What Vacation Experience?

[Jaya]

Bumming around Europe for a few months in the 60's, during the height of the cold war. We traveled by train to Berlin and only got a one-way transit visa (to cross East Germany) as we planned to fly from Berlin to Copenhagen. Unfortunately, we couldn't get a flight and needed to cross East Germany by train again. Had to go over to East Berlin to get another transit visa. It was a nightmare all-day job getting one and they wouldn't give my 14-year-old sister her own transit visa; they insisted on putting her on my transit visa as my "child" (I was 19 and was frequently mistaken for 16). We took a night train and all night long, the train personnel slammed into our compartment, demanded to see our transit visa and asked "Madam, where is your child?!?" I would point to my sister and say "here is my child." They'd laugh and leave. We were terrified that they were going to put us off the train but after the first few times, I realized that they were just having fun giving us a hard time. I was so glad to see the border that I almost danced across.

 

[Handbag Lady]

We've had some pretty good vacations. The bad bits that stand out:



1. Being eaten alive by mosquitos in Belize. The trip itself was the best ever, but I attracted mosquitos like crazy. They would bite and bite: I got nailed on my eyelid and that swelled up. I got bit on my forehead and that swelled up to the size of an egg. I had bruises and marks all over my body. I took everything you can take, spray, candles, nothing worked. Even my friend's wife kept asking me if I sprayed with Deet. I was covered in that crap. I think still that she thinks I did it on purpose because a few times, I just didn't want to go outside of our condo for the evening.

I learned a great thing from our housekeeper there. "Beeks! Beeks!" She kept saying this over and over and would point to my bites. Turned out she was saying the Vick's Vapor rub would help annoy the mosquitos. She also gave us cocoa fat to put on the bites to avoid scars.

2. Our camera was stolen on the last night of our stay in WDW at the Caribbean Beach Resort. Someone broke into our room and stole the camera, cash, a bag, a heating pad, and my husband's Disney Fairytale Wedding watch. I'm glad we put most of the cash in the room safe.

Disney security came and did a whole report, but their interest level was low. We were very surprised to find a new watch sent to us a few weeks later.

 

[NHdisneylover]

When I was in college I went backpacking through China and Tibet for about two months. I was on merit scholar so I got to go for basically free. For some reason we decided it would be an awesome idea to take the train from Chengdu, China into Lhasa, Tibet. Biggest mistake of my life.

First of all, we had to take blood thinners for the altitude which ended up making me sick for the first day. Then when you get to the train station they take everything from you that might explode: dry shampoo, shaving cream, hairspray, etc. It wasn't a problem for me but was a little disappointed that they took my dry shampoo.

Ok so, the train ride is 48 hours long...yes, that's right FORTY-EIGHT HOURS. We were in a sleeper car which was designed for four people. Two sets of bunk beds and a small side table. The aisles were not really wide enough so you had to kind of sidle through the door and climb on to one of the beds. Now I am 5ft tall and it was tiny for ME. The beds didn't have mattress pads, they were just wood boards with a pillow. Really all this was fairly tolerable except for the fact that:

1. We couldn't take showers, at all (see my disappointment at being sans dry shampoo);
2. The toilets were just holes in the floor and well...people don't really aim too well when they're in a moving vehicle;
3. The doors didn't lock and random people kept opening our door;
4. If you wanted to get a completely new lease on life, all you had to do was go two carts down to the commuter part of the train where people were apparently walking around naked, smoking, spitting, and peeing...I did not experience this first hand but one of my cart-mates had gone in search of some food and came back rather shaken and scarred for life;
5. All of the packaged food we had brought with us exploded...everywhere. Sad panda.

We did finally find food. A very nice British man showed us how to score some rice and explained that it was the only way to survive the trip. He was right. SO thank you to that very nice man...you saved the day, and probably our lives.

Wow! What an adventure!

 

[Shmily1]

Riding on a nasty bus with spiders back to the car after white water rafting near Pigeon Forge. I just knew for sure that thing would break down. I think it was from the 60's.

 

[hlg22]

Almost getting arrested in Budapest for the unforgivable crime of not stamping our metro tickets correctly. Three transit officers screaming at 2 twenty-something girls in an otherwise deserted metro station at 11:30 at night. I totally thought we should either call their bluff and have them summon the police, or try to outrun them back to our hotel (they were all very...pooh-sized). But my friend's cooler head prevailed and we let them march us to a conveniently-located ATM so that we could pay the "fine" (aka bribe).

That whole trip was actually a disaster - my luggage was lost on the way there so I had no clothes other than the spare t-shirt and undies I'd packed in my carry-on for our first two days in Budapest, our flight from Budapest to Prague was inexplicably canceled, leading to a 12-hour wait at the Sbarro in the Budapest airport, and when we finally got to Prague, they were cleaning up from historic flooding so half of the city was closed.