Traveling Experiences.

[NoshowJones]

Traveling in any sort of transport, lets hear some of your traveling experiences.

Traveling with my then girlfriend we had runabout tickets for all of North America on the Am Track trains, we were traveling on the overnight train from Chicago to Nashville Tennessee.

The beds took up almost the whole cabin, so at around 3 am there was a knock on the door, it was a guy checking the tickets, so we had to get up, put the beds up and find our tickets, by the time we had done that, showed the tickets and then put the bed back down again, we were wide awake.

I know the  guy checking the tickets was probably doing what he was told, but still, I sure gave him hell.

 

[poohy]

Larkhana Sindh Pakistan 1985

Having shave n haircut in barbers shoot out in street started ...

The barber without blinking  requested me and 2 other customers to retire to the back room to drink tea and eat balti until the "disruption finishes"

[AlexRRR]

Cambodia around 2005, bus from the Thai side to the border, then shock horror crossing over to a dump and what looked like a war zone....

 

Bumpy 180 kilometre ride all the way to Seim Reap, 3 days later fast boat and noisey boat to the capital 4 hours...but the lake water levels are low so slow bus half the way...6 long hours...

 

Leaving the capital in an air con bus just outside of the city decides to turn the air con off and opens a roof hatch to compensate.....

 

Leaving crappy seaside city its every man for himself...long stretches of graded roadworks with a monsoon down poor over night slippery as hell with steep falls to the side....4 rivers to cross by barge no bridges at that time, slippery banks was like your rally cross....6 am start reached BKK around 8 pm.....was an experience I wont forget....

[NoshowJones]

4 hours ago, AlexRRR said:

Cambodia around 2005, bus from the Thai side to the border, then shock horror crossing over to a dump and what looked like a war zone....

 

Bumpy 180 kilometre ride all the way to Seim Reap, 3 days later fast boat and noisey boat to the capital 4 hours...but the lake water levels are low so slow bus half the way...6 long hours...

 

Leaving the capital in an air con bus just outside of the city decides to turn the air con off and opens a roof hatch to compensate.....

 

Leaving crappy seaside city its every man for himself...long stretches of graded roadworks with a monsoon down poor over night slippery as hell with steep falls to the side....4 rivers to cross by barge no bridges at that time, slippery banks was like your rally cross....6 am start reached BKK around 8 pm.....was an experience I wont forget....

 

4 hours ago, AlexRRR said:

Cambodia around 2005, bus from the Thai side to the border, then shock horror crossing over to a dump and what looked like a war zone....

 

Bumpy 180 kilometre ride all the way to Seim Reap, 3 days later fast boat and noisey boat to the capital 4 hours...but the lake water levels are low so slow bus half the way...6 long hours...

 

Leaving the capital in an air con bus just outside of the city decides to turn the air con off and opens a roof hatch to compensate.....

 

Leaving crappy seaside city its every man for himself...long stretches of graded roadworks with a monsoon down poor over night slippery as hell with steep falls to the side....4 rivers to cross by barge no bridges at that time, slippery banks was like your rally cross....6 am start reached BKK around 8 pm.....was an experience I wont forget....

That sounds awful, if you were going to Seim Reap, why not just go there straight from Thailand instead of traveling 180 Ks in Cambodia?

[sipi]

Not sure where to start with this one.

I've always likes train travel and the Trans Mongolian/ Siberian was interesting.

Probably the worst was Wada Halfa to Khartoum, I won't be doing that one again. 

I took a year to go overland from Nepal to England years ago, and 6 months in Africa when it was safe to do so. Climbed Kilimanjaro and all that.

I haven't done many boat trips but have good memories around Greece, and on the Nile for a few days.

New Zealand is good. We just hired a camper, but ended up staying in motels anyway.

Unfortunately I didn't keep any photos and only have a few souvenirs so YouTube is the only thing I use these days to jog my memory.

[sipi]

I did a quick bounce around the US, but spent more time in Canada and Alaska. Loves that big time.

[sipi]

An organised tour in Europe as a teen-ager was my ice breaker. 6 weeks from memory, then stayed in the UK for a bit.

[SkyFax]

In 1989 taking the 4 day cruise down the Yangtze River from Chongqing to Wuhan before the 3 Gorges Dam was built.

