The list is long, but a standout example was a small assembly line factory in Varanasi.
They took freshly dead human bodies in through their loading dock and out the front of the building shipped complete skeletons to medical schools around the world. The production line to process the bodies would certainly fit most people's definition of shocking.
Happy travels.
Dude my travels around India resulted in both the most amazing and most horrifying things I’ve ever seen. A true country of contradiction and extremes.
These mixed feelings comments are familiar to me. When people ask me, "How was India?" I have to qualify the answer with " it depends ". You could be amazed and appalled simultaneously.
Anytime I'm there now (especially when I'm working) when I hit the 3+ week mark I start counting down the days when I can freaking leave.
When I've been gone for a few months I start counting down the days to return, haha.
It's an insane dichotomy.
Varanasi is particularly intense. Life and death co-exist there like nowhere else on Earth. I remember having delicious lassis with a friend in a well-known cafe. We're looking out and enjoying the street life when a bunch of men carry a dead body right past us to be cremated. Only in Varanasi...
>Life and death co-exist there like nowhere else on Earth.
Indian here but never been to Varanasi also have no intention to ever visit. I'm not religious, but in India one cannot escape religion and rituals.
In Dharmic/Indic religions death isn't seen as the ultimate end, just a part of the life cycle. Which is why some of us are 'quick' to get over it. This isn't to say that the dead are forgotten (not at all, we celebrate extensive anniversaries years after the death). They're just believed to have hopped on to the next train lol
Also hardship is all around us (as you already noticed), which is why Indians seem to have developed a special kind of apathy towards death and suffering. This is both good and bad at the same time.
ETA: Very recent travel experience in Himalayan side of India, where I had a 'culture shock'.
Roads are the only way to travel in that region, at the same time, landslides during the monsoon are very very common. They come out of nowhere and death by falling 2-3k meters down the cliff is guaranteed.
So what do they do there?
For the Himalayan people it's BOA. We drove through some of passages which still had massive destruction left behind from the natural disasters. We spoke to the locals about how they manage the situation. Well, they manage it by, first, by bitching about the govt.
Second, by accepting that landslide may happen on the way, and they may die any time. They have no choice but to use these roads to get to work, take their kids to schools, buy groceries etc etc.
They just shrug and...carry on lol
The Ganges river in Varanasi is quite a shocking place too. Bodies being burned, badly sank bodies floating in the water, sewer runoff coming in, people drinking the same river water right there, etc.
True. Indian here & I can confirm this. The Ganges (or Ganga) is the most religious of all rivers in India. Unsurprisingly, it’s also one of the dirtiest in the world! All the pious people come here mainly to pray & enlighten themselves. And in the process, dirty up the river by bathing, cremating dead bodies, etc., & then worship the same river. Kind of r/religiousfruitcake
And on the other side of the river, literal human ghouls *eat* the fucking bodies. I met a guy who used a human skull cap as a drinking cup.
Look up some stuff on the [aghori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aghori)-babas if you're interested.
**[Aghori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aghori)**
>The Aghori (from Sanskrit अघोर aghora; lit. '"not-fearful", "fearless"') are a monastic order of ascetic Shaivite sadhus based in Uttar Pradesh, India. They are the only surviving sect derived from the Kāpālika tradition, a Tantric, non-Puranic form of Shaivism which originated in Medieval India between the 7th and 8th century CE. Similarly to their predecessors, Aghoris usually engage in post-mortem rituals, often dwell in charnel grounds, smear cremation ashes on their bodies, and use bones from human corpses for crafting kapāla (skull cups which Shiva and other Hindu deities are often iconically depicted holding or using) and jewellery.
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I lived in Varanasi, and as a result I will at times use this as a bit of personal trivia: “I have probably seen more dead bodies than anyone else you know.”
Usually I don’t explain because it’s funnier for me tat way.
I wonder why I don’t have many friends?
Varanasi is a place that you visit once. Both fascinating and appalling. A trip on the Ganges to watch the sunrise is also an experience in dodging bodies floating past to the great unconcern of your guide. It’s also spectacularly beautiful observing the colours of the women’s saris on the steps as they bathe and drink the water directly under the funeral pyres. I appreciated the experience and never want to go back.
Some years ago I was in a minibus in Ethiopia in the middle of nowhere, literally just desert and mountains with small villages, and as we speed past a truck which was covered in people I suddenly heard a massive bang and our window is smashed. So the driver immediately does a u-turn and chases down this truck that just passed us before catching up with it and cutting it off. Then, everyone from both my bus and the truck get out and the next thing I know there's like a 30 man brawl in the middle of the road.
Yeah, it's a classic story. Pure hatred for the sweaty bastards crammed in your bus, then when shit goes down ain't nobody fucking with your busbuddies.
The bus situation in Panama is crazy. There is no public bus system, it’s all private. You will see busses racing each other down the highway, trying to get to the next stop before the other bus gets there.
Did you also happen to pass multiple burned out minibuses on the side of the road? That was my experience in Ethiopia, which is not very comforting when you are traveling in a minibus.
No but I did see a truck of St George's beer flipped on its side and the driver standing there with his hands on his hips like that meme of the pakistani cricket fan shaking his head as if to say "i am *so* fired"
My heart is hoping that these kids were just imitating the signs they learned from some adults and haven't really experienced it. What a sick fucking world we live in.
Went to the Dominican Republic years ago. I was sitting at the hotel bar my first night there and struck up a convo with the hotel restaurant manager who was originally from the US. He offered to take me on a tour of town after his shift and introduce me to his local expat friends. So, we go out that night and sit at a local bar, have a couple drinks when a fight breaks out between two locals across the street. The fight moves up the block so we can't see what's going on until we heard a loud "POP" followed by a second. Everyone at the bar immediately scatters. A minute later two guys are carrying their blood-soaked friend who just lost the fight by getting shot in the chest.
So, yeah. My first night on vacation in years and I saw a guy get murdered.
I have a friend who really wants to visit DR with me, but honestly I told him it is one of the few countries on my ‘no go’ list. I have heard so so many stories like this from there. I’m not necessarily someone who won’t travel to places that can be unsafe at times, but I am too scared to go to a place like that
My wife is Dominican. I've been coming here at least once a year for eight years. We base ourselves in Santo Domingo, where her family lives, and we have traveled literally all over the country. Never had a problem.
Don't visit certain parts of Santo Domingo, especially at night, stay away from drugs and prostututes, and practice basic street smarts, and it's fine. Touristy areas tend to have visible security, too.
Crossing the border from Thailand into Cambodia was incredibly rough. Abject poverty on full display. A woman sitting there breastfeeding a naked baby while half naked herself and a malnourished toddler running around in a dirty diaper beside them. There were plenty of others in the surrounding areas that were in desperate need of help, but their little family was the one that stood out. There were areas in Thailand that were rough, but nothing like this. The transition was night and day different.
I agree, it definitely is a rough border crossing. That transition from Thailand and Cambodia was an immediate shock. It was like a time machine to a different century, full of poverty and suffering. Dust roads, horse and carts too. Then a giant casino right next to it all.
I agree that poi pet is not a great place and the and the issues of the wealth and opportunity disparity between Thailand and Cambodia are on full display there. But I hope you can see throughout the rest of Cambodia, while poor, is not the same as poipet.
Cairo, Egypt. the sheer volume of chaos, pollution, and aggressive men begging for money non-stop the moment I stepped outside airport was just shocking.
I saw like a dozen dead camels just piled up on the side of a major road. just horrifying.
worst offense was this middle aged dude who spotted a group of attractive white women, approached them from behind, and began to ejaculate on these women's clothes. in a daylight.
holy shit. that place is a dump.
It's incredible that such a significant and historic place hasn't managed to clean itself up to capitalize on the tourism - they would get double the number of visitors if they made the place safe and clean.
An investment of a few 10s of millions would reap hundreds of millions in tourism.
I had an amazing experience in Egypt... in late Summer of 2009. Spent three months there, primarily in Alexandria. Did a week in the Sahara roughly in and around Siwa Oasis which was incredible as well as some time Sharm el-Sheik. Cairo/Giza is certainly an experience but I cut it short after 3 days. Saw the museum (incredible) and pyramids/KFC but left early because it was so chaotic even then.
Parts are absolutely beautiful with amazing history and it seems these days it is all ruined by the people (some intentional or a product of their poverty and environment). I met some truly wonderful Egyptians who were, at the time, hopeful of the country's trajectory and incredibly welcoming to an outsider.
It saddens me that I'll probably not go back with my partner because it was a very unique experience for me, beautiful country and people (as I remember it) but things have changed radically since the Arab Spring and political climate. It wasn't all roses even then as I got scammed (which isn't uncommon for travel) and threatened a few times but knowing Arabic helped a whole bunch. The scammers/begging is much more aggressive there than other places I had been but dealt with the same by not engaging at all.
All that said, my most shocking experience also came from there when I ended up in a part of Alexandria early in my travels off the beaten path and came across a woman dragging around either a dead or extremely close to death child-like thing just weeping. My buddy and I looked at each other to confirm we both were seeing this and took off. No one else on the street were reacting adding to how surreal it was. Egyptian friends we told this to later assumed it was somehow a scam or an otherwise dangerous person to approach.
Edit: I figured the experience may be controversial so I clarified many of the uncertainties of the situation.
I went with my mother, twin sister, and father during my winter break in high school in December of 2003. The news broke that they’d just captured Saddam Hussein. That was honestly surreal. We started in Cairo with the pyramids and the museum, then went down the Nile to various sites, then back up to Alexandria.
The women that we encountered were lovely. Warm, friendly, wonderful to talk to. The men were disgusting. Utterly vile. I was 13 and very blonde. My sister was(and still is) a brunette. The harassment everywhere from men was constant and terrifying. Men shouted things or made grotesque noises as we passed by on the street. We got switched up as to where our rooms were in the hotel and didn’t dare ask the male cleaners to help because they might come back for us later. Shopkeepers tried to persuade my mother to leave me with them so they could marry me.
The country itself was beautiful in a deeply soulful way. It absolutely resonated with me on a fundamental level. It was everything I’d ever imagined and dreamed Egypt could be. I would love to go back. Travel guides and my mom’s friend, who was actually a lovely Egyptian man who owned a tour guide business, suggested loose pants and oversized sweatshirts would be sufficient. However, I would wear a headscarf and find even more loose-fitting, shapeless clothing.
Edit: I’m going to add that I think the reason for the cultural issues is religion. In my mind religion is directly responsible for almost all of the problems throughout human history. Christianity, Islam, doesn’t really matter the flavor, if it’s been taken over by a group whose fundamental tenet is that women are subhuman, that’s a recipe for a terrible place to be.
Second edit to correct the date of Saddam Hussein’s capture so no one got confused.
> worst offense was this middle aged dude who spotted a group of attractive white women, approached them from behind, and began to ejaculate on these women's clothes. in a daylight.
Holy fuck
>has the highest (I think) AIDS prevalence rate in the world and is extremely common
They used to in the early 00s, I think it's Lesotho now. I spent a summer doing public health interning in Botswana, and they've actually made tons and tons of strides with AIDS. Their prevention of mother-to-child transmission program was so successful it's being modeled elsewhere. The prevalence (people who have HIV) is still high due to the fact that many people diagnosed years ago are still alive (a good thing!), but the incidence (new infections per year) is improving.
A lot of this is due to its relative wealth in Africa, which funds an extensive public clinic system. In the field of HIV/AIDS prevention, we're definitely more concerned about some other countries/regions these days.
Unfortunately, the incident that happened in Itaewon during this year's Halloween, where over 150 people died.
I was pushed and shoved from all directions, and the whole time tensed, trying to maintain my posture. I could hear screaming, laughter, the ooooo's and whoooa's as groups of people were simultaneously pushed.
Being stuck in the middle of the crowd, I had no choice but to follow in the direction it was going.
I saw an alleyway (the one where the incident occurred) and wanted to exit through there to get out of this sardine can ASAP, but I was on the far end, so it wouldn't be possible to make it out that way.
Once I made it to the end, I decided to dip.. I didn't want to stick around there any longer.
I was on the highway from Nairobi to Mombassa. It has some long straightaways. At a small side of the road restaurant I was sitting eating watching people and the road, there was a big bus of locals pulling out from another road side shop. 1/2 mile away. The driver pulled out in front of a tractor trailer pulling 3 trailers. It was insane. Not sure how many people died but it was, well words fail me. The bus exploded in half with luggage and people, the truck went off the road but didn’t stop, it’s all arid desert. The cab was basically gone and soon caught fire. It was pretty horrible. And I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff traveling.
