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which country do you avoid?

13

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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Any country that I'm likely to end up on home video talking about how well I'm being treated, while a man with an AK47 shuffles about in the background.

    I wouldn't go back to Kashmir.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Egypt - I would love to go but too scared. Probably sounds silly when I say this, but hate HATE scorpians *shudders* And I always thought of many being there. Don't know why, as guessing you'd get them in any super hot country.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    hmm..for me probably some countries in middle east..
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I will avoid traveling to pakistan..
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    DG wrote: »
    I would avoid the countries where people constantly hassle you to buy stuff from them all the time.

    especially where they try and use emotional blackmail to sell to you.

    Like over the phone in the UK? :)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    MrG wrote: »
    Like over the phone in the UK? :)

    Or in the street!

    Fucking charity muggers. String 'em up, I say.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Middle east countries and Afghanistan.

    I don't want to go home carrying my leg. :lol:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    dubai
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    dubai
    whats wrong with dubai? :p
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Too many weird laws.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I spent 7yrs in the middle east as a child, before some of the more turbulent times, and I also lived in Jakarta, Indonesia, before and during the riots in 1998. Both were wonderful places to be, yet there are times I would have reviewed going back. I think that I would venture most places unless there was a serious risk of me becoming part of a problem for people back home. Venturing into unstable countries or war zones if you don't need to be there is just kind of asking for trouble IMHO.

    I would add that a lot of the troubles in certain countries are exaggerated by the media, and it is possible to remain pretty safe in places that you'd read about and think it was hell on earth.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    katralla wrote: »
    Too many weird laws.

    yep. i'm not an expert but i've read a few things about the divide in wealth that grosses me out too.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I tend to avoid places where I'm likely to hear a Burberry-clad 17 year old among his group of 400 alcopop-wielding mates whining about how he 'just wants some fish and bloody chips' before roaring down the street towards a noisy club packed to bursting with other English people, where he will shout things like ''Ave iiiiiiit!' and jerk around like a dying fish in an attempt to find a half-starved orange female wearing fluorescent pink sweatbands to rut with.

    Places where the vast majority of the signs are written in English, and where you're hard pushed to find any locals that don't work in the tourist industry, if you can find any locals at all. :yuck:

    You get my drift?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I tend to avoid places where I'm likely to hear a Burberry-clad 17 year old among his group of 400 alcopop-wielding mates whining about how he 'just wants some fish and bloody chips' before roaring down the street towards a noisy club packed to bursting with other English people, where he will shout things like ''Ave iiiiiiit!' and jerk around like a dying fish in an attempt to find a half-starved orange female wearing fluorescent pink sweatbands to rut with.

    Places where the vast majority of the signs are written in English, and where you're hard pushed to find any locals that don't work in the tourist industry, if you can find any locals at all. :yuck:

    You get my drift?

    I think I just fell in love with you :heart:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I tend to avoid places where I'm likely to hear a Burberry-clad 17 year old among his group of 400 alcopop-wielding mates whining about how he 'just wants some fish and bloody chips' before roaring down the street towards a noisy club packed to bursting with other English people, where he will shout things like ''Ave iiiiiiit!' and jerk around like a dying fish in an attempt to find a half-starved orange female wearing fluorescent pink sweatbands to rut with.

    Places where the vast majority of the signs are written in English, and where you're hard pushed to find any locals that don't work in the tourist industry, if you can find any locals at all. :yuck:

    You get my drift?

    :yes: +1
    DG wrote: »
    I would avoid the countries where people constantly hassle you to buy stuff from them all the time.

    especially where they try and use emotional blackmail to sell to you.

    Avoid Fiji. Stayed on Viti Levu for a week in 2001 and was shocked to find it was such a shit hole - especially the capital, Suva. Really unpleasant aggressive types follow you around trying to trick you into buying ethnic art - and it is surprisingly easy to get caught. One well known trick is for a trader to ask your name, then start carving it onto some art work. When you refuse to buy it they become very nasty. Another is to be offered a "gift" of a necklace in a store. The store owner is charm itself and puts the necklace around your neck. As you come to leave, he asks for a "donation" for his hospitality. You try and give the necklace back, but he has fastened it too tightly to easily remove and now demands $10 for his "gift". My husband and I were so weak willed, we ended up with all sorts of truly hideous mementos. Funny in retrospect, but kind of scary at the time.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I tend to avoid places where I'm likely to hear a Burberry-clad 17 year old among his group of 400 alcopop-wielding mates whining about how he 'just wants some fish and bloody chips' before roaring down the street towards a noisy club packed to bursting with other English people, where he will shout things like ''Ave iiiiiiit!' and jerk around like a dying fish in an attempt to find a half-starved orange female wearing fluorescent pink sweatbands to rut with.

