The idea for this post came about after I mentioned one of the “dumbest things I’ve done while traveling” on my Facebook Page the other day. The result was not only having my kind readers confirm that what I had done was indeed quite stupid, but also a long list of tales from others who were willing to share some of their not-so-brightest moments from their own travels.
I figured I’d move that discussion over here by adding a few more examples of how I can be a little, well, ‘slow’ at times. Luckily, however, I’m fairly confident that every single traveler out there has had plenty of similar moments, which hopefully we’ll soon discover!
Let’s start with the dumb moment I mentioned on my Facebook Page and go from there…
Mango incident: I was in India, someone handed me a mango for the first time in my life and I had no idea how to eat it. So, I just stuck the entire thing, with the skin on, in my mouth. The man who gave it to me looked horrified and asked “What are you doing?”. Sensing that I had done something stupid, I just said, “This is how I eat mangoes.”
Eating a rat: While in Vang Vieng, Laos, two other travelers and I decided to visit the local market one evening. The idea was that we would each purchase some kind of food item to bring back to the guesthouse and share with the group for a nice local dinner. So, I bought a rat from a woman who was selling whole rats that were sliced open and grilled over a small fire, complete with rat nose, rat eyes, rat toes and rat tail still in place. When we returned to the guesthouse, the others were not too thrilled with my choice and so I was left to take a bite out of it myself (see above photo). After taking a bite, I looked a little more closely at the rat only to discover over a dozen maggots moving around in the flesh. I vomited. And then I felt extremely sick to my stomach for a good couple of days afterward.
Wrong airport terminal: This one’s a classic and has probably happened to many people….I once waited at the wrong terminal at Bangkok’s old Don Mueang International Airport for over three hours for a friend of mine who was arriving from Australia. Had I spent one second reading all of the information on the huge “Arrivals” screen I would have clearly seen that her flight had arrived at Terminal 1, not Terminal 2 where I had been waiting. I ended up leaving the airport completely worried and confused as to why she hadn’t arrived, and naturally, my friend had left the airport completely upset as to why I wasn’t there to pick her up. This tale did end well though, with a crazy story of how we finally managed to meet up in Bangkok.
Nearly frozen to death: Combine -20C temperatures, a massive snow storm, sidewalks covered in ice and my occasional stubbornness and you get a very dumb decision on my part. It happened during the winter of 2012 while I was in Bucharest, Romania and I had just finished meeting up with Niall Doherty for some afternoon shisha and good conversation in the old city center. After parting ways, I tried to hail a taxi to take me back to my friend’s apartment where I was staying, but every taxi I asked either wouldn’t take me or they wanted an exorbitant price because of the snow storm and resulting road conditions. I refused to pay the inflated rate and so, despite being in jeans, t-shirt, light winter jacket and running shoes, I decided to walk the 4 kilometers back to the apartment in protest since that was my only other option. By the time I arrived, my face was a block of ice, I couldn’t feel my feet or hands and I was about to collapse, feeling quite sick as I stumbled through those final steps. When my friend opened the door, I just looked at her and said, “I’m going to die.” Later that evening, after telling my friend the story, she simply stated, “Why didn’t you just take the metro? You walked past three metro stations”.
(Here’s a video I made that shows you exactly how to survive an Eastern European winter!)
Blood for nothing: I was working on my first cruise ship when, one evening during my second week on board, I wanted to get some fresh air and just stand on the outside deck for a while. But since my work was finished for the day, I was no longer wearing my uniform and so I had to sneak through the ship in my shorts and t-shirt in order to reach the main outside deck, hoping that I wouldn’t get caught. Eventually, I found a large door that led outside and I pushed it open, only to have a huge gust of wind push it straight back, causing the bolt of the door to slice open my thumb. As blood started to pour out, I quickly ran inside to the Reception Desk to get help and they called the nurse and had me taken care of. The next day I had to meet with the Hotel Director and I assumed that I would get in trouble for being out of uniform in the passenger areas. Instead, he just looked at me and said, “You do know that we have an entire outside deck just for crew members?” Oops.
Bucket shower: In India, many budget hotels only have cold-water showers and if you want to take a hot shower, you need to ask the hotel staff to heat you up a bucket full of water. The first time I did this, the owner of the small hotel brought me the bucket of hot water and I went into the bathroom, where I scooped up some water with a small bowl. I then dumped the water straight over me. It never crossed my mind that the steam coming out of the bucket was a result of the water being extremely hot and that the proper method was to mix that water with some of the cold water from the actual shower. I just poured a bowl of near boiling water on myself instead. Oh yeah, it hurt.