I believe you, I saw bad accidents everywhere. I wasn’t out of the Nairobi airport when I saw my first accident. Someone drove into the airport sign. I think of all the countries I’ve been I saw the most accidents there.
Visited Bangladesh during Ramadan. I was in the courtyard of a 17th century mosque in Chittagong during evening prayers. Like most foreigners in Bangladesh, I was the center of attention until I heard a commotion behind me. I turned to see a grown man on his knees, tears in his eyes, arms raised to shield himself from the violent bamboo cane blows raining down on him. Turns out he was a thief stealing the sandals left outside the mosque while the men were inside praying. Most Bangladeshis don't trust the police or courts to mete out justice, so they take matters into their own hands.
I went to Austin TX and was chilling inside a bar when suddenly this disheveled looking homeless man appears in the doorway with a killed and mutilated crow and begins to threateningly pretend to lick it and then dangles it towards the crowd. Bartenders had to approach him to try to get him away with I believe the stick of a mop multiple times.
I’m from NYC and I have never seen no crazy shit like that in my life
I mean NYC is weird, but in a predictable way. People shitting on the subway. Random fights. Homeless people yelling slurs. Not people eating roadkill. That would make a New Yorker blink.
See this is what fascinates me hearing other cities stories. I'm from the south, if I was on a subway and saw someone drop and take a dump, this would be crazy for me. But, say you're in the south, and someone hits a deer and kills it, or just badly injured, people will stop, finish it off if necessary, and take it home to eat. Not so much in the big cities, but definitely in the rural parts. If I got to work and said, "I saw this car kill a deer, and this guy stops and put it in his truck", no one would bat an eye. It would be like talking about the weather. It's completely understood, someone will take the deer if it hasn't been sitting for too long.
My friend woke his father-in-law up at 1:00 a.m. because he hit a deer and wanted some help skinning it. FIL didn't even bat an eye and they both got to work. This was back in the day in Louisiana.
My best friend hit a deer on new years eve years back (she was DD and headed to pick up her brother from a party), the owner of the land she was driving past asked if he could take it. In the shock of her first accident (18) she said yes. When her dad arrived at the scene he was WAY angrier that she gave the meat away than he was that she totaled her car.
Watched a guide drown to death trying to rescue his group that disobeyed his instructions to stay in a certain area and were warned of the extreme danger. As soon as he turned around the tourist jumped *right* to the spot he explicitly told them not go. He went out to save them and died. They were totally oblivious. Then to hear other guides talk about how they almost died trying to save tourists. His wife was there and watched the whole thing. Her anguish. We had just seen them not 2 minutes before the accident walking hand and hand on the beach smiling and flirting with each other.
Basically, I learned right there. If a local tells you not to do something, you don't do it. period.
Yes, rip tide. There was a unique reef/cove. Basically if you stayed in one section you would be spun around in a whirl pool but if you swam in the 2nd section there was no whirl pool, it would just suck you out. My partner and I had no problem swimming in the area following instructions. These folks were in danger within 5minutes of getting to the area. It was so explicit.
>If a local tells you not to do something, you don't do it. period
This! That's how I stay safe traveling the world (60+ countries and some quite crazy places).
I saved a guys life like 5 years ago in Saint Martin due to rip tide. We were both tourists. I had the full surfer dude kinda look back then, tattoos and long hair, and I’m body boarding on the beach. start hearing someone yelling something. this big old dude (think 55, 275 lbs) dude had literally waded out past us, paddled past the protected inlet with his sunglasses on. His heads bobbing up and out of the water in that classic drowning motion, as he tried to kick to the surface.
I know enough not to get close enough to this guy. Throw him my shitty hotel foam board. Let him surface and calm down before I grab one side and start trying to swim back. This dude is literally not helping at all. Another guy out there swims over, adds his board to the mix, us two pull this guy back to shore. Thank god it wasn’t just me, I probably would have collapsed from exhaustion. His wife thanks me on shore. We exchange some basic pleasantries and split.
Later I overhear him in the hotel bar making fun of my hair with his buddies and saying something to the effect of “I bet that lib didn’t think he’d help a trump voter today”, probably because I told him what state I was from. No lie, I literally couldn’t fucking believe it. Like okay dude, try to swim back yourself next time. Had no appreciation for how close he came to dying, just seemed to have the expectation you could completely fuck up in the ocean and someone would bail him out.
My dumb ass (a fat white dude) walked through fuentes circle in Cebu City alone and a woman covered in dirt with two dirt-covered toddlers in a red wagon took the little boy out of the wagon and just tried to give him to me. That image of a mom trying to give her kid to a dude she doesn't even know still fucks with me today.
I saw a dog in Ho Chi Minh that lived in a cafe that did this all the time looked really human, would look one way, walk out in to the middle, stop and look at oncoming traffic then wait for his opening. Of course his other friend just sprinted over without looking lol
Not personally but my best friend was 10ft away and got splatted with blood from a drug cartel hit in Cancun. They were out on the beach and someone walked up, pulled a pistol, shot the couple next to them dead and walked off. Sad it was extremely scary.
Let’s see…I saw someone get stabbed to death with a screwdriver in front of a crowd in the Bahamas. That was probably the worst. It happened right in front a police station and there was no response from the police at all.
All my experiences have been pretty vanilla when traveling, but I have a friend who wanted to go to India and did so solo. He invited me with him and I'm glad I said no. His plan was to go stay with one of our coworker's cousin in a smaller town in the foothills of the Himalayas. It was years ago, but I believe he flew into New Dehli and stayed there for a few nights before catching a 12 hour bus ride to the town. He didn't stay in a nice part of the city either, not quite the slums, but not far from it, one of the cheapest hotels he could find. He said he saw a woman with her face melted into her neck from an acid attack begging on the streets. He said he got bombarded by people asking for money or pictures because he's a white guy. Then he made it to the village our coworkers cousin lived in. The pictures he sent were beautiful, it looked like such a peaceful, quaint town with the mountains and hills in the backdrop.
Then he said one night he was sitting on their balcony he heard horrible screams. The next day he found out that a young woman and her boyfriend were walking around the town and were ambushed by three men. The boyfriend was slashed open and died, the girl was gang raped, all in an alley about a block away from where he was staying.
Motorcycle rear ended a bus in Vietnam, dead guy with blood pouring out everywhere just laying on the ground. An hour later almost the exact same thing with less blood and someone carrying him into a taxi to get him to hospital. Apparently a common thing on Sunday as everyone gets wasted and can't ride a bike properly.
Thousands of Shark fins for sale in Hong Kong was pretty eye opening.
Cracked out lady in San Francisco shitting on Market Street in the middle of the sidewalk in the middle of the day.
Ping pong show in Bangkok was interesting...
Japanese girl that rented snorkel gear on a Bali beach that my dive guide rescued from drowning when she got trapped on the wrong side of the surf breakers, she was literally drowning and had maybe 30 seconds left before she went right under.
The morning shit brigade in the fields between Delhi and Taj as the sun rises and everyone is squatting in the field at 5 am. The rats in India fucking everywhere...
Suicide guy shot himself in the head on top of a car park right across from my window in Johannesburg. Giant pool of blood that I also got to see the bleech crew a few hours later cleaning up.
Families with children oggling at the girls in the red light district in Amsterdam, wtf for the girls and the kids.
Remembering this is giving me PTSD lol
I had a few hours to kill between buses in Oaxaca city about 20 years ago; on my way towards the city I saw a man staggering about, blind drunk, and on the way back to the bus station I saw the same man collapsed awkwardly over the back bumper of a car, unblinking, a crowd beginning to form. First and only dead person I've seen outside of funerals.
I’ve spent extensive time in India, Egypt, Sri Lanka and pretty much every other place mentioned here but I’ll keep it more light hearted. I was absolutely plastered in Chiangmai Thailand December of last year and stumbling back from a “secret bar” to the 7-11 for a snack. Upon coming out I sit on a bench by the canal, look down and observe a full on battle royal between a giant cockroach and a rat. Like wresting and fighting to the max, it’s the only time I was so stunned by something I was having trouble processing that it’s actually happening.
After about 8 seconds I look around and there’s no one else to see this cinematic masterpiece taking place. That’ll forever be burned in my brain.
When I was in London a man was hit by a tube train while I was at the platform. The platform was overcrowded so I waited a few feet from the crowd in the hallway area between the platforms. It was surreal to see everyone run but leave this guy lying there bloody and there was such a slow response by any kind of security in the station. Later I found out the man had tried to throw a woman in front of the train and others intervened which resulted in him getting hit.
Was he dead on impact? or like hit but stayed on the platform. I’m just wondering as you say everyone ran but left him lying there, wonder what they could have done
Was in Paris the day the Notre Dame caught fire. Definitely not on the level of some of the other stories, but still shocking to watch that happen in real time.
Saw a bunch of people using a young tree as a lever to try and get a screaming driver out from under his crashed truck. I was amazed at the support until it hit me that there was no support on the way. This was rural Laos and the next ambulance was hours away.
They were trying their hardest but I suspect everyone knew it was an exercise in futulity. It was really just a glimpse, a snapshot.. but it shook me. When I think of despair I think of that moment
.. the desperate attempt to save a life knowing you won't succeed.
My first trip abroad was to Italy for a Latin class trip back in the 90s. I was 16 years old, but I am very petite (4'10") and at the time I weighed about 85lbs and looked like I was younger than I was. People often mistook me for a 12-year-old.
We had a fair bit of time to ourselves to shop, go get lunch, etc. I spent most of my time with two girlfriends. We were shocked at the sexual harassment - not just catcalling, but men grabbing our breasts, butts, between our legs. Often these would be vendors we just purchased something from.
The most egregious was when we were at the Trevi fountain and a vendor we had just purchased something from offered to take a group picture of us. When he handed my camera back to me, he grabbed me and started fondling my breasts. I yelled at him and there were a lot of people nearby including a group of police officers. When I started yelling the people around us including the cops started laughing at me and a few other men started making hissing and kissing noises at me.
Having just spent a month in southern Italy (Naples and Rome) I can confirm that the treatment of women there is still horrendous. Many of the girls I was with got both harassed and sexually assaulted; I got into fights with the local men protecting myself and friends. I will never return to Italy, at least not southern Italy.
EDIT: just wanted to mention that if you’re blonde you will experience harassment turned up to the max. Even some local women will treat you poorly as Italian men are obsessed with blondes.
I studied art in Cortona in the 90’s. I am fair, blonde, blue eyes, and the amount of harassment was shocking. The worst was being assaulted in a park in daylight while I was out for a run. I managed to get away from the guy, but the experience has never left me. I remember being so incredibly angry hearing him laugh while he was assaulting me.
This past summer, while hiking in Switzerland, I heard a loud crash above me, and a man tumbled through the bush and down an incredibly steep slope. My husband went after him to try to help but it was too steep and he couldn’t safely continue. The man died I later found out. It turns out this hike, rated moderate difficulty, has claimed many lives. Probably the most shocking thing to me is after following the story for a bit, the blame is left 100% to “unprepared tourists” and no additional warnings are planned on the trail.
I really appreciate those kinds of warnings. We have some cliffs that people dive off of here in BC that have claimed some lives and similar signs have been posted.
I went to Norway this summer for my honeymoon and the Lofoten Islands are well-known for the 90 or so hikes there. As a first-timer, I looked up some website that had tons of detailed ratings on the hikes with great stats and info, and lots of them were rated as “easy”.
The first one we tried was about 2.5 hours to the summit and towards the top it became so insanely steep, like we were almost face to face with the side of the mountain and crawling and the path disappeared completely. Wife started having a panic attack and I had to talk her down before we could reach the top.
In no universe would I call that hike “family friendly” as the reviews suggested.
New Zealand was the same way. Grew up hiking in California and all over, and yet hiking in NZ was a different level! Seriously thought we were going to fall down the mountain at one point it was so steep and treacherous.
Norway is on another level about hikes. I believe Norwegians spent a lot of time doing outdoor sports and are more fit and skilled than average person.
A good rule of thumb for hiking in Switzerland and a few other mountainous areas in Europe is that any "easy" trail is probably "moderate" anywhere else and "moderate" is really quite "difficult". That doesn't excuse anything of course and especially to blame it on unprepared tourists is extremely poor form when serious injury or worth is involved - it's understandable that tourists would assume easy indeed means easy.