    Places where the vast majority of the signs are written in English, and where you're hard pushed to find any locals that don't work in the tourist industry, if you can find any locals at all. :yuck:

    You get my drift?

    So you avoid Essex then?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Places where the vast majority of the signs are written in English, and where you're hard pushed to find any locals that don't work in the tourist industry, if you can find any locals at all. :yuck:

    You get my drift?


    You're going to miss out on some very cool places if you're adamant about that criteria.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    So you avoid Essex then?
    I should think most people avoid Essex out of general common sense anyway.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    hahaha i dunno, i have actually been to Basildon and didn't die... but certainly got eye strain from the orangeness...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Italy
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    ShyBoy wrote: »
    Italy

    reasons?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    skakitty wrote: »
    hahaha i dunno, i have actually been to Basildon and didn't die... but certainly got eye strain from the orangeness...
    I have said it before and I will say it over and over and over again:

    The only nice part of Essex is Colchester.

    Oh, and never come to Braintree. It's....eugh.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    skakitty wrote: »
    reasons?

    Racist like the french, but a little more serious about it.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    ShyBoy wrote: »
    Racist like the french, but a little more serious about it.

    Hmm i guess that might be true in some parts of the country, but the Italians that i've met have been lovely people (but then again, they have *ohmigosh* travelled outside their country (which is sometimes rare!)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You're going to miss out on some very cool places if you're adamant about that criteria.

    You may well be right - but I'm also going to spend time in other very cool places that many other people miss out on. It probably is a bit snooty of me, and I wouldn't rule somewhere out completely on the signs/locals basis, but I prefer being a bit out of my comfort zone, and of the travelling I've done, my favourite experiences have been hitching with local farmers and forming a connection despite language barriers and learning from them about the places I'm in; things that tour guides etc. wouldn't think to tell you but that are central to the real, day-to-day experience of the people that live there. :)

    Where in particular were you thinking of, CptCH?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You may well be right - but I'm also going to spend time in other very cool places that many other people miss out on. It probably is a bit snooty of me, and I wouldn't rule somewhere out completely on the signs/locals basis, but I prefer being a bit out of my comfort zone, and of the travelling I've done, my favourite experiences have been hitching with local farmers and forming a connection despite language barriers and learning from them about the places I'm in; things that tour guides etc. wouldn't think to tell you but that are central to the real, day-to-day experience of the people that live there. :)

    Where in particular were you thinking of, CptCH?

    Vast swathes of India are exactly as you've described. English being one of the official languages, it's ubiquitous. There are also a lot of people who only manage to exist because of tourism, especially in volatile, but amazingly beautiful and history-filled, places like Kashmir.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    skakitty wrote: »
    Hmm i guess that might be true in some parts of the country, but the Italians that i've met have been lovely people (but then again, they have *ohmigosh* travelled outside their country (which is sometimes rare!)

    I mean, it's not somewhere I would definitely not go to. Just there are a lot of places I would rather go to :)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Vast swathes of India are exactly as you've described. English being one of the official languages, it's ubiquitous. There are also a lot of people who only manage to exist because of tourism, especially in volatile, but amazingly beautiful and history-filled, places like Kashmir.

    I completely get what you're saying; I think I probably worded it wrong. What I was really referring to was places where everywhere you look there are signs like 'Sunday Roast Served Here' and where the official language (where it's not English) is absolutely nowhere to be seen (or, often, heard).... and where that's the main reason the tourists there have visited.

    In terms of tourism, you're right, there is a vital link between tourism and the economy in lots of places, and I may well be spreading that by visitng places off the beaten track. However, lots of my friends have been to places where not only had the locals been pushed out of their home areas either to make room for tourist resorts or by the rising costs of living near tourist hubs, but most of the people who ran tours to sites of interest (whether that be a historic site or the local club) were from the other end of the country or actually English themselves. What are they called -holiday reps?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kashmir.

    Is it wrong that I really want to go there just because of Led Zeppelin :chin:?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    No, because it's a war zone.
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