Ten times travel was… tricky!

‘Shit happens!’ – quoted from various movies, books and TV shows across the past few decades!

Travel ain’t always great!

Travel isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. It can get tricky. There are shit days, bad moments and difficult times, just like in any other part of life. At the time, these situations can feel like the end of the world. However, looking back on them a few years down the line, they actually make for great stories and often, a good laugh.

With that in mind, I’m going to share ten times that travel was… tricky. To say the least. From awful driving experiences to overflowing rudimentary toilets, this post will hopefully have you laughing at my expense by the end!

The tricky time it would. Not. Stop. Raining in Port Douglas, Australia.

When it came to choosing a destination to spend Christmas 2018, A and I considered a few options. One of the Pacific Islands maybe? Back to her home city of Melbourne? After some thought, we settled on Port Douglas, a little town north of Cairns in Queensland. We could snorkel, explore the rainforest and see the Great Barrier Reef. What more could we want from a Christmas holiday?!

Before we went, my Australian friends warned me to be careful of the crocodiles, the sharks and the jellyfish infested waters. Nobody warned me about the rain. Oh yeah, it rains in northern Queensland. A lot. We had one gloriously sunny day (thank goodness we booked our snorkel trip for that day!) and then the heavens opened.

And how it rained…

We were deluged. It did not stop raining for the rest of the trip. All the activities and plans we had were cancelled and we were effectively confined to our AirBnB. Oh, except when our hire car nearly got flooded out as the drains backed up and the water rose around our apartment… We had to dash to move the car to higher ground to ensure its safety, and then regularly pop out to check it was okay where we’d parked it.

Our Christmas in Port Douglas did not go as we planned. At all. Both of us got disgruntled and antsy cooped up day after day as the rain kept coming. We made the best of it that we could, but our Christmas holiday was effectively ruined. My advice? If you ever spend Christmas in Australia, steer clear of northern Queensland…

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The time I froze on an overnight bus in The Philippines.

After a three hour wait for our bus in the busy terminal in central Manila, we were hot and sweaty. Imagine our delight as we finally boarded the bus to find it fully air conditioned. At last! Some respite from the sticky heat. As the bus pulled off and wend its way slowly through the city, we settled back to try and get some sleep on our overnight journey north.

Air conditioning is all well and good if it is properly regulated. A soft cool breeze is delightful on a hot day. On our bus, however, it was cranked to the max and icy air was blasting around the cabin. Within an hour, I was shivering with cold, ineffectively dressed in shorts, flip flops and a t-shirt.

No sleep for us!

It was impossible to try and sleep. When we asked to turn the cold air off, our driver looked at us blankly and our request was ignored. Back in our seats, we slowly refrigerated. The temperature felt like it was hovering around freezing (I suspect it was a bit higher than that!). I took the thin jacket I’d impulsively brought on board with me (thank God!) and wrapped it around me as best I could.

It was an awful journey. I barely slept due to the arctic chill. Hours later, eyes gritty from lack of sleep and limbs stiff from the cold, we disembarked. We had arrived in the mountains. The morning air was chilly and fresh, but it felt wonderful against our icy skin, several degrees warmer.

On the way back south several days later, we layered up and had a much more comfortable return journey! You live and learn…

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The tricky time the toilet was an overflowing stinking hole in the ground in Mongolia.

‘This cannot be the only place to go!’ I wailed, gazing in horror at the stinking pit in front of me. But it was.

Toilets in Mongolia were rudimentary in most places outside the capital city. Mostly long drops, they were manageable with an enclosed cabin, some privacy and a roll of rough paper for wiping. What I was faced with here was a whole other level of disgusting though! An open cesspit, dug a couple of metres into the hard ground, enclosed by nothing more than a rudimentary picket fence. It stank to high heaven. Shit and pee were splattered around the hole. It looked and smelt vile. I retched and moved back.

‘I cannot go here,’ I said, firmly, ‘I’ll hold it in if I have to!’

S and I found a ditch some way off to squat in for pees. As night arrived, our trips to the ditch were taken under the wonderful cover of darkness which protected us the view of any prying eyes.

