dead, he managed to swim to land and hadn't found anyone for a couple of days to report that he was alive.

Fast forward 7 years later and I was about to fly home from Florida, as the plane was taxiing for takeoff I remembered the incident, had a panic attack, stood up and announced I had to get off the plane (pre 911). After much commotion and general anger from the passengers the plane returned to the terminal, I rented a car and drove home.

 

[sydney]

Do you think that perhaps you may be accident-prone?

perhaps , and a bit stupid maybe ....

 

[sydney]

this reminds me of a lad called John that we met on Koh Phangnan back in the late 80's , i swear this is a true story.

john turned up at Bottle Beach one afternoon , he was wearing a white ralph dress shirt , full length chinos and deck shoes , totally out of place ......and i mean totally , most of the guys in the bar were munted on one thing or another and he just looked like he'd walked off an Urban English Street .
Conversation ensued and it became apparent that John was an avid angler and had heard that decent squid could be caught from a certain spot in the evenings and that he had made his way there for this purpose , strange seeing as most of the other kids on the island were there to take partying to the next level , as i say he really was out of place , anyway John had some early dinner and left the bar area not to be seen again .....until he turned up 5 or 6 days later in a terrible state looking like a sun burnt robinson crusoe , covered in what looked like mulberry juice , with his arm in a full elbow cast and sling.
he was in a right old state and said he had just managed to get back to the island after being taken to the hospital on the mainland by locals after being found unconscious somewhere on the island , he wasn't a drinker or party animal so his memory of the incident was crystal clear and frankly comedy gold.

John had found himself a fishing spot on a remote part of the headland and settled down for a spot of fishing , just after dark he had caught a decent size squid and attempted to retrieve it , just as he almost had it in his grasp it squirted him full in the face with its ink , temporarily blinding him, he managed to get the squid into small rock pool and wipe his face with his shirt and after a few minutes set after the squid again , he pulled it in by the line but this time the squid let him have the mother load with such force , full in the face , that he staggered backwards , falling over and hitting his head , knocking himself out .

by now there was an audience of 6 or so listening to his story , so john comes to some time later , in the pitch black , totally disorientated and soon realises he is getting munched by Mosquitos ( which he has a mild allergy too , apparently)so decides to try and back track up to the paths that kriss cross the island , gets about 15 minutes in to the track and his torch fails , he attempts to carry on , walks off the path , rolls down a steep hill breaking his collar bone in the process and once again knocking himself out at the bottom.

At this stage he has about 15 people listening in horror at the luck of this dude from Sheffield and i must admit a fair few of us were finding it hard not to crack up , he was telling this story with a dead pan expression but it doesn't end there.

John comes around some time before dawn , realises he's hurt himself and decides to stay still , despite being drained by mosquitos , until there is enough light to negotiate his way back to safety , the local ants have now joined in the feast and john is starting to resemble the singing detective.

Around dawn the locals start moving and john starts screaming hysterically trying to attract attention , some locals come to his aid , realise he is injured and get him upright , they decide in limited English that he needs to go to hospital , but not until he has retrieved his telescopic fishing rod from where he was fishing , they get back to the spot , find the rod and his little bait box ( John's face manages to create a bashful smile as the other guests congratulate him for finding his rod) the locals bring their long tail boat to the rocks where john had been fishing and take him off to the doctors on Koh Samui , they send him , by helicopter to Chumpon on the mainland , he is x-rayed , treated for severe reactions to mosquito and ant bites , put in a cast and released from hospital......... so now he is about 200 nautical miles away from his belongings , clothes , wallet , passport etc he manages to explain his situation to a doctor who calls him a private taxi and lends him enough baht for the ferry back to Phangnan which has enabled him to return to Bottle beach to tell his , remarkable tale.

true story which left many of us in stitches when he was telling it , totally dead pan with a " how's my luck " attitude. quality.

 

[sydney]

My first holiday alone was in Corralejo on Fuerteventura. First thing I did when I arrived was to find some shady Moroccans that could sell me some weed. Unfortunately they also wanted to sell me bad coke, and wouldn't take no for an answer, effectively blackmailing me. They gave me the coke, I had no money out for anything but the weed but told him to come to the same square next day.
I didn't. I soon realised Corralejo is quite small and that the Moroccan I was talking to was part of a gang that pretty much wandered the streets day and night. When I went to the night club area I tried to avoid them the best I could, and I accidently bumped into my hotel clerk who didn't tell me what I thought - "they wouldnt do anything to a tourist", but instead telling me "they are very, very dangerous".
I snuck down to the beach, made a joint and thought about the situation. I was low on money but should probably pay them, was my conclusion. But then randomly I bumped into a couple of Finnish guys and told them about the whole thing, and they wanted to meet the Moroccans so they could buy some shit. If I introduced them, they would also pay my debt.

So I went looking for the Moroccans, finally found them and told them to meet the Finnish guys. They did not get along, the situation was pretty bad and pretty soon turned into very bad. For reasons unknown the Finnish guys started running and I just ran with them. They drove me to the house they were renting (to grow weed), I gave them the shite cocaine and we smoked and drank all night before it was time for me to walk home to the hotel.

The rest of my vacation I was laying very low, avoiding the Moroccans. Was not a very fun journey, very panicky, but today it is a nice memory.

Moroccans can be very , very hard work.