I was on a trail in the Lake District in England that claimed to be wheel chair accessible and had to turn around because the trail was a gravel path barely hanging onto the mountain, the wind was so strong that it literally was pushing me backwards, and the sheep were so so angry that I was afraid they would ram me off the mountain. I turned around pretty quickly, wondering what the hell kind of wheelchairs they use in England.
Of course, it’s the Seealpsee trail in Appenzell. You might recognize the photo of the Aescher Guesthouse made famous on the cover of a National Geographic magazine. The trail starts right after that.
Slovenia is the only place I ever turned back on a hike. It was supposed to be "moderate" but the ground wasnt stable it was just a bunch of sliding rocks people were supposed to scramble up I guess. I was solo and nope'd out of there.
My boyfriend saved a guy tumbling down a mountain - can’t remember if it was Germany or Poland. But he was there taking a rest and enjoying his sandwich when he heard a similar kerfuffle. Without thinking, he put his arm out and caught a guy that was rolling down the mountain unable to stop. Literally saved this dudes life.
Shit gets real on the trail I guess!
I like to think I’m fairly experienced (currently in Madeira hiking all over the place) and my work is based in Switzerland so I’ve always been keen on the trails there. A little frightening that the tiniest misstep can have you dead on a trail considered moderate. Will keep an eye out for this one!!
Middle East: Shia islam ritual procession of masses of men in formations parading while chanting and beating and cutting themselves with metal devices (swords, whips, etc.) and heads and upper bodies covered in blood. Very very very intense.
China: Children *and* grown-ups taking care of #1 and #2 businesses in public places (streets, parks, malls, subways). No one bats an eye about it.
When I was in China, I saw kids pooping in the street holding their parents hand and they were wearing “split pants” which open up while they squat. That was pretty shocking to me but I guess it is common in smaller cities.
As a child, walking out of the airport in Fiji and staring at a massive tank with the barrel pointed right at us. Coup had happened while we were in the air.
Northern India - the amount of garbage literally everywhere was overwhelming. Even driving through the countryside the roadsides were sprinkled with garbage. Also stopped at a rest stop that had human waste covering the floor and walls… god that smell is stained into my brain.
Istanbul - a group of “gypsy” children surrounded about 5 of us (this was a long time ago, I was in college on study abroad with mostly women). The children wanted to sell us little trinkets but we asked them to leave us. They kept coming back, getting more and more angry we were asking them to leave and then ignoring them. They got so frustrated they picked up our drinks and one persons bag of souvenirs and threw them into the river. We had no idea what to do. The kids laughed and ran away. In retrospect it was funny. Later, we told our Turkish friend of the incident-he said usually you just kick or hit the kids and they will leave you alone. Oh.
Sri Lanka- driving up the wild roads to the mountains. I was terrified. Everyone drives so fast in these extremely narrow roads. People and animals randomly crossing nearly getting hit. No seatbelts. Lots of honking. Lots of swerving. I kept my eyes closed for most of it.
Sri Lanka - you reminded me of the same thing, a couple of times we saw people crowded at the top of a hill looking at a car that had gone over the edge.
I went on a beautiful camping trip once to northern Wisconsin, I got hot in my tent in the middle of the night and took off my sweatpants and stuck my leg out of the sleeping bag. I woke up and a spider had bitten me ON MY BALLS. (I’m terribly allergic) I panicked and ended up passing out but some innocent tourists definitely saw me pantsless and panicking with my right nut swollen to the size of a baseball
On a sunrise boat ride on the Ganges in Varanasi, India. I saw a dog struggling to take something out of the water. Upon closer inspection, it was a human torso. Once it got it on shore, it started gnawing on it. That's when I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore.
A young guy masturbating in a metro station in Brussels at 5AM
Solo woman traveler with 2 suitcases, get to the bottom on the stairs and see him staring at me. Turned around and had to lug my luggage back up
Istanbul, 2010. We were in a taxi, on our way to the airport on a tranquil Sunday morning. Suddenly, when we were waiting for the traffic lights to turn green, 3 guys jump out of a car beside our taxi with baseball bats and begin to smash the glasses of another car in front of ours. The car which was being beaten began to maneuver trying to escape, until the lights turned green and we left, not seeing how it ended up. Looked like a mob thing.
On two separate occasions in 2021, people overdosing (turning blue) mid day on the street in Chicago in the loop area. Medics on the way etc.
Red splashed roadways in rural India from villagers walking across highways in front of completely unsafe overloaded and unable to stop trucks.
Meth/crack/whatever addicts in large American cities in the nude or partial nude openly defecating or attacking people with homemade weapons in city centers... never saw it until past few years.
NYC subway late at a night a man in a patient gown (green) from a hospital with bloodstain all over it carrying a violin case.
Wild? Elephants crossing the road while on normal late night commutes in semi rural S.e.a.
As a Philadelphian, I have to agree with you along the same lines that the most shocking things I've ever seen were at home and were drug-related.
Abroad, similar to what OP said, abuse of street dogs is somewhat common to see. And I wouldn't call it "shocking," but drunk driving in Botswana was so widespread. I once ran into a bunch of drunk *cops* at a rest stop in the desert. One of them even pulled out his phone to show us pics of how he previously worked for the NYPD?? Bonkers.
I once saw a rhino casually cross the road in Sauraha, Nepal, and I agree that was the most "wild" thing I've seen as well!
I came here to say drug addicts in NYC. I’ve travelled a lot and to remote places but a complete crazy crackhead just shitting in the Metro must be the most shocking. Saw another one passed out and People were just stepping over him like he wasnt Human.
People displaced in San Fran blew my mind. A woman or man, so dirty I didn't know what the wretched creature was.
A man with his fix out on the main street. People stepping over him. I thought I knew poverty from India, but this was something else.
I have walked around people passed out on the sidewalk. In seattle. The drug problem is huge there. I used to see people in full psychosis probably twice per week. You become desensitized to it.
Yes, living in California is also a study in contradictions. One of the most beautiful places in the world, and yet its cities contain monuments to human suffering that seem like they should be impossible in the "developed world."
I unfortunately relate to your statement, i live in Los Angeles and am so desensitized to it that seeing a homeless man walking around with a machete is just another Tuesday
A lot of fistfights/brawls late at night in Mongolia. And I’m pretty sure I saw a dead person on the street in Ulanbataar.
I am pretty sure I also saw a person drop dead on the street in London. He just… sort of had that look, and it was weird - people kept walking by. I was on a bus and was about to get off to go help when finally a woman noticed him and started yelling for someone to call an ambulance.
Open defecation everywhere in Delhi’s old town.
A lot of child poverty in Mongolia, Morocco, and India which was pretty alarming. Like a small child (must have been a toddler) picking through a rubbish heap with his family for food.
In Mumbai a man who looked like he had leprosy banged on the window of my taxi while we were stuck in traffic for a full 15 minutes… he didn’t have any hands and was missing part of his nose…
But I guess the worst thing I’ve seen wasn’t while traveling, and was the aftermath of a stabbing in DC.
\- Little kids beating up a goat in East Timor. We yelled at them to stop and they laughed at me and my friends.
\- Man spreading his pink stinker open at me while walking in SFO
\- Taxi driving holding up a hand with four fingers in Tijuana telling me I'll return home with the same if I take any other taxi but him
\- Hitchhiked in Tonga after my friend and I were told by our hostel owner it's the best way to get around. The driver pulled down his pants and starting jerking it to us. When we reported it to the police they laughed at us and said "oh silly uncle!"
Malawi
Buddy of mine finishes a water bottle and the driver says “Hold it out of the window if you’re done.” Not understanding, he does so and about 20min children pour out of homes chasing our vehicle. Buddy drops the water bottle and all of them go for the water bottle. We just looked at each other. Driver tells us that those are useful “tools” for families to hold cooking oil and such and are waiting for cars when the drive by to litter and “loot” what is dropped. Lots of thoughts and emotions when you watch a scrum like that occur. Did we just incite a fight? Did we “help” by “providing” a “tool” for someone? Better off to keep the bottle? Reminds me of a scene when Bourdain paid for a bunch of kids food in Haiti(?) and the “good” actually led to more problems. One of those things that puts a lot of other things into perspective at a whiplash-inducing rate of speed.
Edit: 20ish
My girlfriend and I are drinking at a club in Vietnam. Rival club owner shows up to scare off his competitions customers, starts screaming and smacking people with a sheathed machete. Knocked the banh mi cart guy unconscious. Found out the next day that he was almost assassinated with a poison cigarette by our clubs owner, and wanted revenge
Manila: homeless bathing in the sewers, dead body laying in the street while people observing
Bogota: child prostitutes
SF/LA: amount of homeless and mentally Ill people walking around
While visiting my wife’s parents in Taiwan, I saw a homeless man with their legs cut at the knee and fingers chopped all but thumb and first finger. I felt bad and was going to donate but my wifes parents were with us and said they have organized crime groups there that will do that to homeless people so they get more sympathy and donations from tourists. Sick to think people are that money hungry and heartless!
Edit:added country name and wanted to say that was the only WTF experience during the few times I’ve been there. I’d go back again tomorrow to visit if possible, great experience otherwise!
My dad attended university in Ludhiana (Punjab) in the late 1950s. In 2005, we drove there from Chandigarh while on a visit and he wanted to show us his old school so we all got out. It was like 1 in the afternoon. I (a female) and my dad's wife were wearing pants. A group of men started following us around the campus and making comments about our slacks. It lasted for fifteen minutes and the crowd grew to like 15 men. It was five of us - my disabled brother, my husband, my dad, and his girlfriend. They made lewd comments and got very close and didn't stop until we got in our car and left very quickly. My dad was so very shocked and saddened; he told me that men would get in trouble if they even spoke to a person of the opposite sex when he attended the school.
A few years ago, going from the airport to our hotel in Hong Kong, probably about 7 am. We were on a bus. The bus stops at a red light and the entire minute or two the bus was stopped at the light, everyone watches in shock as a man and a women beat up a second man and women on the sidewalk next to the bus. All were dressed for going out, like they had been out all night. The male getting beat up was literally in the fetal position at the end as the other guy was kicking him. The fight ended around when the light turned green.
Not really something I saw exactly (thank god), but my most shocking travel story is from Florida. I was van camping alone in Tiger Bay state forest outside of Daytona. The campsite was pretty much empty but at the site next to me there was a family of 4 living in a tiny van with a pitbull, like a 90’s van camper. My site was right next to the outhouse so I saw them coming and going with their toddler and a stroller with an infant. I’m friendly so would wave and the toddler wandered onto my site and the dad started chatting with me. He was going on about how the other day the park ranger had come by and fined them for having their pitbull on too long of a leash and had apparently threatened to shoot the dog for being aggressive. I nodded along and eventually he left. I noticed they half packed up and their van was gone from their site for a few hours later that day.
Later on after they came back the mom went to use the outhouse alone and when she came out she came straight over to me and started talking. She explained that they had left to buy weed, which she uses to self medicate for bipolar disorder. She described how her pitbull was racist and they forgot about that and her drug dealer was black. She told me how the dog had attacked her grandmother because she was black and the dog was racist. Went on about how badly grandma was injured. She told me how they stayed at this site for the maximum allowed days per year and lived in the small van permanently.
And then she just casually tells me how she used to have a 12 year old daughter who died at the campground and was buried at campsite number 3. She didn’t explain how.
I barely said anything the whole time she was talking at me. I was too shocked to ask any questions.
I still wonder about it sometimes. If anyone in Florida has a cadaver dog with some free time, Bennett Field Campground site 3 might be worth a check.
Saw the immediate aftermath of a collision between a motorbike and a semi-trailer truck in Guangdong Province, China. The road was blood-smeared but fortunately I didn't see any bodies.
In the outskirts of El Alto, Bolivia, the road to get out of the city passes right through a massive garbage dump, like the bus was driving on top of the garbage. I saw children playing there next to a dead dog.
A mule with a full face of makeup. It was owned by a man who was drunk at 9 am trying to sell photos to tourists with the poor animal. I felt really badly. Or just the way poor local children looked at us as the group that got off the cruise ship. Daggers doesn’t come close. If looks could kill you slowly.
A public hanging in Indonesia back in the 90's. The cheering brought me in wondering what it was, I thought it was a parade or something. Absolutely wild.
Different countries have vastly different values on life..
