BIZARRE TRAVEL TALES
Urge to satisfy wanderlust got the better of some globe-trotting explorers
It should come as some comfort that not every entry in this year’s Bizarre Travel Tales list illustrates the yawning chasm of human stupidity. Although it was close. Fortunately, there’s Australia — not the people, the continent — which through some quirk of tectonic voodoo is moving faster than, well, everywhere else on the planet. So fast (about 2¾ inches a year) that officials said earlier this year that the country has moved nearly 5 feet since 1994 and that map coordinates will have to be corrected. If that doesn’t sound like much, picture being in a self-driving car being guided by precise GPS (although the error might finally put the Aussies on the correct side of the road).
Surprisingly, it doesn’t help to visualize how much the Down Under has been moving up and over in terms of Australian Rules Football fields. There is no set size. According to the Department of Sport and Recreation for Western Australia, the playing surface is about 148 to 202 yards long and about 120 to 170 yards wide.
So, the speedy continental drift isn’t really a problem. When your national sport isn’t bothered by a plus-or-minus of 50 yards, what’s 5 feet?
Among the other tales of bizarre behavior and situations in 2016, there were bumper crops of airport squatters, ill-advised tourism branding and attempts to get more “fresh air” into airplanes in flight. Although in the year’s defense, selfie-stick stupidity was in decline — although as you’ll see, not entirely on hiatus. Here’s our list of the year’s best. Maybe he wanted to be the
king’s bestie: In May, a 24-yearold tourist in Lisbon climbed up to a 3-foot statue of muchbeloved King Sebastian I, a heroic figure of the 1578 Battle of Three Kings, in “order to get the perfect angle for his photo,” Vanity Fair online reported.
At some point, the “usie” (a self-shot picture with more than one person) turned back into just a selfie when the man accidentally toppled the 126-year-old statue and watched it shatter beyond repair in front of Lisbon’s Rossio train station. Police found him quickly; it’s unclear if he posted any selfies from jail. She’s not in the parks, but you
can’t fix stupid: Casey Nocket, 23, of San Diego is spending two years banned from any national park after a judge put her on probation in June for “seven misdemeanor counts of defiling rock formations with graffiti,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
Nocket “painted colorful faces with acrylic paint and markers on rock formations” in some of the country’s most beloved sites of natural beauty, including Rocky Mountain National Park, Colo.; Canyonlands National Park, Utah; and Crater Lake National Park, Ore. Fortunately for an overburdened National Park Service, the Times reported, Nocket signed her graffiti with the phrase “Creepytings 2015” and took selfies. The ghosts of Rand-McNally
are chuckling: Oman Air in September deactivated the inflight map in its entertainment system on the B737 and Dreamliners it leased from Kenya Airways because of what the company later explained in a statement was a “translation issue.”
Lost in translation? The name Arabian Gulf, which is how the Persian Gulf is known on the Arabian Peninsula side of things, geographically, politically and religiously. Until the issue could be fixed, crews were told to disable the maps. Someone really wanted the
free pretzels: A passenger who missed the boarding for a Ryanair flight from Madrid to Gran Canaria in August didn’t let a fire door stop him from still trying to make the flight, the Guardian re- ported. Nor was he fazed, according to Facebook video posted by airport workers, by a security checkpoint, a 12-foot drop from the jetway, a failed attempt to hitch a ride with a luggage truck and a brief scamper out into the middle of the runway — where he attempted to stop the wrong plane. Even with the alarms and Guardia Civil on their way, the unidentified man still boarded the flight to Gran Canaria — where he was arrested. The Guardian reported that Ryanair declined to comment, calling it a “security breach.” As of last week, the video had 1.4 million views. When you really have to go: A 50-year-old Chinese woman identified as a “first-time flier,” as reported in the Beijing Times, opened the emergency hatch on a plane that was preparing to take off from Chongqing airport. She mistook it for the toilet door, local reports say. Photos on social media show the plane with the emergency slide hanging off the side. The Times reported that the passenger later told staff “she had thought that there was another bathroom behind the emergency exit door.” It’s cheaper than renting in
San Francisco: After missing his flight in August from Singapore’s Changi Airport to Kuala Lumpur, a 32-year-old Malaysian man decided to use his phone and laptop to forge electronic boarding passes so he could gain entry to airline lounges … for the next 18 days.
The Straits Times reported that Raejali Buntut forged 31 passes to enter at least five lounges in three terminals. Using image-editing software to alter passes, he inserted his name and made up fake flights Casey Nocket was banned from U.S. national parks for two years after she painted colorful faces on rock formations at numerous parks, including the one above at Crater Lake, Ore. and flight numbers, then would email the image to his phone.
Raejali had a legitimate ticket for his original AirAsia flight on Aug. 21 and had checked in, but he missed it because he overslept … in an airport lounge. At least they didn’t use Czech-landia: In an attempt to find a shorter, punchier, one-word version of the name Czech Republic, officials in that country adopted “Czechia” in May for use in less-official circumstances, according to the Associated Press.
However, the Guardian reported in October that Czechia (pronounced chehkeeuh), which was endorsed by Czech leaders, including President Milos Zeman, showed few signs of catching on with anyone but, well, Czech leaders (and U.S. diplomats, apparently).
According to the Guardian, some of the country’s 10 million citizens said it didn’t catch on because “it was too ugly, or that it sounded like the Russian republic of Chechnya.”
There’s just never a totalitarian despot when you need one. If only Hunan province had Uber: A Dutch man who flew to Changsha airport to hook up with the love of his life — a 26-year-old Chinese woman he had met two months earlier through a dating app — spent 10 days waiting in the airport for her to show up, according to Hunan TV and BBC News Online. Alexander Pieter Cirk, 41, eventually was taken to the hospital “suffering physical exhaustion.” The woman, known only as Zhang, later told local media that she didn’t think Cirk was serious, according to BBC News. “One day he sent me a photo of air tickets abruptly, and I thought it was a joke.” She also said she was away from home having plastic surgery and had turned off her phone. And finally, the winner: Police in Essex, England, in July posted photos on Twitter of a passenger who appeared to be carrying a firearm at London Stansted Airport. The firearm turned out to be “an iPhone case shaped like a weapon,” the Evening Standard reported.
The force tweeted photos of the case, as well as the case sticking out of the man’s pocket, along with comments: “Bringing this to an airport makes it much less likely you’ll catch your plane #dontbedaft.” Too late.