I held in a shit for twenty four hours – not something I’d recommend. I arrived back in Ulaanbaatar feeling bloated and uncomfortable, and I dashed to the loo as soon as we got back to our hotel. The experience in the Mongolian wilderness was divine, perfect and amazing. But I definitely never want to be confronted by that awful cesspit ever again!

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The time we spent 72 hours in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. Out of choice.

Between Irkutsk and Moscow lies thousands of miles of empty tundra, forests and mountains, interspersed from time to time by such city oases as Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Kazan. Not wishing to do the whole leg from Irkutsk to Moscow without a break, P and I set about looking for a city to stop at along the way. Despite such tempting options in Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Kazan, we settled on Krasnoyarsk when we saw it recommended in our Lonely Planet guidebook.

‘Be sure to hike in Stolbi National Park,’ the guidebook urged us. Tempted by the thought of some good walking in some Siberian wilderness, we booked three nights in the city without further thought. Until we arrived.

From the moment we stepped off the train in Krasnoyarsk to the minute the train pulled away from the platform three days later, we asked ourselves every single hour of the day why we’d chosen to visit Krasnoyarsk.

What were we thinking when we arranged this?!

It was a dirty, industrial Siberian city. Our hotel was not really a hotel and was located on a grimy estate of high rise concrete apartment blocks in a dodgy part of the city. We walked for thirty minutes each day just to reach the city centre, crossing what we dubbed ‘the longest bridge in the world’ in the process.

In fact, we stayed so far away from the city centre that even our taxi driver didn’t know where our hotel was when we arrived and had to hunt for it (you can read the full story of that here!). The city centre was not big enough or interesting enough to merit 72 hours of our time. We argued and sniped at each other constantly. One time, we caught the wrong bus and had to get off a mile down the road and trudge back to our starting point in angry silence. Each afternoon, we made sure we were back at our accommodation before dark to avoid any trouble on the estate where we were staying.

Even Stolbi National Park did not deserve the merit it earned in the Lonely Planet guide. I got bitten by a tick, we trudged through lakes of mud on our hike and didn’t get the appeal of the place in the slightest.

It just wasn’t a good stay. Krasnoyarsk is not a beautiful city. Spending three days there was a drag. We could not have been happier, or more relieved, to finally board our departing train bound for Moscow. Both of us grinned as it pulled away bang on time. Onwards and upwards!

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The tricky time we ran out of money and had to take an overnight bus from Munich to Paris.

Upon arriving in Munich, we walked straight to the ticket office to book our onward travel. We planned to take a train to Paris in two days time. The ticket officer spent several minutes clicking through their computer before turning back to us with a chagrined expression on their face.

‘I’m sorry, there are no tickets left for trains to Paris that day.’

Nor, so it turned out, for any trains either the day before or the day after. Not that we could afford anyway, with our meagre remaining budget. Our Long Journey Home had reached the end of the rails. Disheartened, we picked up our belongings and walked to C’s apartment where we’d spend the next few days.

The only reasonable way to get to Paris…

‘We’ll have to take the bus,’ P said, dejectedly, after we’d both gone through our options for onward travel, ‘It’s the only way we can get to Paris on our budget, and in time to catch the train to the UK.’

Over the next few days, we tried not to think about the arduous journey we had coming up until, finally, we couldn’t avoid it any longer. It was time to go. We couldn’t find the bus station and nearly missed our bus. Having located and boarded the correct bus with minutes to spare, we realised we had minimal snacks to see us through the night. As the bus drew away from Munich, I rested my head against the window and settled in for an uncomfortable night.

The overnight bus to Paris was a far cry from the triumphant finale we had planned for the Long Journey Home. Thousands of miles covered by train, from Beijing to Munich, and we were downed at the last hurdle, reduced to crawling along endless miles of grey motorway by bus. We inched our way north and then west, road after road, until the journey became a blur. I dozed fitfully.

When we arrived in Paris, quiet, exhausted and somewhat depressed, the streets were still littered with rubbish from the previous day. Taking our final few euros, we hotfooted it around the city in a whistle-stop tour of the main sights before catching the Eurostar home. Finally, back on the trains!

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The time I was severely seasick on the way back from Stewart Island in New Zealand.

Bluff, on the southern tip of New Zealand’s South Island, is the departure point for adventures on Stewart Island. On the day I visited, the sky was overcast and, as we boarded the ferry, the heavens opened.