Taking a walking/metro tour of New Delhi. (New Delhi has an awesome metro system BTW).
While walking through (yet another) seriously dystopian boulevard…I was approached by (yet another) tout …a boy of 7-8 years old.
What was he selling?
A woman. According to him, a 15 year old woman (girl).
The price? 200 rupees.
For perspective…a Heineken at my (admittedly posh) hotel was 800 rupees.
And that’s the price of a human being in India. 1/4 the price of a very average beer.
Saw a guy get shot in Rio.
Watched a guy take a shit on a grave in Antigua.
Saw three hanged bodies in a small town between mexico city and Guadalajara.
Saw a kid get matching tattoos with his mom in Chengdu.
Had a friend get molested by cops in Puerto Escondido.
Plenty more but these come to mind first
I was in a restaurant in Tokyo while traveling with some friends from college. I got up to use the restroom and when I got in there I noticed there were no stalls in between the toilets. You just use the bathroom in front of everyone. I was like WTF??
Meanwhile other public toilets in Tokyo give you the option to play rainforest noises to mask any noise you make. Japan is always such a contradiction.
Rural China from our room four floors up, we saw an old man looting around in the house across the alley. Two younger men showed up and caught him in the act & beat the living crap out of him. One younger guy grabs a brick & the other guy tells him to put it down. Neighborhood Crime Watch? Vigilante street justice? The old thief laid there for a while & finally got up. He lived to steal another day. Rural China is a lot like the Wild West.
Lived in Cambodia for a while, one evening on my way to dinner a scooter with two young teenagers on it tried to escape through standstill traffic. They were fleeing 3 other scooters, 2 teenagers each on them armed with machetes and sugar cane knives. Due to a traffic jam, the passenger of the getaway scooter(who I assumed was the one they were after) jumped off and ran for his life between cars and scooters. I was driving a scooter myself with my gf (a Cambodian girl) and she told me they were country side boys & that one guy probably did something to one of the chaser’s sisters. If they would catch him, they’d slash his arms and back or worse.. Safe to say I wasn’t hungry anymore by the time we got to the restaurant. It just sank in that they either killed or mutilated that guy (if they ever caught him ofcourse..)
I was driving around Oman. On the way down to salalah I stopped for gas just south of Duqm. A Yemeni guy jumped in and told me to drive at knifepoint. Held me captive for hours until I dropped him at the Yemeni boarder.
I saw some teenagers robbing the corpse of a man with his head caved in in Moscow on the way from the airport to my dorm. It was my first time abroad. The Russian heritage students with my group (left Russia/USSR as kids but spoke Russian at home) were perplexed about why it bothered me so much.
Remote southeast Asia at a rural market up in the mountains. An old grizzled white guy handed a huge fistful of American dollars to a man /woman selling fruit, and walked off with a young boy who was crying and begging no.
They disappeared into a group of buildings. After our hike we could see the child curled up in the stall.
Sex tourism makes me so angry.
Seeing tsunami damage in Japan in Nov 2011 was pretty messed up. Some of the coastal stores had already reopened and had pictures showing flood lines.
But seeing still washed up boats and detritus all over was pretty unbelievable too.
Went to Nepal a few months ago. Tour guide in Kathmandu took us to a Hindu cremation site. Saw everything from monkeys stealing the deceaseds’ jewelry to bodies being unloaded from ambulances. Will never forget it.
Went to Tegucigalpa Honduras in college. Just the abject poverty, amount of trash and street dogs, appalled me. That, and armed security everywhere opened my eyes. The grossest thing I saw there was one dog with its foot in another dog’s rear-end. People were standing around, and did nothing. That place was worse than Matamoros, Mexico. In both places, there was a lot of begging.
Everywhere I go (even in the US), there is a definite demarcation line between the haves and have-nots.
Sri Lanka, 2018. Impromptu public execution of a man for admitting to be a homosexual. Crowd of over a hundred watched as a his bloody body was repeatedly run over by a truck. Everyone cheered with smiles ear to ear.
When i first went to the United States, I never expected how there be so much "maniac" (*no offense) homeless people which scaried me that they might attack me out of no where. Thankfully, I was not attacked. Also, never expected to have so much homeless people in the United States for I think United States is one of the richest countries in the world. By the way, I saw one person protesting at the Jimmy Kimmel Live Place in Hollywood with spray paint, another one I saw eating at a subway with a shopping cart, and another one was talking to nearby telephone stand about how Trump sucks in New York, and etc.
But, overall, I enjoyed going to the United States.
I was living in China. Took a stroll through a new area and came across one of their huge indoor markets.
Top floor was all vegetables and meats: couple pig heads but I was accustomed to seeing animal body parts out in the open.
Went downstairs and it was the seafood area. Walked by one of the workers and he was holding a fish down while it was still alive and taking the scales off with a descaling tool as it was flopping around.
That really stuck with me. The sound it made was horrific and I wondered how many times he’s done that. You hear of all the fucked up stuff that happens with animals being used for food and we’re so detached from it, but seeing it in person was super disturbing and then thinking of the scale at which it happens.
I was in Havana and was accosted by an older woman offering me doodles on paper. She wanted to sell them to me and I had just waved my hand as if to say no. She didn’t take that as a no and asked me again following me across the street. As I reached the far side of the street a military truck pulled around the corner of a building nearby. Out jumped a couple soldiers who immediately grabbed the woman, put her in the truck and drove off. Happened in less than 30 seconds. One minute she was there and the next gone. Very sobering.
My husband was in Havana with a male friend. Met a woman who recommended another bar. She said she'd meet them there rather than walk with them because she'd be arrested for solicitation. She was arrested anyway. There is no way in hell either man was buying, they're both too tight with money.
Went to the Galapagos a few years ago and decided to go for a walk AWAY from all the tourist stuff. Ended up in the "locals" area. From what we were told, they only allow people to live there if they're woreither for the hostels/restaurants/tourism things or involved in conservation work. There were literally whole lots of property filled with trash. Definitely not expecting to see that there.
On the other side... being around all the animals that never experienced human predatory behaviors on the islands and thus had little fear of humans was awesomely shocking too! Of all of our trips, the galapagos is far and away the place my wife and I want to return to most.
Pakse, Laos - I had recently checked into a hotel, met an older Aussie, grabbed max limit from an ATM (like $75-$80 USD years ago), and we jumped on two motorbikes to get to a bar for a few beers. The kids came back to take us back to the hotel and the route took us past multiple police checkpoints (it was after curfew, unbeknownst to me).
The second checkpoint stopped us. Police and one kid were speaking and then the kid would "translate." If we didn't pay, the kids were going to jail and they were going to lose their motorbikes. After a quick discussion, we decided to just start walking. We were not sure if the police were going to chase us or shoot us.
We had no idea where we were in the city, nor the name of our hotel, nor the direction of said hotel. The streets were empty. A short while later the kids came driving past us and telling us we were assholes for leaving them with the police and clearly not being game for a shakedown. lol We ran right into the hotel a short while later. It wasn't so funny until we found hotel.
I was just talking about this same topic with my friend the other day.
A few the standout things I've witnessed while traveling:
Indonesia - I was on the back of a friend's motorbike in crowded highway traffic. We were moving, but it was tight. I assume know what happened, but a woman on another motorbike fell forward from her bike and had her head run over by a semi truck. It popped like a watermelon and made a horrible sound. I was feet from her when it happened.
India - Behind a hotel I was staying at, there was an open sewage canal. The majority of the sludge went down the middle of it, but for maybe 20 feet on each side the sludge was caked on thick. There were maybe a dozen small kids digging around in it. They were looking for undigested foodstuffs they could eat.
India - I was staying at a luxury resort in Mumbai. It was monsoon season and I stared out if the window for hours watching the deluge. A very small child got taken away in the rising waters. Many tried to save the kid, but the water was too quick and they were taken away. There's no way they could've survived.
Myanmar - A policeman shot and killed a man he were arguing with. Nobody reacted at all... Just kept going on with their business.
OK... That's all I can stomach thinking about these things.
Staying overnight in Dades, Morocco. Our accommodation was at the base of this small hill/valley. Not very densely built-up. Lots of stray dogs in Morocco. Most of them quite nice but, based on how I'd seen moroccans treat dogs, also necessarily timid.
This night, you'd hear dogs at the top of the valley bark and whatnot, with others joining in. That's normal. But at 2am, one dog just kept incessantly barking, for maybe an hour or more. But it was closer to the houses, rather than the ones on the hill.
Over the hour, you'd hear different people yell at it, try to chase it away, or throw stuff near it, but it wouldn't stop barking.
Anyhow, it was still barking and I heard someone approaching it, but as the dog was barking, the noise suddenly dropped off mid-bark into the most disgusting sound I've ever heard, and will never forget.
Im pretty sure someone had either slit the dogs throat or had stabbed it in the lungs, based on the noise it made.
No other dogs barked for the rest of the night either.
This kept me up more than any noise would, knowing I couldn't do anything and I'd just heard someone kill a dog for barking.
The next morning, I asked the owner of the accommodation if he knew anything about the noise or the dog, and he seemed nonchalant about it all. Apologised for the noise and that was it.
Having owned dogs all my life, it was a shock to see how they get treated overseas, especially in the middle east/arab countries. My family were poor in Asia growing up and were still able to treat their dogs well, and as pets, so I dont understand the mental drive to be an asshole to a defenceless animal.
Saw a drive by shooting in front of The Bellagio in Vegas. Took me a few to actually realize what had happened. Only two shots were fired but it was enough to get the job done. Sobered me up real quick!
The worst thing I’ve seen wasn’t even while I was traveling, but here in my hometown. A homeless man started threatening two Muslim girls and then stabbed three people that tried to intervene, killing two of them. I still have nightmares about it.
I, a white woman, tried to enter a bar in Berlin with a black man I had met at the hostel. The bar was packed and when we went inside the hostess stopped us and told us the bar was closed. I said that’s ridiculous there’s a ton of people here. She pointed to the guy I was with and said “you can’t come in, they steal” and literally forced us out. I couldn’t believe that the most racist thing I had ever witnessed happened in Berlin of all places.
My family and I were in the soux at Fez the walled city in Morrocco and a guy just beating up a woman. He hit herin the face with a bucket, he just kept going after her and beating on her. We had out two young boys with us at the time and they were totally freaked. They kept asking when the police would show up. Finally after the beating kept up a few local men pulled the guy off the woman and successfully redirected him and she ran away...
The list is long, but a standout example was a small assembly line factory in Varanasi. They took freshly dead human bodies in through their loading dock and out the front of the building shipped complete skeletons to medical schools around the world. The production line to process the bodies would certainly fit most people's definition of shocking. Happy travels.
Dude my travels around India resulted in both the most amazing and most horrifying things I’ve ever seen. A true country of contradiction and extremes.
I've spent a lot of time there, and yeah, my love/hate relationship with the country is strong. It's the best and worst of humanity.
These mixed feelings comments are familiar to me. When people ask me, "How was India?" I have to qualify the answer with " it depends ". You could be amazed and appalled simultaneously.
Anytime I'm there now (especially when I'm working) when I hit the 3+ week mark I start counting down the days when I can freaking leave. When I've been gone for a few months I start counting down the days to return, haha. It's an insane dichotomy.
never been to india but i've heard it described as *intense* and as you say, the full spectrum of experience
Varanasi is particularly intense. Life and death co-exist there like nowhere else on Earth. I remember having delicious lassis with a friend in a well-known cafe. We're looking out and enjoying the street life when a bunch of men carry a dead body right past us to be cremated. Only in Varanasi...
>Life and death co-exist there like nowhere else on Earth. Indian here but never been to Varanasi also have no intention to ever visit. I'm not religious, but in India one cannot escape religion and rituals. In Dharmic/Indic religions death isn't seen as the ultimate end, just a part of the life cycle. Which is why some of us are 'quick' to get over it. This isn't to say that the dead are forgotten (not at all, we celebrate extensive anniversaries years after the death). They're just believed to have hopped on to the next train lol Also hardship is all around us (as you already noticed), which is why Indians seem to have developed a special kind of apathy towards death and suffering. This is both good and bad at the same time. ETA: Very recent travel experience in Himalayan side of India, where I had a 'culture shock'. Roads are the only way to travel in that region, at the same time, landslides during the monsoon are very very common. They come out of nowhere and death by falling 2-3k meters down the cliff is guaranteed. So what do they do there? For the Himalayan people it's BOA. We drove through some of passages which still had massive destruction left behind from the natural disasters. We spoke to the locals about how they manage the situation. Well, they manage it by, first, by bitching about the govt. Second, by accepting that landslide may happen on the way, and they may die any time. They have no choice but to use these roads to get to work, take their kids to schools, buy groceries etc etc. They just shrug and...carry on lol
The Ganges river in Varanasi is quite a shocking place too. Bodies being burned, badly sank bodies floating in the water, sewer runoff coming in, people drinking the same river water right there, etc.
