Even that isn’t safe, with parts falling into the sea, coastal erosion and all that.
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A visit to the Isle of Wight was a friend of mine’s sole overseas experience, he was stationed there in the RAF on National Service.
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My dad was stationed there for a few months during WW2 as well. He lived in a tent and had fond memories.
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Thanks, I didn’t realise my wallet had been stolen until I was going to the airport to fly home. That was a bit of a blessing really because it didn’t put a dampener on the holiday. All the hassle started when I got back to the uk so I was happy about that.
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I remember in Barcelona with mum, a cruise stop over. Two fellow passengers, a chap having to push his wife in a wheelchair, told us later they’d had a bag snatched, from over the w/chair handles. Now, my thoughts here were that he had left the back unattended. How else could it have been done? Seem to remember him saying their passports were in the bag. Don’t know how they got on afterwards.
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I had a similar experience coming back from a holiday in Hisarönü in Turkey Ralf, only it was my own fault and it had happier ending. When I arrived in Dalaman Airport I discovered I had lost my wallet but luckily not my passport. When I got home I contacted the hotel and was informed the wallet had been handed in. When I went back the following year my wallet was waiting for me including the few pounds that I had left.
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As I have mentioned here I have travelled extensively but one of my trips was localish in France a few times by car I. I used the car because I had a lot of electronic kit including an oscilloscope. This time the Customs decided to remove all my kit and lock it their lockers. And this was France, with supposedly NO Common Market (until recently).
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None for me…i don’t travel…but my sister disliked being surrounded by begging children when she visited India, Pakistan and Cambodia. She said she felt ambushed.
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The same can be seen at the other end of the globe, the Caribbean, Jamaica, for example. Cruise passengers get their own bay for bathing where they are not molested.
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Another travel experience…
I cut my head seriously so local doctor stitched it for me - I think it was about five or six stitched. Then he got me a baseball cap. I still have it. This is hat and the place:
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We had a motoring holiday in France on an old bike/sidecar combo.Taking it in turns to drive.Sitting in the sidecar was quite nerve -racking .They drive on the wrong side of the road so it was in the centre of the road not next to the curb as in the Uk.
The flight home from the Gambia started with a bang - we’d only been up for around ten minutes - there were about three or four loud bangs. The plane wobbled a bit, there were flames coming out of one of the two engines and a smell of smoke in the cabin. The cabin staff prepped the doors and stood guard by the door to the pilots, screaming for everyone to sit down. Massive bird strike! That was a bit negative…
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Scary indeed. Think, if a plane goes down, the chances of survival would be less than???
That’s that last thing you want on a flight, the Birds going on strike!
I’ve no idea about the chances of survival. I looked out of the window and saw we were over the sea, not far from the shore and decided I could swim back!! It’s amazing how shock sets in…and panic too. Most of the passengers were literally screaming - the youngish man next to me was pounding the back of the seat in front of him and making a horrible noise (as were most of the passengers) - so I poked him in the chest and in my most haughty voice told him to “stop making that noise right NOW”…and he did! Another passengers made a run for the pilot’s cabin! After we’d dumped the fuel over the sea, we went back to Banjul airport and made an emergency landing - I asked the stewardess if we could use the shutes as I’d never used one before and was disappointed when told we had to use the steps. Shock does strange things to people!
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Wow 
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It does strange things to the bowels but, there is no excuse for using the shutes 
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I went backpacking on a low budget to Thailand . We stayed in a monestry just outside Bangkok sleeping on the floor . Along the corridor a wash room of sorts a step down and a toilet with a bucket to flush and a huge wooden tub full of cold water to sluish . It was getting dark i needed a sluish i stepped down into the wash room , started to sluish , then feeling a strange rush up my body , i realised i was standing in a gigantic ants nest . Running screaming back to my friend he brushed me down and came back to the wash room with me . He stood flushing the nest into the drain using the bucket while i managed to sluish the rest off my body . Strangely enough i wasnt bitten .
Again at the monestry we went with a monk into the caves for a meditation, sitting in the candlelight for a hour , the two others told me they had been covered in ants , yet i wasn’t . Phew
Sitting outside the room one hot night a light above us , beautiful bhuddah statues surrounding us , my friend saw something scuttling towards our feet , it was a huge scorpion about the size of a saucer, we both scattered as barefooted. It was huge
Went to an island to stay on the beach in a beach hut the boat had people hanging off the roof and sitting everywhere a good few hundred on a boat big enough for 100 at the most . 1 life jacket rammed into the ceiling, i never took my eyes off it !
The beach hut yards from the sea , the bed a four poster with nets either side . During the night friend got up to see why there was strange noises in the room , he had hung a carrier bag on a hook in the wall , think it had a sticky sweet left in it . The carrier bag was full of cockroaches and the walls crawling with them .
Stayed on a barge over the river , looked clean and fresh in the daylight, two beds . Went for a meal , arriving back the room full of cockroaches and insects , they had come up from under the barge through a hole in the wash room straight into the river . I had to cover myself in a mosquito net like a wrapped mummy to feel safe . All night i could hear the crawlers crawling all over the walls ceiling and floors . First light i was outa there !
So I’ve learnt there is no such place as paradise because even if you think there is there are always horrors ready to surprise you .
A wonderful experience to look back on but i would never do it again
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Susan, that is one reason I am careful where I go. I did have a GF room in a Tunisian hotel and sure enough, found an ant’s nest under a rug. They were very active as I started to unpack so went off to reception to request a different room.
When mum and I stayed in a place in Sorrento the rooms were like chalets, in an orchard. I had plugged in an insect repellent and every morning we found dead cockroaches in the shower. We would leave them for the cleaning team to remove.
I do hate the crawling bugs found overseas.
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