TRAVEL TRIP-UPS
Globetrotters look back
Time to get out the tiny violins.
Last week, we brought you a story about some of the best travel experiences we’ve had. This time around, we’re going to tell you about a few trips that didn’t make it onto that list because they were not the best of times. Occasionally, they were downright miserable.
We get it. We’re among the privileged few who get to roam the globe, and write about it. No one is going to shed a tear over our travel misadventures. But if a bit of schadenfreude brightens your day, you’re welcome.
Joanne Blain:
I adore Japan. I’ve been there three times, but one trip to the Land of the Rising Sun wasn’t all cold sake and cherry blossoms.
It was a press trip with a packed agenda that didn’t leave much time for idle pursuits, including sleep. After a long flight across the ocean, we checked into an airport hotel for four whole hours before we had to board another plane. And when we landed, jet-lagged and bleary, we had a full day of sightseeing ahead of us.
And then halfway through the trip, we discovered that we didn’t even have a hotel for the night. “You can sleep on the plane,” we were told as we were shuttled from a late dinner straight to the airport. I might have dozed fitfully for an hour or so on the six-hour flight.
Painfully bright and early, brains fogged with fatigue, we found ourselves touring a china factory in Nagoya like zombies. The rest of the day was a blur of naps on the bus interrupted by stops at other points of interest, none of which I remember.
When we finally got to our refuge for the night, we discovered it was a “businessman’s hotel” that clearly didn’t cater to exhausted western tourists. My room reeked of cigarette smoke and had a hard single bed with one tiny, crunchy pillow filled with buckwheat.
I’ve never missed my own bed more desperately.
Jane Mundy:
I had an overnight stay in Cambodia that was memorable for all the wrong reasons. After staying for a week with my friend in the sleepy town of Kep, it was time for some nightlife. We packed overnight bags and took a two-hour drive to Sihanoukville, known by local expats as “The Snook.”
Chinese investment and an international airport had turned this beach town into a tacky version of Reno, full of gaudy casinos and hotels packed with tourists. After several attempts to find a room — and cursing ourselves for sending our driver home before we did — we stumbled across some dilapidated wooden structures with a “vacancy” sign.
The proprietor didn’t speak English but my friend spoke Khmer. We paid about $10 for the promise of air conditioning, mosquito netting and clean sheets.
Getting dressed for dinner, I heard an ear-piercing shriek from my friend in the bathroom. In the sink was a scorpion, as wide as the basin. I took off my flip-flop and smashed it to smithereens. Then, just before I sat on the toilet, I looked inside and there was a giant toad staring up at me. It was my turn to scream.
After a boozy dinner and losing most of our cash in the casinos, we arrived back at our shack. We draped the lumpy bed with mosquito netting and passed out, even though the promised A/C was on the blink. The next morning, covered in mosquito bites because of the huge holes in the netting, we phoned our driver to return pronto and take us back to Kep.
Joanne:
You really need to know what you’re getting into when you book an organized tour, like the one Jane and I took to Iceland a few years back. I was excited to see the country, which friends had raved about, but I knew we’d be spending a lot of time hiking and I was not sure my cranky right knee was up to it.
The tour company reassured me, ranking the trip a one out of five on the scale of physical difficulty.