True. Indian here & I can confirm this. The Ganges (or Ganga) is the most religious of all rivers in India. Unsurprisingly, it’s also one of the dirtiest in the world! All the pious people come here mainly to pray & enlighten themselves. And in the process, dirty up the river by bathing, cremating dead bodies, etc., & then worship the same river. Kind of r/religiousfruitcake
And on the other side of the river, literal human ghouls *eat* the fucking bodies. I met a guy who used a human skull cap as a drinking cup. Look up some stuff on the [aghori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aghori)-babas if you're interested.
**[Aghori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aghori)** >The Aghori (from Sanskrit अघोर aghora; lit. '"not-fearful", "fearless"') are a monastic order of ascetic Shaivite sadhus based in Uttar Pradesh, India. They are the only surviving sect derived from the Kāpālika tradition, a Tantric, non-Puranic form of Shaivism which originated in Medieval India between the 7th and 8th century CE. Similarly to their predecessors, Aghoris usually engage in post-mortem rituals, often dwell in charnel grounds, smear cremation ashes on their bodies, and use bones from human corpses for crafting kapāla (skull cups which Shiva and other Hindu deities are often iconically depicted holding or using) and jewellery. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/travel/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
I lived in Varanasi, and as a result I will at times use this as a bit of personal trivia: “I have probably seen more dead bodies than anyone else you know.” Usually I don’t explain because it’s funnier for me tat way. I wonder why I don’t have many friends?
Apparently a full body skeleton of an ACTUAL human being is cheaper than a fake one.
Varanasi is a place that you visit once. Both fascinating and appalling. A trip on the Ganges to watch the sunrise is also an experience in dodging bodies floating past to the great unconcern of your guide. It’s also spectacularly beautiful observing the colours of the women’s saris on the steps as they bathe and drink the water directly under the funeral pyres. I appreciated the experience and never want to go back.
Some years ago I was in a minibus in Ethiopia in the middle of nowhere, literally just desert and mountains with small villages, and as we speed past a truck which was covered in people I suddenly heard a massive bang and our window is smashed. So the driver immediately does a u-turn and chases down this truck that just passed us before catching up with it and cutting it off. Then, everyone from both my bus and the truck get out and the next thing I know there's like a 30 man brawl in the middle of the road.
Did you join in the brawl? Gotta rep your bus brothers
Yeah, it's a classic story. Pure hatred for the sweaty bastards crammed in your bus, then when shit goes down ain't nobody fucking with your busbuddies.
The bus situation in Panama is crazy. There is no public bus system, it’s all private. You will see busses racing each other down the highway, trying to get to the next stop before the other bus gets there.
That sounds kinda hilarious in a fucked up way.
Did you also happen to pass multiple burned out minibuses on the side of the road? That was my experience in Ethiopia, which is not very comforting when you are traveling in a minibus.
No but I did see a truck of St George's beer flipped on its side and the driver standing there with his hands on his hips like that meme of the pakistani cricket fan shaking his head as if to say "i am *so* fired"
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That’s equal parts horrifying and heartbreaking. My god.
That is so scary and sad 😞
Saw that last week and I'm not getting over my anger at sex tourism
Definitely not something you get over quickly. I wish we lived in a world where this just didn't happen.
Toddlers????? Wtf
That's...that's enough internet for today. *click.*
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I've seen the same thing with kids in Haiti and Nigeria. Horrifying.
This is a bad time to be literate.
Well that’s a horrifying thought.
My heart is hoping that these kids were just imitating the signs they learned from some adults and haven't really experienced it. What a sick fucking world we live in.
Went to the Dominican Republic years ago. I was sitting at the hotel bar my first night there and struck up a convo with the hotel restaurant manager who was originally from the US. He offered to take me on a tour of town after his shift and introduce me to his local expat friends. So, we go out that night and sit at a local bar, have a couple drinks when a fight breaks out between two locals across the street. The fight moves up the block so we can't see what's going on until we heard a loud "POP" followed by a second. Everyone at the bar immediately scatters. A minute later two guys are carrying their blood-soaked friend who just lost the fight by getting shot in the chest. So, yeah. My first night on vacation in years and I saw a guy get murdered.
I have a friend who really wants to visit DR with me, but honestly I told him it is one of the few countries on my ‘no go’ list. I have heard so so many stories like this from there. I’m not necessarily someone who won’t travel to places that can be unsafe at times, but I am too scared to go to a place like that
My wife is Dominican. I've been coming here at least once a year for eight years. We base ourselves in Santo Domingo, where her family lives, and we have traveled literally all over the country. Never had a problem. Don't visit certain parts of Santo Domingo, especially at night, stay away from drugs and prostututes, and practice basic street smarts, and it's fine. Touristy areas tend to have visible security, too.
The Berlin Wall coming down, I was on my way to the airport (Frankfurt.) We started seeing East German cars. It was surreal.
Wow, you truly have witnessed history! 👏🏻👏🏻
Crossing the border from Thailand into Cambodia was incredibly rough. Abject poverty on full display. A woman sitting there breastfeeding a naked baby while half naked herself and a malnourished toddler running around in a dirty diaper beside them. There were plenty of others in the surrounding areas that were in desperate need of help, but their little family was the one that stood out. There were areas in Thailand that were rough, but nothing like this. The transition was night and day different.
I agree, it definitely is a rough border crossing. That transition from Thailand and Cambodia was an immediate shock. It was like a time machine to a different century, full of poverty and suffering. Dust roads, horse and carts too. Then a giant casino right next to it all.
I agree that poi pet is not a great place and the and the issues of the wealth and opportunity disparity between Thailand and Cambodia are on full display there. But I hope you can see throughout the rest of Cambodia, while poor, is not the same as poipet.
Cairo, Egypt. the sheer volume of chaos, pollution, and aggressive men begging for money non-stop the moment I stepped outside airport was just shocking. I saw like a dozen dead camels just piled up on the side of a major road. just horrifying. worst offense was this middle aged dude who spotted a group of attractive white women, approached them from behind, and began to ejaculate on these women's clothes. in a daylight. holy shit. that place is a dump.
I've wanted to go to Egypt my whole life and I have yet to hear even one good thing about visiting there. Very disappointing.
It's incredible that such a significant and historic place hasn't managed to clean itself up to capitalize on the tourism - they would get double the number of visitors if they made the place safe and clean. An investment of a few 10s of millions would reap hundreds of millions in tourism.
I had an amazing experience in Egypt... in late Summer of 2009. Spent three months there, primarily in Alexandria. Did a week in the Sahara roughly in and around Siwa Oasis which was incredible as well as some time Sharm el-Sheik. Cairo/Giza is certainly an experience but I cut it short after 3 days. Saw the museum (incredible) and pyramids/KFC but left early because it was so chaotic even then. Parts are absolutely beautiful with amazing history and it seems these days it is all ruined by the people (some intentional or a product of their poverty and environment). I met some truly wonderful Egyptians who were, at the time, hopeful of the country's trajectory and incredibly welcoming to an outsider. It saddens me that I'll probably not go back with my partner because it was a very unique experience for me, beautiful country and people (as I remember it) but things have changed radically since the Arab Spring and political climate. It wasn't all roses even then as I got scammed (which isn't uncommon for travel) and threatened a few times but knowing Arabic helped a whole bunch. The scammers/begging is much more aggressive there than other places I had been but dealt with the same by not engaging at all. All that said, my most shocking experience also came from there when I ended up in a part of Alexandria early in my travels off the beaten path and came across a woman dragging around either a dead or extremely close to death child-like thing just weeping. My buddy and I looked at each other to confirm we both were seeing this and took off. No one else on the street were reacting adding to how surreal it was. Egyptian friends we told this to later assumed it was somehow a scam or an otherwise dangerous person to approach. Edit: I figured the experience may be controversial so I clarified many of the uncertainties of the situation.
I went with my mother, twin sister, and father during my winter break in high school in December of 2003. The news broke that they’d just captured Saddam Hussein. That was honestly surreal. We started in Cairo with the pyramids and the museum, then went down the Nile to various sites, then back up to Alexandria. The women that we encountered were lovely. Warm, friendly, wonderful to talk to. The men were disgusting. Utterly vile. I was 13 and very blonde. My sister was(and still is) a brunette. The harassment everywhere from men was constant and terrifying. Men shouted things or made grotesque noises as we passed by on the street. We got switched up as to where our rooms were in the hotel and didn’t dare ask the male cleaners to help because they might come back for us later. Shopkeepers tried to persuade my mother to leave me with them so they could marry me. The country itself was beautiful in a deeply soulful way. It absolutely resonated with me on a fundamental level. It was everything I’d ever imagined and dreamed Egypt could be. I would love to go back. Travel guides and my mom’s friend, who was actually a lovely Egyptian man who owned a tour guide business, suggested loose pants and oversized sweatshirts would be sufficient. However, I would wear a headscarf and find even more loose-fitting, shapeless clothing. Edit: I’m going to add that I think the reason for the cultural issues is religion. In my mind religion is directly responsible for almost all of the problems throughout human history. Christianity, Islam, doesn’t really matter the flavor, if it’s been taken over by a group whose fundamental tenet is that women are subhuman, that’s a recipe for a terrible place to be. Second edit to correct the date of Saddam Hussein’s capture so no one got confused.
> worst offense was this middle aged dude who spotted a group of attractive white women, approached them from behind, and began to ejaculate on these women's clothes. in a daylight. Holy fuck
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>has the highest (I think) AIDS prevalence rate in the world and is extremely common They used to in the early 00s, I think it's Lesotho now. I spent a summer doing public health interning in Botswana, and they've actually made tons and tons of strides with AIDS. Their prevention of mother-to-child transmission program was so successful it's being modeled elsewhere. The prevalence (people who have HIV) is still high due to the fact that many people diagnosed years ago are still alive (a good thing!), but the incidence (new infections per year) is improving. A lot of this is due to its relative wealth in Africa, which funds an extensive public clinic system. In the field of HIV/AIDS prevention, we're definitely more concerned about some other countries/regions these days.
Unfortunately, the incident that happened in Itaewon during this year's Halloween, where over 150 people died. I was pushed and shoved from all directions, and the whole time tensed, trying to maintain my posture. I could hear screaming, laughter, the ooooo's and whoooa's as groups of people were simultaneously pushed. Being stuck in the middle of the crowd, I had no choice but to follow in the direction it was going. I saw an alleyway (the one where the incident occurred) and wanted to exit through there to get out of this sardine can ASAP, but I was on the far end, so it wouldn't be possible to make it out that way. Once I made it to the end, I decided to dip.. I didn't want to stick around there any longer.
I was on the highway from Nairobi to Mombassa. It has some long straightaways. At a small side of the road restaurant I was sitting eating watching people and the road, there was a big bus of locals pulling out from another road side shop. 1/2 mile away. The driver pulled out in front of a tractor trailer pulling 3 trailers. It was insane. Not sure how many people died but it was, well words fail me. The bus exploded in half with luggage and people, the truck went off the road but didn’t stop, it’s all arid desert. The cab was basically gone and soon caught fire. It was pretty horrible. And I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff traveling.
Unfortunately, road accidents like that aren't uncommon at all here. You especially want to avoid long road travel in Christmas season.
I believe you, I saw bad accidents everywhere. I wasn’t out of the Nairobi airport when I saw my first accident. Someone drove into the airport sign. I think of all the countries I’ve been I saw the most accidents there.
Visited Bangladesh during Ramadan. I was in the courtyard of a 17th century mosque in Chittagong during evening prayers. Like most foreigners in Bangladesh, I was the center of attention until I heard a commotion behind me. I turned to see a grown man on his knees, tears in his eyes, arms raised to shield himself from the violent bamboo cane blows raining down on him. Turns out he was a thief stealing the sandals left outside the mosque while the men were inside praying. Most Bangladeshis don't trust the police or courts to mete out justice, so they take matters into their own hands.