Edited January 5, 2020 by SkyFax

[CGW]

Probably around  1980 I was "needed" on a rig offshore Thailand, flew into a place I had never heard off called Phuket from ? (can't remember!) onto a Helicopter and flew out over some rocks that were jutting out the sea, thought then "they are nice" years later found out they were in Phangna Bay, been to quite a few other places where I was just as ignorant!

[AlexRRR]

5 hours ago, possum1931 said:

 

That sounds awful, if you were going to Seim Reap, why not just go there straight from Thailand instead of traveling 180 Ks in Cambodia?

Was a great experience, and I did say I was traveling from Thailand, overland, did a loop through the country, im sure there fixed the roads now...

[dddave]

Between 2009 and 2018, I frequently flew out of Bangkok to destinations worldwide as an "OBC", that is, "On Board Courier" for a Bangkok logistics company.  Usually one or two transcontinental trips a month.

 

One day, I was called for a job, BKK to Guadalajara, Mexico via LAX, leaving that night.  I made the delivery in GDL and headed back to LAX to start my return to BKK.  Just as I get to LAX, I get a text: job going from Detroit to Frankfurt, Germany. Sleep on the floor of LAX and get a 5am flight to Detroit, then a 6pm flight to Frankfurt.  Deliver the job in Frankfurt, head back to Bangkok flying east. One circumnavigation of the planet.

Get to Bangkok, just heading to the taxi stand and my phone beeps.  Emergency job, Bangkok to Shannon Ireland, no other couriers available.  Back in the air, flying west, London, then Shannon.  From Shannon to JFK, package going to Hong Kong, continuing east. HKG back to BKK. Second circumnavigation.

Get home and sleep 18 hours. Phone rings. Another Emergency. BKK to Houston, business class promised.

Made the delivery in Houston, then the cherry on the sundae...Singapore Airlines, Business class:  Houston to Moscow to Singapore to Bangkok. Circumnavigation Number 3, all in 9 days.

[geronimo]

Too many to remember ....

 

hitchhiked from Crete to London with $7 in my pocket, arrived in London with $9 .......

 

wrestled with a black bear in Yugoslavia ... he wanted my loaf of bread ...... I wasn't going to give it to him ...

 

Kidnapped by Sudanese rebels .... still don't understand how I managed to survive that one ....

 

Being all alone in the Sinai desert with no money .... another miracle ....

 

It seemed as though I was indestructible back then .....

[giddyup]

Got an overnight sleeper bus from Hue to Hoi An in Vietnam, the most uncomfortable trip of my life, mind you the second class train from Saigon to Hue was a close second. The bus had a top deck, the beds were like fibreglass cocoons and about 5' long, and I'm 6' 3", and it was impossible to stretch out. The Iron Maiden had nothing on that trip.

[Assurancetourix]

1 hour ago, giddyup said:

the beds were like fibreglass cocoons and about 5' long, and I'm 6' 3",

Like the night buses in Laos ...

But you had a sleeping bus ...

 

I was in Vietnam in 1991 ; 

Buses  with rows of three seats on one side and two on the other; It must be enough for the backs of the thin Asians but not for us Europeans ..

 

With that, it leans to the side where it will fall 

 

[sipi]

Standing on the great pyramid of Cheerios before colour was invented.

[CharlieH]

Thought that was a breakfast cereal ?....5555????

[sipi]

It's a long way to...

[sipi]

Short <deleted>...

Edited January 6, 2020 by sipi

[sipi]

Crossing the equator again.

That'll be me 4th from the left...

[faraday]

1 hour ago, sipi said:

Short <deleted>...

Bloody hell Sipi, what's that hanging down your left leg!!!

 

[sipi]

[Lacessit]

Crossed the International Date Line three times from Melbourne to LA on my birthday, so I feel 3 years older than I am.

 

[richard_smith237]

24 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Crossed the International Date Line three times from Melbourne to LA on my birthday, so I feel 3 years older than I am.

 

Interesting point - crossing the date line 3 times...  so I had to look it up and its possible !!

 

But you pass backwards 3x and forwards 2x !!! 

 

 

 

 

 

[sipi]

The other end of the spectrum..