‘Get ready,’ our guide warned, jokingly, ‘The weather forecast isn’t good. We’re in for a rough ride!’ We all laughed weakly as we boarded.

But, to our surprise, the bad weather didn’t hit and we were spared. The crossing as smooth, with water like glass. As the Foveaux Strait is invariably a nasty crossing, we all thanked our lucky stars and hoped that the return would be equally calm. We had a single night on Stewart Island, and with the good weather prevailing, we were able to enjoy our time there to the max before contemplating the return crossing.

A sunny morning…

After a hike along the coast in the morning, where the weather was bright, sunny and breezy, we assembled at the pier to catch the return ferry. There were no jokes about bad weather this time. Everyone seemed cheerful and our morning walk had been wonderful. The sun was still shining. Things seemed good for our crossing.

Oh, how we were lulled by the deceptive weather and the generally jolly atmosphere. As our boat left the relative shelter of Halfmoon Bay, we were hit by the full force of the ‘breeze’. The ocean turned into a roiling, turbulent mess of spray, endless waves, and foam. My stomach lurched as the boat pitched and yawed, up and down, with no reprieve. Many in our group, myself included, huddled over and turned green at the gills as sea sickness overtook us.

Worst of all, behind me, a panicked woman let out an endless stream of breathless pleas and prayers, asking God to save her and spare us all. Her unbridled fear set me on edge and I felt the rising swell of my own anxiety becoming harder and harder to suppress.

After what felt like an eternity, we rounded Stirling Point and steered into safe harbour. I tripped off the boat, feeling dazed, still reeling from the awful crossing. It was the worst time I’ve ever spent on a boat, before or since, and I hope never to experience anything like it again… I think I could’ve dealt with the sickness better if that woman hadn’t been panicking behind me!

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The tricky time we accidentally left the transit area in Singapore’s Changi Airport.

Singapore Changi Airport is renowned for being one of the best airports in the world. It has a fucking butterfly garden and the world’s tallest slide! How extra is that?! Needless to say, when C and I realised we were transiting through Changi Airport on our way to the Philippines, we got super excited and started planning our fifteen hour layover.

It all started so well. We arrived on time and disembarked our flight, excited to relax and explore the airport. When else can you ever say that? Except… We accidentally left the transit area. What. The. Hell?

So, instead of spending hours wandering the butterfly garden and whizzing down the world’s tallest slide, as well as indulging in some shopping and perhaps relaxing with a massage, we were unceremoniously out in the cold terminal. Overnight. With nowhere to go and nothing to do.

We decided to take refuge in business class…

After four hours trying to sleep in a quiet corner on the tile floor, we caved and went to the business class lounge. We paid the equivalent of £60 each and spent the rest of our layover lying across two armchairs each trying to sleep and eating the buffet. I took a shower. Sure, it could have been worse, but it wasn’t what we’d been imagining. We were both irritable, tired and stressed out. This was not the smooth, incredible experience we’d hoped to have.

To this day, I have no idea how we managed to leave the transit area without realising. I’ve transited through many airports since and never made this mistake again. Indeed, it has seemed practically impossible to make this mistake in every other airport I’ve been to!

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The time I got crippling knee pain in Beijing.

I arrived into the hostel in Beijing to be greeted enthusiastically by P. We’d not seen one another for nearly a month and being reunited in a new, unexplored city felt wonderful. I showered, changed and we headed out to find food and beers, in celebratory moods. I tried to ignore my niggling knee injury, made worse after a week horse riding in Mongolia, and downed a couple of paracetamol. They masked the pain for a few hours while we ate, drank and wend our way back to the hostel for the night.

The next morning, I was less fortunate. My knee was aching profusely and as soon as we began our day’s exploration in earnest, the pain became agonising. Apologising for causing a delay to our sightseeing, I made P find a coffee shop so we could take a break and I could rest my knee for a few minutes. More paracetamol helped, but the knee was only getting worse. By the afternoon, it was tormenting me every step I took.

Six days of excruciating pain.