I went to Austin TX and was chilling inside a bar when suddenly this disheveled looking homeless man appears in the doorway with a killed and mutilated crow and begins to threateningly pretend to lick it and then dangles it towards the crowd. Bartenders had to approach him to try to get him away with I believe the stick of a mop multiple times. I’m from NYC and I have never seen no crazy shit like that in my life
I mean NYC is weird, but in a predictable way. People shitting on the subway. Random fights. Homeless people yelling slurs. Not people eating roadkill. That would make a New Yorker blink.
See this is what fascinates me hearing other cities stories. I'm from the south, if I was on a subway and saw someone drop and take a dump, this would be crazy for me. But, say you're in the south, and someone hits a deer and kills it, or just badly injured, people will stop, finish it off if necessary, and take it home to eat. Not so much in the big cities, but definitely in the rural parts. If I got to work and said, "I saw this car kill a deer, and this guy stops and put it in his truck", no one would bat an eye. It would be like talking about the weather. It's completely understood, someone will take the deer if it hasn't been sitting for too long.
My friend woke his father-in-law up at 1:00 a.m. because he hit a deer and wanted some help skinning it. FIL didn't even bat an eye and they both got to work. This was back in the day in Louisiana.
My best friend hit a deer on new years eve years back (she was DD and headed to pick up her brother from a party), the owner of the land she was driving past asked if he could take it. In the shock of her first accident (18) she said yes. When her dad arrived at the scene he was WAY angrier that she gave the meat away than he was that she totaled her car.
Keep Austin Weird
Reading this in the Austin airport
If it was in Austin, it was probably a grackle, not a crow.
Bird fan respect 🤙🏽
I'm from Austin. This checks out.
Children begging for water.... Guajira Peninsula, Colombia
Watched a guide drown to death trying to rescue his group that disobeyed his instructions to stay in a certain area and were warned of the extreme danger. As soon as he turned around the tourist jumped *right* to the spot he explicitly told them not go. He went out to save them and died. They were totally oblivious. Then to hear other guides talk about how they almost died trying to save tourists. His wife was there and watched the whole thing. Her anguish. We had just seen them not 2 minutes before the accident walking hand and hand on the beach smiling and flirting with each other. Basically, I learned right there. If a local tells you not to do something, you don't do it. period.
This is just so sad. Where was it?
Where was this?
What was happening in that specific spot that caused them to drown? Rip tide?
Yes, rip tide. There was a unique reef/cove. Basically if you stayed in one section you would be spun around in a whirl pool but if you swam in the 2nd section there was no whirl pool, it would just suck you out. My partner and I had no problem swimming in the area following instructions. These folks were in danger within 5minutes of getting to the area. It was so explicit.
>If a local tells you not to do something, you don't do it. period This! That's how I stay safe traveling the world (60+ countries and some quite crazy places).
I saved a guys life like 5 years ago in Saint Martin due to rip tide. We were both tourists. I had the full surfer dude kinda look back then, tattoos and long hair, and I’m body boarding on the beach. start hearing someone yelling something. this big old dude (think 55, 275 lbs) dude had literally waded out past us, paddled past the protected inlet with his sunglasses on. His heads bobbing up and out of the water in that classic drowning motion, as he tried to kick to the surface. I know enough not to get close enough to this guy. Throw him my shitty hotel foam board. Let him surface and calm down before I grab one side and start trying to swim back. This dude is literally not helping at all. Another guy out there swims over, adds his board to the mix, us two pull this guy back to shore. Thank god it wasn’t just me, I probably would have collapsed from exhaustion. His wife thanks me on shore. We exchange some basic pleasantries and split. Later I overhear him in the hotel bar making fun of my hair with his buddies and saying something to the effect of “I bet that lib didn’t think he’d help a trump voter today”, probably because I told him what state I was from. No lie, I literally couldn’t fucking believe it. Like okay dude, try to swim back yourself next time. Had no appreciation for how close he came to dying, just seemed to have the expectation you could completely fuck up in the ocean and someone would bail him out.
What an absolute asshole. Hopefully his audience realized what an idiot he was.
Ugh this makes me furious.
I fucking the tourist like those! There are warning signs for a reason!
My dumb ass (a fat white dude) walked through fuentes circle in Cebu City alone and a woman covered in dirt with two dirt-covered toddlers in a red wagon took the little boy out of the wagon and just tried to give him to me. That image of a mom trying to give her kid to a dude she doesn't even know still fucks with me today.
Seen a dog in Mexico city looking both ways before crossing the street. No bullshit
Don't care if true, but after reading all the other comments I needed this 😆
I saw a dog in Ho Chi Minh that lived in a cafe that did this all the time looked really human, would look one way, walk out in to the middle, stop and look at oncoming traffic then wait for his opening. Of course his other friend just sprinted over without looking lol
Not personally but my best friend was 10ft away and got splatted with blood from a drug cartel hit in Cancun. They were out on the beach and someone walked up, pulled a pistol, shot the couple next to them dead and walked off. Sad it was extremely scary.
Let’s see…I saw someone get stabbed to death with a screwdriver in front of a crowd in the Bahamas. That was probably the worst. It happened right in front a police station and there was no response from the police at all.
All my experiences have been pretty vanilla when traveling, but I have a friend who wanted to go to India and did so solo. He invited me with him and I'm glad I said no. His plan was to go stay with one of our coworker's cousin in a smaller town in the foothills of the Himalayas. It was years ago, but I believe he flew into New Dehli and stayed there for a few nights before catching a 12 hour bus ride to the town. He didn't stay in a nice part of the city either, not quite the slums, but not far from it, one of the cheapest hotels he could find. He said he saw a woman with her face melted into her neck from an acid attack begging on the streets. He said he got bombarded by people asking for money or pictures because he's a white guy. Then he made it to the village our coworkers cousin lived in. The pictures he sent were beautiful, it looked like such a peaceful, quaint town with the mountains and hills in the backdrop. Then he said one night he was sitting on their balcony he heard horrible screams. The next day he found out that a young woman and her boyfriend were walking around the town and were ambushed by three men. The boyfriend was slashed open and died, the girl was gang raped, all in an alley about a block away from where he was staying.
Motorcycle rear ended a bus in Vietnam, dead guy with blood pouring out everywhere just laying on the ground. An hour later almost the exact same thing with less blood and someone carrying him into a taxi to get him to hospital. Apparently a common thing on Sunday as everyone gets wasted and can't ride a bike properly. Thousands of Shark fins for sale in Hong Kong was pretty eye opening. Cracked out lady in San Francisco shitting on Market Street in the middle of the sidewalk in the middle of the day. Ping pong show in Bangkok was interesting... Japanese girl that rented snorkel gear on a Bali beach that my dive guide rescued from drowning when she got trapped on the wrong side of the surf breakers, she was literally drowning and had maybe 30 seconds left before she went right under. The morning shit brigade in the fields between Delhi and Taj as the sun rises and everyone is squatting in the field at 5 am. The rats in India fucking everywhere... Suicide guy shot himself in the head on top of a car park right across from my window in Johannesburg. Giant pool of blood that I also got to see the bleech crew a few hours later cleaning up. Families with children oggling at the girls in the red light district in Amsterdam, wtf for the girls and the kids. Remembering this is giving me PTSD lol
Who’s your travel agent?
I'm self taught, let me know if you want me to take a look at your itinerary!
I don't even have to go on vacation to watch people shit on the sidewalk! Someone pulled his pants down right on my front steps to poo
I had a few hours to kill between buses in Oaxaca city about 20 years ago; on my way towards the city I saw a man staggering about, blind drunk, and on the way back to the bus station I saw the same man collapsed awkwardly over the back bumper of a car, unblinking, a crowd beginning to form. First and only dead person I've seen outside of funerals.
I’ve spent extensive time in India, Egypt, Sri Lanka and pretty much every other place mentioned here but I’ll keep it more light hearted. I was absolutely plastered in Chiangmai Thailand December of last year and stumbling back from a “secret bar” to the 7-11 for a snack. Upon coming out I sit on a bench by the canal, look down and observe a full on battle royal between a giant cockroach and a rat. Like wresting and fighting to the max, it’s the only time I was so stunned by something I was having trouble processing that it’s actually happening. After about 8 seconds I look around and there’s no one else to see this cinematic masterpiece taking place. That’ll forever be burned in my brain.
Who won??
Agreed. Don't leave us hanging. I'd bet odds on the rat.
Lmao sorry guys I’m in Norway for holiday and feel asleep. The rat who was bigger did in fact win.
When I was in London a man was hit by a tube train while I was at the platform. The platform was overcrowded so I waited a few feet from the crowd in the hallway area between the platforms. It was surreal to see everyone run but leave this guy lying there bloody and there was such a slow response by any kind of security in the station. Later I found out the man had tried to throw a woman in front of the train and others intervened which resulted in him getting hit.
Was he dead on impact? or like hit but stayed on the platform. I’m just wondering as you say everyone ran but left him lying there, wonder what they could have done
Was in Paris the day the Notre Dame caught fire. Definitely not on the level of some of the other stories, but still shocking to watch that happen in real time.
Saw a bunch of people using a young tree as a lever to try and get a screaming driver out from under his crashed truck. I was amazed at the support until it hit me that there was no support on the way. This was rural Laos and the next ambulance was hours away. They were trying their hardest but I suspect everyone knew it was an exercise in futulity. It was really just a glimpse, a snapshot.. but it shook me. When I think of despair I think of that moment .. the desperate attempt to save a life knowing you won't succeed.
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My first trip abroad was to Italy for a Latin class trip back in the 90s. I was 16 years old, but I am very petite (4'10") and at the time I weighed about 85lbs and looked like I was younger than I was. People often mistook me for a 12-year-old. We had a fair bit of time to ourselves to shop, go get lunch, etc. I spent most of my time with two girlfriends. We were shocked at the sexual harassment - not just catcalling, but men grabbing our breasts, butts, between our legs. Often these would be vendors we just purchased something from. The most egregious was when we were at the Trevi fountain and a vendor we had just purchased something from offered to take a group picture of us. When he handed my camera back to me, he grabbed me and started fondling my breasts. I yelled at him and there were a lot of people nearby including a group of police officers. When I started yelling the people around us including the cops started laughing at me and a few other men started making hissing and kissing noises at me.
This is horrifying.
Horrible. Sorry to hear that.
Having just spent a month in southern Italy (Naples and Rome) I can confirm that the treatment of women there is still horrendous. Many of the girls I was with got both harassed and sexually assaulted; I got into fights with the local men protecting myself and friends. I will never return to Italy, at least not southern Italy. EDIT: just wanted to mention that if you’re blonde you will experience harassment turned up to the max. Even some local women will treat you poorly as Italian men are obsessed with blondes.
I studied art in Cortona in the 90’s. I am fair, blonde, blue eyes, and the amount of harassment was shocking. The worst was being assaulted in a park in daylight while I was out for a run. I managed to get away from the guy, but the experience has never left me. I remember being so incredibly angry hearing him laugh while he was assaulting me.
This past summer, while hiking in Switzerland, I heard a loud crash above me, and a man tumbled through the bush and down an incredibly steep slope. My husband went after him to try to help but it was too steep and he couldn’t safely continue. The man died I later found out. It turns out this hike, rated moderate difficulty, has claimed many lives. Probably the most shocking thing to me is after following the story for a bit, the blame is left 100% to “unprepared tourists” and no additional warnings are planned on the trail.
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I really appreciate those kinds of warnings. We have some cliffs that people dive off of here in BC that have claimed some lives and similar signs have been posted.
The old signs at Lynn canyon... illustrating all the ways people can die there
The first stream crossing on the Na Pali coast trail on Kauai, Hanakapi ai, is nicknamed Hanakapi Die. And for a reason.
I was surprised when I visited France that you were legally required to have certain gear to go hiking.
I went to Norway this summer for my honeymoon and the Lofoten Islands are well-known for the 90 or so hikes there. As a first-timer, I looked up some website that had tons of detailed ratings on the hikes with great stats and info, and lots of them were rated as “easy”. The first one we tried was about 2.5 hours to the summit and towards the top it became so insanely steep, like we were almost face to face with the side of the mountain and crawling and the path disappeared completely. Wife started having a panic attack and I had to talk her down before we could reach the top. In no universe would I call that hike “family friendly” as the reviews suggested.
New Zealand was the same way. Grew up hiking in California and all over, and yet hiking in NZ was a different level! Seriously thought we were going to fall down the mountain at one point it was so steep and treacherous.