I’m sure at this point you know what’s coming. It is indeed time to hear about your own ‘not so bright’ moments during your travels, whether they happened overseas or in your home country. So, what’s some of the dumbest things you’ve done?
Please help me feel better about my own dumb moments by sharing yours below!
Back in 1999, I left home for a 3 month trip to Asia that has still yet to end.
Thanks for sharing!! I’ve been there, only on my end I missed a few trains in a row.
I can’t believe your boyfriend left without you, but then again you have a wonderful story to share because of it. Are you still in contact with the friendly guy?
Wow, that’s quite the list..! My biggest stupidity it definitely not bringing my passport to the airport.
I was young, about to fly without my parents and my mum insisted on having a copy of my passport. I scanned it and emailed it to her the evening before, right after checking off everything of my perfect checklist.
We left from my parents’ house the next morning, and my mum kept asking if I was sure I had everything, wanted me to show her I had packed my passport. My response was something like “mum, do you think I’m THAT stupid?! Of course I packed my passport!” which technically, I did before I had to scan it.
We then left for the airport, went to check in, pulled out our tickets and ehh only 1 passport – my boyfriend’s.
Well at least they made for a funny story afterwards…not so funny when stupid things first happen. I’ve taken the wrong subway a couple of times, ended up in the wrong location and felt pretty stupid myself. I don’t think I’ve ever admitted that to anyone before though. Oh, well, it was for a good cause. Stay safe and happy travels!
i have many dumb travel to stories to tell.. but will limit my story to just one. hahaha. last summer i was in central america. this particular day i was taking a bus from copan honduras to tegucigalpa. i arrived to the bus station that morning to buy my ticket. however.. while waiting for my bus i was too busy reading my book to actually board my bus. luckily there was a second bus to my destination and i was able to catch that one. ended up arriving to capital city after nitefall. luckily found hotel okay and no more major errors on that day.
Hey Jake – Glad that worked out in the end, especially in those places which can be a little shady at night!
Here goes.. While in Ecuador I was having a feminine issue due to all the heat and humidity. I told the wife of the family I was staying with that I needed to go to the pharmacy. They went for me and brought me back what I assumed was acidophilus. I had taken it before at home and thought they looked kinda big but we had big multivitamins so what the heck…
Well it turns out that after three days of taking them.. It wasn’t any better..
The wife asked me how I was feeling and I said it’s not working, she asked if i used them. I said I took them every day.. turns out they were going in the wrong end.. my stomach was a little upset but luckily it wasn’t poisonous.
I broke down and bought the old fashioned remedy at an american style drug store and felt more at ease.. it made for a good story and still gets told when I see my old friends.
Holy crap! That rat story is going to stay with me for a couple of days, I think. My stomach curdled as I read about the maggots! Haha. My dumbest moment was going hungover to a Spanish train station and having my bag stolen right from under me.
Hey Si – That can happen…and I think I would rather a stolen backpack than having to go through the rat/maggot incident again!
I’ve had many embarrassing and stupid moments while travelling, but here is one of the most memorable ones. This happened when I was in Goa with my friends (we’re all from Finland) a few years back. Two of my friends went into a shop while me and one of my friends stayed outside the shop. One salesperson was inside the shop showing my friends the stuff they had there. Outside my friend was sitting on the doorstep and I was standing. Then another worker of the shop came outside and he tried to tell us something but he didn’t speak any English. So he just pointed to a large laminated piece of paper he had on his hand and then he motioned towards the doorstep. I thought he asked me to sit and wanted me to sit on the paper sheet so my pants would stay clean. I thought that was very nice and I walked towards the man, took the paper sheet, placed it on the doorstep and sat down. But when I was just about to sit, the man took the paper away from under my butt and I landed on the bare doorstep. I was confused and the sales person put the paper sheet in front us. We realized it was a spread of a Finnish newspaper. The spread had an article about Goa and there was a picture and a story about the man’s shop, the one which was right behind us. I was mortified and I couldn’t stop laughing. I had totally misinterpreted the situation and tried to sit on his precious article! When the other worker also came outside, the man who had been outside the whole time told him something in Hindi and the other guy burst out laughing. I don’t know any Hindi but I knew for sure what he told the other guy who had missed the whole thing…
Hey Maria – That’s a great tale, especially when it ends in laughter! And I’m impressed with your interpretation of the man’s actions. That would be very nice indeed for someone to offer paper to sit on!
