Craziest Things You May Encounter When Travelling (& Counting)
While travelling the world you put yourself in many situations, often many are unexpected and nerve-wracking. Looking back, they’re often comical or jaw-dropping when considering the probability that it had happened. Here’s a small list of what can happen to you while on a vacation/business trip!
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A) You may walk into the tallest man on the planet.
Those people who i’d normally make fun of who have their face glued to their phone and run into things–yea, that was me. Except the thing wasn’t a fire hydrant, branches from a tree or support post, it was the tallest man on the planet.
We were landed in Istanbul airport (easily the most impressive airport I have been inside) and checking our phones to see when we had to be at the gate. We had lots of luggage with us so there was a lot of fumbling going on and I ran into not a person, a leg. I looked up and literally saw a giant. Turns out the tallest man in the word is Turkish and he was in the airport getting photos with travellers. My girlfriend and I looked at each other saying “Wow, he’s big”. Then, using his crutches he started motoring away (towards us) and we said “Oh shit, he’s storming after us and SUPER big”. It turns out he was just moving around away from the paparazzi. We felt a little bad because he was getting bombarded for photos. We did however get a photo from afar. He is 8 ft 2.82 inches.
B) You may see the real life version of Broski in My New Haircut.
I cannot remember if this was the same time or the second time we were in Turkey’s amazing Istanbul airport. When we were lining to go through international transfers we snuck down to a line that wasn’t as busy as did this African gentlemen who looked exactly like Eddie Murphy. We thought we were going to be through in a flash but three North African guys had amazingly packed everything that could have not been brought through (the whole aerosols, gels, creams, food, drink, etc. etc.). The airport security continued to find more and more items that were disallowed and the young men felt the need to argue (further tying up time for all of us). We looked at the long line we had just left which was moving ahead and thinking “damn it!”. One item that was disallowed was body spray and I kid you not, rather than just say “that sucks, I lost my 9 dollars” he emptied the entire can on himself before trashing it. He sprayed absolutely every part of his body 7000 times over. We really thought he was going to get arrested because he was basically spraying the line up of people. Eddie Murphy was like:
C) You may see crime
The only aspect of crime I’ve seen (aside from pot smoking) in Mexico was an armed robbery in Neuvo León. We were driving by in an Uber around 11PM back to our hotel and witnessed this on the side of a corner store (likely Oxxo) where a man was on the ground with a gun pointed at him. The man was on his side with his hips rotated and the gunman’s legs in between his (he effectively couldn’t move without hitting the other guys legs). We drove by and it seemed like more of a dispute than a “gimme everything you got”. That is the only state I wouldn’t like to return to in Mexico. Sorry for not getting a photo.
D) You may dine with the best of them, or the worst
We stayed a week or so in Isle of Man at a nicer hotel on the main road and every morning with shared the breakfast room with people who appeared to be the top brass. They had extremely posh accents, were talking business, dressed in three piece suits or policy making. Hadn’t really went jived with the look of me let me tell you… but you never know who you’ll be around.
This was also the case in Serbia where we stayed right next to parliament, often passing by the politicians, lawyers and bureaucrats on the street or nearly sharing a table in overpriced cafes. It’s not too interesting, but having proximity to any upper-level decision makers is terribly removed from everyday life in most of Europe and North America. You never know who you’ll be surrounded by!
E) You may be butted by criminals on a private jet.
Please read our Montenegro travels… when we arrived in Tivat we were in a short line for customs and we were told to wait while about 8-12 people from a private jet were escorted on past us. Turns out, they were not the nicest of people. US Marshals Service took custody of three individuals, Dadyan, Terabelian & Ayvazyan in the three largest cities of Montenegro earlier this year to be extradited to the United States. Why? They were a part of a family scheme to scam over 18 million dollars by creating a bunch of dummy companies and applying for over 150 Covid-19 relief/rescue loans with no intention of paying them back. Tamara Dadyan pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud but was given a 7-week window to get her things in order, whereas Terabelian and Ayvazyan were still at large. Dadyan took advantage however and fled with her criminal accomplices to Montenegro using a forged British passport fake identity to live the high life in Tivat (where we flew into). All of whom had abandoned their children in California. They were renting an amazing bay front property in Kotor (where we were staying) for months, spending their fresh hot money. They were caught by the FBI after logging into a bank account.
Anyway, it was THIS trio/friend group who passed by us
F) F for fail…You may take silver coins through airport security and be accused of owning cryptocurrency.
Yes, physical silver coins, in the guys gloved hands were asked “Crypto?”. Crypto, short for cryptocurrency incase you’re unaware is: a digital currency in which transactions are verified and records maintained by a decentralized system using cryptography rather than by a centralized authority. The key word being “digital”. When someone asks you a question this foolish you can’t help but chuckle, which is not a great thing to do going through airport security. It’s just a reminder that most people have no idea what they’re talking about and it can be dangerous to assume that common sense will prevail in some situations. As Einstein said, “the two most common things in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity”.
G) You may reach the tallest point in all of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
No, this is not close to Everest, K2, Denali or Annapurna. But it’s an interesting point to brag about for those who don’t know their geography! The beautiful lush island of Saba (which is a municipality of the Netherlands and one of the ‘BES’ islands) poses the tallest point in the whole Kingdom (including Curaçao, Aruba, St. Maarten & of course the Netherlands). This has 1064 steps to the tops with 3 look off points and is just under 3000 feet above sea level. Given the steep volcanic structure of Saba, you begin to see cloud around 2000 feet, so when you arrive at the top it’s likely you will literally be in the clouds!
I took a great video of us being at the peak of the peak where you could see absolutely nothing below you because of the cloud being so thick–really spooky (but it won’t load for some reason). Saba boasts a number of hiking trails but this one is the highest of them. We saw one man on the entire trail who was coming down as we started to go up–so it felt pretty isolated up there in the clouds, literally. Oh yea, and when you complete it, they give you a certificate.
H) You may walk by the biker gang of the President of a country. That’s right, Luis Pou, the President of Uruguay was right next to me on my walk through Punta Ballenas. I wasn’t entirely sure it was him because of his long-hair and beard and my lack of Spanish made me say nothing nor bother to take a photo of him. I witnessed many people come up to ask him about his bike that made media headlines and shake his hand with a serious look on their face. Uruguay is a country where you can accidentally bump into the President–ask yourself if this is a possibility anywhere in North America.
Here are 8 experiences but they’ll be many more to come!
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Thank you for taking the time to read & I hope I’ve inspired you to have a read through our other articles here
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