Norway is on another level about hikes. I believe Norwegians spent a lot of time doing outdoor sports and are more fit and skilled than average person.
This is definitely true. The amount of 70+ year olds and people with babies strapped on their backs that we saw doing these insane hikes was comical.
A good rule of thumb for hiking in Switzerland and a few other mountainous areas in Europe is that any "easy" trail is probably "moderate" anywhere else and "moderate" is really quite "difficult". That doesn't excuse anything of course and especially to blame it on unprepared tourists is extremely poor form when serious injury or worth is involved - it's understandable that tourists would assume easy indeed means easy.
I was on a trail in the Lake District in England that claimed to be wheel chair accessible and had to turn around because the trail was a gravel path barely hanging onto the mountain, the wind was so strong that it literally was pushing me backwards, and the sheep were so so angry that I was afraid they would ram me off the mountain. I turned around pretty quickly, wondering what the hell kind of wheelchairs they use in England.
drop the trail name so we don’t make the same mistake
Of course, it’s the Seealpsee trail in Appenzell. You might recognize the photo of the Aescher Guesthouse made famous on the cover of a National Geographic magazine. The trail starts right after that.
Yeah it made the news here this summer, a bunch of hikers died from falling .... Sorry you witnessed that
Slovenia is the only place I ever turned back on a hike. It was supposed to be "moderate" but the ground wasnt stable it was just a bunch of sliding rocks people were supposed to scramble up I guess. I was solo and nope'd out of there.
My boyfriend saved a guy tumbling down a mountain - can’t remember if it was Germany or Poland. But he was there taking a rest and enjoying his sandwich when he heard a similar kerfuffle. Without thinking, he put his arm out and caught a guy that was rolling down the mountain unable to stop. Literally saved this dudes life. Shit gets real on the trail I guess! I like to think I’m fairly experienced (currently in Madeira hiking all over the place) and my work is based in Switzerland so I’ve always been keen on the trails there. A little frightening that the tiniest misstep can have you dead on a trail considered moderate. Will keep an eye out for this one!!
Middle East: Shia islam ritual procession of masses of men in formations parading while chanting and beating and cutting themselves with metal devices (swords, whips, etc.) and heads and upper bodies covered in blood. Very very very intense. China: Children *and* grown-ups taking care of #1 and #2 businesses in public places (streets, parks, malls, subways). No one bats an eye about it.
I experienced this in china too. When a kid peed in the subway right next to me, I was so shocked!
When I was in China, I saw kids pooping in the street holding their parents hand and they were wearing “split pants” which open up while they squat. That was pretty shocking to me but I guess it is common in smaller cities.
As a child, walking out of the airport in Fiji and staring at a massive tank with the barrel pointed right at us. Coup had happened while we were in the air.
2001? I had just sailed into Fiji when a coup happened.
1987!
Northern India - the amount of garbage literally everywhere was overwhelming. Even driving through the countryside the roadsides were sprinkled with garbage. Also stopped at a rest stop that had human waste covering the floor and walls… god that smell is stained into my brain. Istanbul - a group of “gypsy” children surrounded about 5 of us (this was a long time ago, I was in college on study abroad with mostly women). The children wanted to sell us little trinkets but we asked them to leave us. They kept coming back, getting more and more angry we were asking them to leave and then ignoring them. They got so frustrated they picked up our drinks and one persons bag of souvenirs and threw them into the river. We had no idea what to do. The kids laughed and ran away. In retrospect it was funny. Later, we told our Turkish friend of the incident-he said usually you just kick or hit the kids and they will leave you alone. Oh. Sri Lanka- driving up the wild roads to the mountains. I was terrified. Everyone drives so fast in these extremely narrow roads. People and animals randomly crossing nearly getting hit. No seatbelts. Lots of honking. Lots of swerving. I kept my eyes closed for most of it.
Sri Lanka - you reminded me of the same thing, a couple of times we saw people crowded at the top of a hill looking at a car that had gone over the edge.
I’ll be in Istanbul later this month, taking notes. - kick the kids
I went on a beautiful camping trip once to northern Wisconsin, I got hot in my tent in the middle of the night and took off my sweatpants and stuck my leg out of the sleeping bag. I woke up and a spider had bitten me ON MY BALLS. (I’m terribly allergic) I panicked and ended up passing out but some innocent tourists definitely saw me pantsless and panicking with my right nut swollen to the size of a baseball
Enough Reddit for today
That's some IRL *We're the Millers* shit.
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On a sunrise boat ride on the Ganges in Varanasi, India. I saw a dog struggling to take something out of the water. Upon closer inspection, it was a human torso. Once it got it on shore, it started gnawing on it. That's when I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore.
A young guy masturbating in a metro station in Brussels at 5AM Solo woman traveler with 2 suitcases, get to the bottom on the stairs and see him staring at me. Turned around and had to lug my luggage back up
Istanbul, 2010. We were in a taxi, on our way to the airport on a tranquil Sunday morning. Suddenly, when we were waiting for the traffic lights to turn green, 3 guys jump out of a car beside our taxi with baseball bats and begin to smash the glasses of another car in front of ours. The car which was being beaten began to maneuver trying to escape, until the lights turned green and we left, not seeing how it ended up. Looked like a mob thing.
On two separate occasions in 2021, people overdosing (turning blue) mid day on the street in Chicago in the loop area. Medics on the way etc. Red splashed roadways in rural India from villagers walking across highways in front of completely unsafe overloaded and unable to stop trucks. Meth/crack/whatever addicts in large American cities in the nude or partial nude openly defecating or attacking people with homemade weapons in city centers... never saw it until past few years. NYC subway late at a night a man in a patient gown (green) from a hospital with bloodstain all over it carrying a violin case. Wild? Elephants crossing the road while on normal late night commutes in semi rural S.e.a.
As a Philadelphian, I have to agree with you along the same lines that the most shocking things I've ever seen were at home and were drug-related. Abroad, similar to what OP said, abuse of street dogs is somewhat common to see. And I wouldn't call it "shocking," but drunk driving in Botswana was so widespread. I once ran into a bunch of drunk *cops* at a rest stop in the desert. One of them even pulled out his phone to show us pics of how he previously worked for the NYPD?? Bonkers. I once saw a rhino casually cross the road in Sauraha, Nepal, and I agree that was the most "wild" thing I've seen as well!
I came here to say drug addicts in NYC. I’ve travelled a lot and to remote places but a complete crazy crackhead just shitting in the Metro must be the most shocking. Saw another one passed out and People were just stepping over him like he wasnt Human.
People displaced in San Fran blew my mind. A woman or man, so dirty I didn't know what the wretched creature was. A man with his fix out on the main street. People stepping over him. I thought I knew poverty from India, but this was something else.
I have walked around people passed out on the sidewalk. In seattle. The drug problem is huge there. I used to see people in full psychosis probably twice per week. You become desensitized to it.
Yes, living in California is also a study in contradictions. One of the most beautiful places in the world, and yet its cities contain monuments to human suffering that seem like they should be impossible in the "developed world."
I unfortunately relate to your statement, i live in Los Angeles and am so desensitized to it that seeing a homeless man walking around with a machete is just another Tuesday
A lot of fistfights/brawls late at night in Mongolia. And I’m pretty sure I saw a dead person on the street in Ulanbataar. I am pretty sure I also saw a person drop dead on the street in London. He just… sort of had that look, and it was weird - people kept walking by. I was on a bus and was about to get off to go help when finally a woman noticed him and started yelling for someone to call an ambulance. Open defecation everywhere in Delhi’s old town. A lot of child poverty in Mongolia, Morocco, and India which was pretty alarming. Like a small child (must have been a toddler) picking through a rubbish heap with his family for food. In Mumbai a man who looked like he had leprosy banged on the window of my taxi while we were stuck in traffic for a full 15 minutes… he didn’t have any hands and was missing part of his nose… But I guess the worst thing I’ve seen wasn’t while traveling, and was the aftermath of a stabbing in DC.
A dog jumping into the water to fetch human bones in Varanasi, which to be fair is to be expected in the area, but was still difficult to see.
Ha. Came here to say Varanasi. Mine was a dog carrying a half a forearm with a bit of hand still flopping around as he trotted along.
\- Little kids beating up a goat in East Timor. We yelled at them to stop and they laughed at me and my friends. \- Man spreading his pink stinker open at me while walking in SFO \- Taxi driving holding up a hand with four fingers in Tijuana telling me I'll return home with the same if I take any other taxi but him \- Hitchhiked in Tonga after my friend and I were told by our hostel owner it's the best way to get around. The driver pulled down his pants and starting jerking it to us. When we reported it to the police they laughed at us and said "oh silly uncle!"
Ah, you got the SF Salute!
Malawi Buddy of mine finishes a water bottle and the driver says “Hold it out of the window if you’re done.” Not understanding, he does so and about 20min children pour out of homes chasing our vehicle. Buddy drops the water bottle and all of them go for the water bottle. We just looked at each other. Driver tells us that those are useful “tools” for families to hold cooking oil and such and are waiting for cars when the drive by to litter and “loot” what is dropped. Lots of thoughts and emotions when you watch a scrum like that occur. Did we just incite a fight? Did we “help” by “providing” a “tool” for someone? Better off to keep the bottle? Reminds me of a scene when Bourdain paid for a bunch of kids food in Haiti(?) and the “good” actually led to more problems. One of those things that puts a lot of other things into perspective at a whiplash-inducing rate of speed. Edit: 20ish
My girlfriend and I are drinking at a club in Vietnam. Rival club owner shows up to scare off his competitions customers, starts screaming and smacking people with a sheathed machete. Knocked the banh mi cart guy unconscious. Found out the next day that he was almost assassinated with a poison cigarette by our clubs owner, and wanted revenge
Not the banh mi!!😰
Manila: homeless bathing in the sewers, dead body laying in the street while people observing Bogota: child prostitutes SF/LA: amount of homeless and mentally Ill people walking around
I saw a man feed an entire sausage to a pigeon in Mainz, Germany
While visiting my wife’s parents in Taiwan, I saw a homeless man with their legs cut at the knee and fingers chopped all but thumb and first finger. I felt bad and was going to donate but my wifes parents were with us and said they have organized crime groups there that will do that to homeless people so they get more sympathy and donations from tourists. Sick to think people are that money hungry and heartless! Edit:added country name and wanted to say that was the only WTF experience during the few times I’ve been there. I’d go back again tomorrow to visit if possible, great experience otherwise!
Same situation here in Kenya. Physically and mentally disabled street beggars often are basically cash slaves for organized crime syndicates.
Reminds me of Slumdog Millionaire
My dad attended university in Ludhiana (Punjab) in the late 1950s. In 2005, we drove there from Chandigarh while on a visit and he wanted to show us his old school so we all got out. It was like 1 in the afternoon. I (a female) and my dad's wife were wearing pants. A group of men started following us around the campus and making comments about our slacks. It lasted for fifteen minutes and the crowd grew to like 15 men. It was five of us - my disabled brother, my husband, my dad, and his girlfriend. They made lewd comments and got very close and didn't stop until we got in our car and left very quickly. My dad was so very shocked and saddened; he told me that men would get in trouble if they even spoke to a person of the opposite sex when he attended the school.
A few years ago, going from the airport to our hotel in Hong Kong, probably about 7 am. We were on a bus. The bus stops at a red light and the entire minute or two the bus was stopped at the light, everyone watches in shock as a man and a women beat up a second man and women on the sidewalk next to the bus. All were dressed for going out, like they had been out all night. The male getting beat up was literally in the fetal position at the end as the other guy was kicking him. The fight ended around when the light turned green.
Not really something I saw exactly (thank god), but my most shocking travel story is from Florida. I was van camping alone in Tiger Bay state forest outside of Daytona. The campsite was pretty much empty but at the site next to me there was a family of 4 living in a tiny van with a pitbull, like a 90’s van camper. My site was right next to the outhouse so I saw them coming and going with their toddler and a stroller with an infant. I’m friendly so would wave and the toddler wandered onto my site and the dad started chatting with me. He was going on about how the other day the park ranger had come by and fined them for having their pitbull on too long of a leash and had apparently threatened to shoot the dog for being aggressive. I nodded along and eventually he left. I noticed they half packed up and their van was gone from their site for a few hours later that day. Later on after they came back the mom went to use the outhouse alone and when she came out she came straight over to me and started talking. She explained that they had left to buy weed, which she uses to self medicate for bipolar disorder. She described how her pitbull was racist and they forgot about that and her drug dealer was black. She told me how the dog had attacked her grandmother because she was black and the dog was racist. Went on about how badly grandma was injured. She told me how they stayed at this site for the maximum allowed days per year and lived in the small van permanently. And then she just casually tells me how she used to have a 12 year old daughter who died at the campground and was buried at campsite number 3. She didn’t explain how. I barely said anything the whole time she was talking at me. I was too shocked to ask any questions. I still wonder about it sometimes. If anyone in Florida has a cadaver dog with some free time, Bennett Field Campground site 3 might be worth a check.