I spent the remainder of our time in Beijing hobbling around, trying to see as much as possible through gritted teeth as my knee caused me more and more pain. Visiting the Great Wall of China and going up and down hills as we walked along it left my knee in bits the following day. I pushed my pain threshold to the limits and we managed to see everything we wanted in Beijing. None the less, it was a relief to finally board the train at the end of our stay and take some enforced rest.

To this day, I experience ongoing issues with my knee. I think that week in Beijing definitely made it worse in the long run, although I don’t really regret pushing through the injury. Sometimes, you had to do these things to ensure you see everything, especially on a potentially once-in-a-lifetime trip like that.

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The tricky time we flew into a tropical storm in the Philippines.

We should have known something was wrong when our flight was delayed by three hours. Then two more. Then another hour. We sat and sweated, both silently seething, in the crowded terminal of Puerto Princesa airport. It was stiflingly hot, the air close and sticky. We fanned our passports in our faces and sipped water.

There was little news. Our patience wore thin as the hours dragged on, endlessly. We couldn’t understand the announcements over the tannoy, but realised that something must be wrong elsewhere for our flight, among so many others, to be so delayed. I tried to imagine what… Outside, the weather was beautiful. We checked our phones, tried to connect to the dodgy airport Wi-Fi, plugged them into a wall to charge them, gave up dispiritedly.

Finally, a scramble and a rush to queue at our gate!

We gathered our belongings and joined the throng of people pushing and shoving their way closer to the gate. It had been hours since we arrived at the airport and finally we were escaping. Back to Manila, a night there and then our onward flights – me bound for the UK, C back to New Zealand.

The plane air conditioning had chilled the cabin, a welcome and immediate respite from the cloying heat we’d endured. As we taxied down the runway, I wondered again what on earth had delayed us so long. With a shrug, I put it down to ‘one of those things’ and settled back for the hour long flight.

It turned out to be the most turbulent flight of my life. I clutched my armrest in fear as the plane bucked and dropped, gritting my teeth and internalising my urge to cry out. My heart was beating wildly. I tried to remind myself that realistically, the odds that we would crash were small. It didn’t help. My panic only increased as the plane continued to shudder.

We descended rapidly into Manila airport, the pilot thumping our small plane down onto the tarmac with such force that I thought the plane might break in half. As the flaps went up and we slowed, all my fear finally dissolved. I was shaking and crying, gasping for breath. C grabbed my hand and squeezed. I realise how frightened she had been as well.

It was only later that we realised our flight had been delayed due to a bad tropical storm, and we’d flown through the tail end of it!

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The time we drove Nepal’s terrifying roads.

The journey started innocuously enough. An air-conditioned coach, big leather seats near the front (apparently we’d paid for an upgraded travel experience), snacks. I pulled out my headphones, swigged some water and settled in, getting comfortable. We had a good few hours ahead of us.

The headphones were out before we’d gone more than ten minutes down the road. I leaned forward and craned to look out the window. With a growing mixture of horror and concern, I saw the chaotic and crowded streets of Kathmandu and the careless way our driver negotiated the bedlam. Beside me, P was also taking it in.

‘This is mental!’ I exclaimed, as we lurched into a pothole on the uneven road and jolted out of our seats. I felt grateful I had a seat belt!

But Kathmandu was just the beginning…

As we edged out of the city, our pace picked up and our journey got more terrifying. On one side, a wall of dirt and rock. On the other (my side), a cliff plummeting hundreds of metres down into a ravine. Our fast pace never slowed as we overtook, veering and serving across the road to get back into our lane before the oncoming traffic hit us.

‘I can’t look,’ I groaned, as a lorry blared its horn and surged past us, narrowly avoiding the coach wing mirrors, ‘I swear the wheel just touched the edge on my side!’ I swallowed back my growing anxiety and closed my eyes briefly.

When I reopened them, I made the mistake of looking down. Below, way down, the wreckage of a lorry smashed to smithereens. It had clearly careered off the cliff and plummeted to a shocking and horrifying end. I wondered if the driver had survived, then tried to think about something else.

‘I’m done,’ I said, turning to P, ‘I’d rather be blissfully ignorant.’ He nodded. I plugged in my headphones once more, closed my eyes and turned up my music. We arrived in Pokhara hours later, nerves frayed but thankfully alive, having survived one of the most traumatic journeys of my life to date.