I had just finished checking out the more run down spot of the great wall of China mentioned in the lonely planet, with a couple of guys i had met at the hostel.
On the walk back from the wall to the bus pickup point, we passed by an old farmer. I can’t remember how we got on to the topic (both my memory and my Mandarin are limited), but it turns out he produced honey. He looked like he had had a hard working life so I thought it would be a nice charitable idea to offer to pay to try some of his honey.
So we followed him down to his hut where he had a vat of honey and looked in. There were a couple of ants floating around in it so immediately i started kind of regretting my offer, but the old man was so happy and proud that I daren’t back out.
My backpacking friends started having a nice old grin at my quandry.
Furthermore the old man found me a ‘cup’ to pour the honey into. The cup was an old dirty plastic coke bottle cut in half.
My backpacking friends were really grinning now as my kindly offer was now turning into one of those game show dares.
But the old guy was so happy I just couldn’t bring myself to break his heart, so with lots of grimacing i managed to have a good few sips of the honey.
My backpacking friends were almost in hysterics at this point but I managed to get through without dis-heartening the farmer, and possibly i helped seed an idea that he developed into a boutique business.
My backpacking friends though REALLY enjoyed themselves for the rest of the walk back to the bus.
Hey Sean – Seems as if you survived and now you have such a tale. Well done for sticking with it and making the man happy!
It was my first trip to Europe – make that my first trip out of the US – and my sixteen-year-old self thought he was perfectly confident in his ability to navigate. My entire extended family and I had just completed an Eastern European cruise and we were now en route from Hanover to Berlin. Rail map in hand, I was counting the number of stops until our station. Three, two, one more to go…the stations were coming every twenty minutes or so. We at last came to a stop; “This must be it,” I announced. We had been on the train far too long and I was afraid of overshooting the station.
Although I am now fluent in German, at that time I only knew how to say “Aufwiedersehen”. The conductor announced the stop in German and I decided this was the place all fifteen of us including my eighty-year-old grandmother needed to get off. We began disembarking. Suddenly we began to receive a few strange glances from passengers. A woman started to speak to me in German. I just shook my head in confusion as I desperately tried to distinguish anything she said.
Suddenly, the doors around us began to shut – half of the family was on the platform, the other half still feverishly shoving bags toward the door. My mother started yelling “Let us out, we have to get off!” in a manner that would have made anyone think that someone was about to die! The doors flew back open and she practically shoved my grandmother onto the platform and the rest of our party disembarked. By this time, everyone in the train-car was staring us down.
The train sped away and we had all successfully gotten off…and found ourselves on a desolate single platform in the middle of a forest in Germany. No Berlin skyline, no urban noise. When I finally found an official who spoke English I learned that we were actual forty kilometers from Berlin. In a town of one-thousand people. Eventually we boarded another train and all was well, but it had to have been one of the most stressful travel experiences of my now somewhat season travel-life, and a lesson in travel humility.
Very entertaining post!
Well, I’d have to say one of my dumbest moments while traveling was showing up to the airport in La Paz, Bolivia.. to take a flight to Mexico City. When we showed up to the airport and couldn’t find the Aeromexico check-in counter we asked the ladies in the info counter where we’d have to go… “There is no Aeromexico in this airport. Wait! Actually… there’s no direct flights to Mexico either! Are you sure your ticket is right?!” There we we in Bolivia, with a flight departing from the other La Paz in Mexico itself!!! And all those weeks we were so thrilled that we had scored the best rate ever for a flight of such distance!!
As a Canadian, I find your Bucharest story rather amusing. Haha
“This is how I eat mangos,” hahaha I started cracking up.
I had so many dumbest moments during my trip around the world last year I couldn’t begin to remember them all. The winner probably would have to be learning that I needed a visa to enter Bolivia…two hours before my flight left for said country.
You know what though? It worked out. It usually does. I made it home, I’m alive, and I have experiences, memories and lessons learned that will last a lifetime.
Thanks for sharing, EARL, travel on.