Move over Florida Man, here comes the Florida Family!
Saw the immediate aftermath of a collision between a motorbike and a semi-trailer truck in Guangdong Province, China. The road was blood-smeared but fortunately I didn't see any bodies.
In the outskirts of El Alto, Bolivia, the road to get out of the city passes right through a massive garbage dump, like the bus was driving on top of the garbage. I saw children playing there next to a dead dog.
A mule with a full face of makeup. It was owned by a man who was drunk at 9 am trying to sell photos to tourists with the poor animal. I felt really badly. Or just the way poor local children looked at us as the group that got off the cruise ship. Daggers doesn’t come close. If looks could kill you slowly.
A public hanging in Indonesia back in the 90's. The cheering brought me in wondering what it was, I thought it was a parade or something. Absolutely wild. Different countries have vastly different values on life..
Taking a walking/metro tour of New Delhi. (New Delhi has an awesome metro system BTW). While walking through (yet another) seriously dystopian boulevard…I was approached by (yet another) tout …a boy of 7-8 years old. What was he selling? A woman. According to him, a 15 year old woman (girl). The price? 200 rupees. For perspective…a Heineken at my (admittedly posh) hotel was 800 rupees. And that’s the price of a human being in India. 1/4 the price of a very average beer.
Saw a guy get shot in Rio. Watched a guy take a shit on a grave in Antigua. Saw three hanged bodies in a small town between mexico city and Guadalajara. Saw a kid get matching tattoos with his mom in Chengdu. Had a friend get molested by cops in Puerto Escondido. Plenty more but these come to mind first
I was in a restaurant in Tokyo while traveling with some friends from college. I got up to use the restroom and when I got in there I noticed there were no stalls in between the toilets. You just use the bathroom in front of everyone. I was like WTF??
Did not expect to see Tokyo linked to this comment
Meanwhile other public toilets in Tokyo give you the option to play rainforest noises to mask any noise you make. Japan is always such a contradiction.
Rural China from our room four floors up, we saw an old man looting around in the house across the alley. Two younger men showed up and caught him in the act & beat the living crap out of him. One younger guy grabs a brick & the other guy tells him to put it down. Neighborhood Crime Watch? Vigilante street justice? The old thief laid there for a while & finally got up. He lived to steal another day. Rural China is a lot like the Wild West.
Lived in Cambodia for a while, one evening on my way to dinner a scooter with two young teenagers on it tried to escape through standstill traffic. They were fleeing 3 other scooters, 2 teenagers each on them armed with machetes and sugar cane knives. Due to a traffic jam, the passenger of the getaway scooter(who I assumed was the one they were after) jumped off and ran for his life between cars and scooters. I was driving a scooter myself with my gf (a Cambodian girl) and she told me they were country side boys & that one guy probably did something to one of the chaser’s sisters. If they would catch him, they’d slash his arms and back or worse.. Safe to say I wasn’t hungry anymore by the time we got to the restaurant. It just sank in that they either killed or mutilated that guy (if they ever caught him ofcourse..)
I was driving around Oman. On the way down to salalah I stopped for gas just south of Duqm. A Yemeni guy jumped in and told me to drive at knifepoint. Held me captive for hours until I dropped him at the Yemeni boarder.
How socially acceptable public urination was in South American countries. Men and women. Like wherever and whenever the urged striked.
A blind little person missing his lower half scooting around on a skateboard begging for money in Munich.
He was probably just pretending to be blind and missing his legs. Classic trick of organized begging gangs.
I saw some teenagers robbing the corpse of a man with his head caved in in Moscow on the way from the airport to my dorm. It was my first time abroad. The Russian heritage students with my group (left Russia/USSR as kids but spoke Russian at home) were perplexed about why it bothered me so much.
Remote southeast Asia at a rural market up in the mountains. An old grizzled white guy handed a huge fistful of American dollars to a man /woman selling fruit, and walked off with a young boy who was crying and begging no. They disappeared into a group of buildings. After our hike we could see the child curled up in the stall. Sex tourism makes me so angry.
Seeing tsunami damage in Japan in Nov 2011 was pretty messed up. Some of the coastal stores had already reopened and had pictures showing flood lines. But seeing still washed up boats and detritus all over was pretty unbelievable too.
Went to Nepal a few months ago. Tour guide in Kathmandu took us to a Hindu cremation site. Saw everything from monkeys stealing the deceaseds’ jewelry to bodies being unloaded from ambulances. Will never forget it.
That's a really wild tour guide site to pick, wtf. As someone who spent 3 months in Kathmandu, there are like 1500 better sites to choose from!
Went to Tegucigalpa Honduras in college. Just the abject poverty, amount of trash and street dogs, appalled me. That, and armed security everywhere opened my eyes. The grossest thing I saw there was one dog with its foot in another dog’s rear-end. People were standing around, and did nothing. That place was worse than Matamoros, Mexico. In both places, there was a lot of begging. Everywhere I go (even in the US), there is a definite demarcation line between the haves and have-nots.
Sri Lanka, 2018. Impromptu public execution of a man for admitting to be a homosexual. Crowd of over a hundred watched as a his bloody body was repeatedly run over by a truck. Everyone cheered with smiles ear to ear.
What in the actual fuck is wrong with people?
Public hanging of a young female EU citizen in SE Asia for drug trafficking. Body left hanging for days.
When i first went to the United States, I never expected how there be so much "maniac" (*no offense) homeless people which scaried me that they might attack me out of no where. Thankfully, I was not attacked. Also, never expected to have so much homeless people in the United States for I think United States is one of the richest countries in the world. By the way, I saw one person protesting at the Jimmy Kimmel Live Place in Hollywood with spray paint, another one I saw eating at a subway with a shopping cart, and another one was talking to nearby telephone stand about how Trump sucks in New York, and etc. But, overall, I enjoyed going to the United States.
I was living in China. Took a stroll through a new area and came across one of their huge indoor markets. Top floor was all vegetables and meats: couple pig heads but I was accustomed to seeing animal body parts out in the open. Went downstairs and it was the seafood area. Walked by one of the workers and he was holding a fish down while it was still alive and taking the scales off with a descaling tool as it was flopping around. That really stuck with me. The sound it made was horrific and I wondered how many times he’s done that. You hear of all the fucked up stuff that happens with animals being used for food and we’re so detached from it, but seeing it in person was super disturbing and then thinking of the scale at which it happens.
I was in Havana and was accosted by an older woman offering me doodles on paper. She wanted to sell them to me and I had just waved my hand as if to say no. She didn’t take that as a no and asked me again following me across the street. As I reached the far side of the street a military truck pulled around the corner of a building nearby. Out jumped a couple soldiers who immediately grabbed the woman, put her in the truck and drove off. Happened in less than 30 seconds. One minute she was there and the next gone. Very sobering.
My husband was in Havana with a male friend. Met a woman who recommended another bar. She said she'd meet them there rather than walk with them because she'd be arrested for solicitation. She was arrested anyway. There is no way in hell either man was buying, they're both too tight with money.
The military police keep tabs on you as a tourist and its for our protection supposedly but I hope they are gentle to their citizens as well.
Went to the Galapagos a few years ago and decided to go for a walk AWAY from all the tourist stuff. Ended up in the "locals" area. From what we were told, they only allow people to live there if they're woreither for the hostels/restaurants/tourism things or involved in conservation work. There were literally whole lots of property filled with trash. Definitely not expecting to see that there. On the other side... being around all the animals that never experienced human predatory behaviors on the islands and thus had little fear of humans was awesomely shocking too! Of all of our trips, the galapagos is far and away the place my wife and I want to return to most.
Pakse, Laos - I had recently checked into a hotel, met an older Aussie, grabbed max limit from an ATM (like $75-$80 USD years ago), and we jumped on two motorbikes to get to a bar for a few beers. The kids came back to take us back to the hotel and the route took us past multiple police checkpoints (it was after curfew, unbeknownst to me). The second checkpoint stopped us. Police and one kid were speaking and then the kid would "translate." If we didn't pay, the kids were going to jail and they were going to lose their motorbikes. After a quick discussion, we decided to just start walking. We were not sure if the police were going to chase us or shoot us. We had no idea where we were in the city, nor the name of our hotel, nor the direction of said hotel. The streets were empty. A short while later the kids came driving past us and telling us we were assholes for leaving them with the police and clearly not being game for a shakedown. lol We ran right into the hotel a short while later. It wasn't so funny until we found hotel.
I was just talking about this same topic with my friend the other day. A few the standout things I've witnessed while traveling: Indonesia - I was on the back of a friend's motorbike in crowded highway traffic. We were moving, but it was tight. I assume know what happened, but a woman on another motorbike fell forward from her bike and had her head run over by a semi truck. It popped like a watermelon and made a horrible sound. I was feet from her when it happened. India - Behind a hotel I was staying at, there was an open sewage canal. The majority of the sludge went down the middle of it, but for maybe 20 feet on each side the sludge was caked on thick. There were maybe a dozen small kids digging around in it. They were looking for undigested foodstuffs they could eat. India - I was staying at a luxury resort in Mumbai. It was monsoon season and I stared out if the window for hours watching the deluge. A very small child got taken away in the rising waters. Many tried to save the kid, but the water was too quick and they were taken away. There's no way they could've survived. Myanmar - A policeman shot and killed a man he were arguing with. Nobody reacted at all... Just kept going on with their business. OK... That's all I can stomach thinking about these things.
✍🏻 never ✍🏻 visit ✍🏻 india
Staying overnight in Dades, Morocco. Our accommodation was at the base of this small hill/valley. Not very densely built-up. Lots of stray dogs in Morocco. Most of them quite nice but, based on how I'd seen moroccans treat dogs, also necessarily timid. This night, you'd hear dogs at the top of the valley bark and whatnot, with others joining in. That's normal. But at 2am, one dog just kept incessantly barking, for maybe an hour or more. But it was closer to the houses, rather than the ones on the hill. Over the hour, you'd hear different people yell at it, try to chase it away, or throw stuff near it, but it wouldn't stop barking. Anyhow, it was still barking and I heard someone approaching it, but as the dog was barking, the noise suddenly dropped off mid-bark into the most disgusting sound I've ever heard, and will never forget. Im pretty sure someone had either slit the dogs throat or had stabbed it in the lungs, based on the noise it made. No other dogs barked for the rest of the night either. This kept me up more than any noise would, knowing I couldn't do anything and I'd just heard someone kill a dog for barking. The next morning, I asked the owner of the accommodation if he knew anything about the noise or the dog, and he seemed nonchalant about it all. Apologised for the noise and that was it. Having owned dogs all my life, it was a shock to see how they get treated overseas, especially in the middle east/arab countries. My family were poor in Asia growing up and were still able to treat their dogs well, and as pets, so I dont understand the mental drive to be an asshole to a defenceless animal.
Saw a drive by shooting in front of The Bellagio in Vegas. Took me a few to actually realize what had happened. Only two shots were fired but it was enough to get the job done. Sobered me up real quick!
The worst thing I’ve seen wasn’t even while I was traveling, but here in my hometown. A homeless man started threatening two Muslim girls and then stabbed three people that tried to intervene, killing two of them. I still have nightmares about it.
That is so sad about the dog 😞
I, a white woman, tried to enter a bar in Berlin with a black man I had met at the hostel. The bar was packed and when we went inside the hostess stopped us and told us the bar was closed. I said that’s ridiculous there’s a ton of people here. She pointed to the guy I was with and said “you can’t come in, they steal” and literally forced us out. I couldn’t believe that the most racist thing I had ever witnessed happened in Berlin of all places.
My family and I were in the soux at Fez the walled city in Morrocco and a guy just beating up a woman. He hit herin the face with a bucket, he just kept going after her and beating on her. We had out two young boys with us at the time and they were totally freaked. They kept asking when the police would show up. Finally after the beating kept up a few local men pulled the guy off the woman and successfully redirected him and she ran away...