[thaibeachlovers]

On 1/3/2020 at 8:51 PM, possum1931 said:

The beds took up almost the whole cabin, so at around 3 am there was a knock on the door, it was a guy checking the tickets, so we had to get up, put the beds up and find our tickets, by the time we had done that, showed the tickets and then put the bed back down again, we were wide awake.

LOL. You should have slept in the same bunk.

 

Most of my travel stories are in Thailand, as they were the most memorable.

Every tour I ever went on involved a brand new van picking us up from the hotels all over town, then transferring to a broken down piece of junk for the actual tour.

Traveling by van from Hat Yai to Phuket the van broke down just before the top of the hill. Stupid driver coasted back down, then made us get out to push start the van as battery flat. He could have put it in reverse and jump started it on the way down the hill.

Told that the private tour bus from Phuket to Chumphon had a toilet- it did, but all the bags were piled in front of the door. ) Official toilet stop had us <deleted> into the bushes.

Same bus had to stop for a few hours as a diesel tanker had flipped on it's side, blocking the road. Cops decided to lighten the tanker by emptying the fuel. They opened the valve and let the fuel melt the road as it ran off into the bushes. Clever, NOT.

Fast boat from Chumphon to Samui broke down about 1/2 mile from the port on Samui. We floated around for 3 hours till a boat from Chumphon arrived to pull us the last 1/2 mile.

Most road trips had us passing by a tour bus on it's side in the central reservation ditch.

Train from Chiang Mai to Bkk. At Lampang the AC in the carriage caught fire and we had to travel in 3rd class. No official came to help us move our bags or explain what was happening. No apologies for their un maintained piece of <deleted> breaking down. At Bkk they told us if we wanted a refund to go back to C M.

No matter how bad the tours elsewhere were, nothing exceeded the decrepitude and poor value of the tours in Chiang Mai. If I have time later I'll tell you, as need a lot of space and writing to describe.

 

 

PS, I did have some excellent tours, so not all bad.

 

[NoshowJones]

32 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

LOL. You should have slept in the same bunk.

 

Most of my travel stories are in Thailand, as they were the most memorable.

Every tour I ever went on involved a brand new van picking us up from the hotels all over town, then transferring to a broken down piece of junk for the actual tour.

Traveling by van from Hat Yai to Phuket the van broke down just before the top of the hill. Stupid driver coasted back down, then made us get out to push start the van as battery flat. He could have put it in reverse and jump started it on the way down the hill.

Told that the private tour bus from Phuket to Chumphon had a toilet- it did, but all the bags were piled in front of the door. ) Official toilet stop had us <deleted> into the bushes.

Same bus had to stop for a few hours as a diesel tanker had flipped on it's side, blocking the road. Cops decided to lighten the tanker by emptying the fuel. They opened the valve and let the fuel melt the road as it ran off into the bushes. Clever, NOT.

Fast boat from Chumphon to Samui broke down about 1/2 mile from the port on Samui. We floated around for 3 hours till a boat from Chumphon arrived to pull us the last 1/2 mile.

Most road trips had us passing by a tour bus on it's side in the central reservation ditch.

Train from Chiang Mai to Bkk. At Lampang the AC in the carriage caught fire and we had to travel in 3rd class. No official came to help us move our bags or explain what was happening. No apologies for their un maintained piece of <deleted> breaking down. At Bkk they told us if we wanted a refund to go back to C M.

No matter how bad the tours elsewhere were, nothing exceeded the decrepitude and poor value of the tours in Chiang Mai. If I have time later I'll tell you, as need a lot of space and writing to describe.

 

 

PS, I did have some excellent tours, so not all bad.

 

It was a double bed which was up against the wall, you pulled it down when you went to sleep or--

You sure came across some accidents.

Of all the road trips I have done on my motorbike over the years through Isaan, down to Maesot. Kanchanaburi, Bangkok and Pattaya, from the east of Thailand to the west, I cannot recall seeing any accidents at all.

[geronimo]

13 hours ago, faraday said:

Bloody hell Sipi, what's that hanging down your left leg!!!

 

He usually photoshops that out ....

[sipi]

14 hours ago, faraday said:

Bloody hell Sipi, what's that hanging down your left leg!!!

 

Oops my mistake.

I meant to put that photo in the "why do you wear trousers" thread.

[sipi]

Before terrorism was invented.

[sipi]

Before tourists were invented.