(Me, trying to maintain positivity after being rained on in Croatia for 2 whole days and about to be rained on again.)
Now travelling is a wonderful thing but I feel like I have a little bad luck on almost every trip I go on. Whether it’s rain, my negativity, my clumsiness or genuinely terrifying experiences, I feel I have had them all! I wanted to list my top 5 for you in order with 1 being the worst. Looking back on them all I knew I would laugh about them eventually but at the time…yeah! I think they all speak for themselves really. Thankfully none of these experiences really completely ruined my time there. So without further ado…
5.The time I fell down the stairs in front of a lot of people in Edinburgh
A self explanatory title but an experience I look back on when I can’t sleep at night and I cringe. I was in The Camera Obscura Museum in Edinburgh, still buzzing from the scenery and the photos I had just took (actually, the one just above!) and I decided I wanted to edit them and Insta them straight away. I decided to do this while walking down the stairs. Yep, I fell pretty badly. Quite a few people behind me actually gasped. Luckily I was uninjured (apart from my ego) but this still haunts me to this day and I definitely do not look at my phone at all now while walking down the stairs.
On the bright side, the museum is really really fun and I suggest you check it out! (You can also read about my 48 hours Edinburgh experience way back Here)
4.That time in Portugal where I thought I’d be going on a leisurely boat ride when it turned out to be a speed boat.
My mum and I booked one of those watch Dolphins on a boat experiences. I suffer quite bad from motion sickness anyway but I was happy and confident this boat ride was going to be a decent 40 minutes of my life. I thought it was going to be a big boat, one that you couldn’t feel rocking. My mum was nervous in case she got sea sick, where as I was excited. I reassured her she’d be fine and yeah, it didn’t end well at all for me.
In the end I got so sick that I had the captain shouting at me to lay down at the back of the boat. I missed everything. There was a brief 5 minutes where I stood up and felt okay and saw a dolphin fin. When I looked over at my mum and at the start of the trip, she was loving life. Unfortunately, by the end of the trip both my mum and I were laying sick out of our minds at the back of the boat. Oh dear. Just writing this out and thinking about it has got me dizzy again. You can read about my time here
3.The time I was an idiot and ignored my sinus infection and went to Brussels’s anyway.
This was way back when I was working at a school. I had the whole 6 weeks off and honestly? I was ill the whole time with a sinus infection. For some strange reason, I decided not to visit the doctors and battle it out. Yikes.
I really wanted to travel anyway but I was so poorly. My eyes were almost swollen shut and I think it was the worst I have ever looked in my life. I still went to Brussels anyway. I was only there for a few days but I felt so bad on one of the days that I cancelled my chocolate tour, the hotel was a complete disaster and right out of the way, the person who I was with wasn’t enjoying themselves at all, I was so poorly I could hardly breathe. We went back to the station for Eurostar, paid £300 to exchange our tickets and came home two days early. Sigh sigh. I’ve since had better experiences in Brussels. You can read about it here.
2.The time I was followed around a supermarket in Croatia
Now unfortunately for my friends I can be quite a open person if someone is bothering me. This time though I completely lost my voice and I was really shaky. I was just recently in Split, Croatia in a Tommy’s (think 7/11 or Tesco) and was walking around when I noticed a guy following my partner and I. I dismissed it completely at first thinking he was also shopping but then when my partner wasn’t looking, he walked passed me not breaking eye contact with me at all and came and stood really close to us pretending to look at what we were looking at. This went on for a good 5 minutes repeatedly, waiting until my partner wasn’t looking and then standing really close to me/us. He finally stopped and grabbed a few beers and followed us to the counter.
By this point I had alerted my partner that this guy is freaking me out. So my partner let him go in front of us. When the guy was done paying for his beer he waited for us next to the till!! and he really wasn’t leaving! (note:this was at like 10 pm at night right next to our hotel) He just waited, right up until we paid. He then walked outside the shop, stood there for a few seconds looking at us and then walked off. We walked back to our hotel so fast because we really thought he’d follow us there. We luckily never saw him again. This was one of those experiences that I will never forget.
1. The time I got lost in the Thailand countryside.
As part of the experiences in Thailand, we were going to go canoeing as one of our daily activities. It’s worth noting that I cannot swim. I know, I know, stupid mistake but I felt like the activity was a must-do. Plus, life jackets were being given to us anyway. What could go wrong?
We hopped on with our teams and our guide followed us along the river in his car in case we needed him. That was, until someone who cannot swim bumped into our canoe and wobbled it so much that I just needed to get off. He unfortunately fell in and lost his GoPro (he was not scared at all and just took it in his stride and waited to be rescued!) I, on the other hand, completely panicked and got off at the nearest bank. Everyone from my group surrounding us thought it was a good idea too, as our guide was following us along the road in his car. When I got off the bank and my team went off, he was not there. He’d already gone ahead.
I started to walk along the main road, alone. Now imagine a crying white girl holding a paddle, wearing a life jacket and up to the knees covered in mud? What a sight. I decided to kept walking anyway, following the river. The idea was to get to our meeting point on a beach situated along the river. Until it came to a point where the river was going left and the road was going at a 90 degree angle right. I decided to turn around and make my way back to the bank and wait for them to row past and pick me up. However, I couldn’t find it.
Yep. I was truly lost now.
Somewhere in my panic I had gone completely away from the bank through a lot of trees. Imagine being lost in a hot country with no one around? I’d left my phone back at base, no one was around and I had no water either. I eventually found the bank and some other members of the group were still there rescuing the dude and offered to take me to our meeting point. When I got there I was shaken, naturally.
Looking back on this experience I laugh about it but honestly I could of potentially died in this situation. I didn’t let it ruin my time there nore do I hold it against the guide. I am super thankful that I am here writing about it!
That concludes my bad experiences I’ve had so far. Have you had any? Also, can no one show this post to my mum please? she would never let me travel again!!