The Worst Place on Earth

[[xeno]Julios]

well said, ryoki, dubai is awful. Have you seen the airport recently? It's like an overgrown child saying LOOK AT ME. IM THE BEST.

[Unisaw]

Any place with a casino is depressing.

[obsidian]

True, I've been to both Atlantic City and Las Vegas and the novelty wears off in about an hour. Everything and everyone is completely fake and it's a pretty depressing place once you get past the initial glitter. Everything is seedy, cheap and tasteless. I made money in Vegas, though.

[Whiskey 7]

Nice stories Ryoki, obsidian & Mat Linnett. You both paint vivid pictures

Me, well I am extremely lucky in that I cannot name 'my worst place on Earth'.
Wait....

Thinking, years ago the Night Markets in Hong Kong where I really felt uncomfortable but I wouldn't say not safe. It just had that feeling of 'watch you back' kind of atmosphere. I suppose they didn't see the like of us too often. Just the looks from the locals had me worried. Seemed like you could be robbed/murdered any moment. Yes, a really uncomfortable place
Seedy is a good adjective obsidian

Funny, while I was there on 10 days holidays I carried a letter of introduction to the Governor/Superintendent of Her Majesty's Prison Hong Kong, perchance I had some time to visit. I remember riding their subway, completely alien to me, then at the nearest station jumping in cab/taxi where the driver didn't speak any English; me not able to speak Chinese, I had to play charades (use hand gestures) in order to communicate my intended destination, the Prison. I still vividly remember me doing the "holding prison bars vertically in both hands & shaking them" routine

I got to the point where he acknowledged he understood, then I remembered I had the hotel desk write a message (in Chinese) asking I be directed to the prison.

The biggest grin I've ever seen came over his face when he red it. I still wonder today what that message truly said

Like, " ... take this man to the prison as he wants to go inside.... "

Was an interesting place but not myworst place in the world...

[MKJ]

I have to second Vegas.
Wouldn't say the worst but it's fucking depressing. 70+ ladies working 5 machines at once for hours on end without even seeing if theyve won or not, just keep pumping those coins. All the while the staff look like Barbie & Ken dolls; smiles perpetually plastered on their faces.

[Mat Linnett]

When I was 11, my Dad and I went to Italy and backpacked from Naples to Venice in 2 weeks.
Italians in Italy are a vivacious, extrovert people. Life is lived loud and colourful. Tuctucs and watermelons line every street in my memories.

I loved visiting historical ruins as a kid, and Pompei was a treat, if slightly macabre. The "statues" that are actually all that remain of people trapped in the pyroclastic flow of the world's most famous volcanic eruption really stick in your mind.

Trekking to the top of Vesuvius with a crazy Australian friend we met there was also a highlight and one of those things that'll stay with me as long as I live. And we still hear from Ted today, the imposing man from down-under who knew that the universal language was "Loud Australian".

But the reason I'm recounting this is because of exactly how scary the banks were in Naples to a kid from rural England. The closest I'd gotten to a gun before visiting Italy was shooting air rifles. Well, I'd seen armed guards at various airports, and armed police officers in the States, but they didn't have a huge impact.

The banks in Naples were the highest security places I'd ever encountered.

Outside would be a guard armed with a sub machine gun. Then you would enter what could only be described as an airlock. Upon exiting the airlock, there would be two more guards armed in the same way.
At that young and impressionable age, it hammered home to me just how crime-ridden Naples must have been back then. I don't know if it is still like that over there, but it was one of those things that highlighted the critical difference between a no-gun culture like the UK and mainland Europe. It was a passive, implied violence, but a violence all the same.

So again, not necessarily a "Worst" situation, one just so completely alien to me at that time.

[LawL]

Cambodia was pretty shit for me. Not because of that long winded pile of wank that nobsidian was crapping on about, but because it sucked compared to the king of Asian countries: Thailand.

I'm also about to go spend 4 weeks in Indonesia.

[Mat Linnett]

Then there was the time we were in Florida and Dad somehow convinced us it would be a good idea to hire canoes and paddle out to a small mangrove island that was the last land between the US and Cuba. I swear the crazy old socialist was harbouring dreams of meeting Fidel.

Dad and I were in one canoe, while my hydrophobic step-mum and my step sister were in the trailing canoe.
I'd been paying attention to how the locals dressed, and sensibly wore a shirt buttoned up to the neck, jeans and a cap. Hot, sure, but it reduced the surface area of my skin exposed to mosquitoes. The rest of the family didn't fare quite so well.

So we paddled through mangrove swamp, three of us being dined upon by insects, jumping at logs in the channel as our over-active imaginations turned them into alligators. All the while following the markers the Canoe hire people had told us to follow.
After several sweat-soaked, bug-bitten miles (my memory's telling me it was 24; logic's balking at that. Surely we weren't THAT crazy?!), we reached the edge of the mangrove only to see that our goal was a mile or so out in open ocean.
A light storm made that mile one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of my life; Canadian style canoes aren't really made for open water.
But we finally reached the tiny island, my step-mother a gibbering wreck and calling my Dad every name under the sun.
We'd landed on a small spit of sand about 20 metres from the main island; the island itself couldn't have been larger than a couple of hundred square metres, entirely covered in thick mangrove.

We didn't get to explore it however.

At the end of the sand spit was, incongruously, a portaloo. It was the only sign of civilisation on the island.
I made my way towards it, only to encounter the largest swarm of aggressive mosquitoes and other biting, flying things I've ever seen. The portaloo was serving as a breeding ground, and was effectively an uncomfortable barrier between us and the rest of the island.

We set up our two two-man tents on the sand spit, cooked some food, comforted each-other and went to sleep, worried about the tide coming in.

Fortunately we didn't get washed away.

But I did awake to possibly the most glorious morning of my life; an orange sun rising on the tropical horizon while pelicans skimmed low above the water and dolphins porpoised above the waves.

So yeah, horrible little island, but delivering a vista of stunning beauty.
Can't really call that the "Worst" place, can I?

[scared?]

He whole continent (really an island) of austrailia is a disgusting shit hole...no wonder the Brits dumped their human garbage there...

[Dark Metal]

Fucking Canadians and their weak ass canoes.

[PrMink]

Mat Linnett's house for christmas dinner. For the unfathomable amount of stories he shared that went nowhere

[LawL]

He whole continent (really an island) of austrailia is a disgusting shit hole...no wonder the Brits dumped their human garbage there...

You're jealous because I live in paradise while you live next to a mud ditch in what is known to be the dumbest place on Earth.

Understandable.

[losCHUNK]

When I was 11, my Dad and I went to Italy and backpacked from Naples to Venice in 2 weeks.
Italians in Italy are a vivacious, extrovert people. Life is lived loud and colourful. Tuctucs and watermelons line every street in my memories.

I loved visiting historical ruins as a kid, and Pompei was a treat, if slightly macabre. The "statues" that are actually all that remain of people trapped in the pyroclastic flow of the world's most famous volcanic eruption really stick in your mind.

Trekking to the top of Vesuvius with a crazy Australian friend we met there was also a highlight and one of those things that'll stay with me as long as I live. And we still hear from Ted today, the imposing man from down-under who knew that the universal language was "Loud Australian".

But the reason I'm recounting this is because of exactly how scary the banks were in Naples to a kid from rural England. The closest I'd gotten to a gun before visiting Italy was shooting air rifles. Well, I'd seen armed guards at various airports, and armed police officers in the States, but they didn't have a huge impact.

The banks in Naples were the highest security places I'd ever encountered.

Outside would be a guard armed with a sub machine gun. Then you would enter what could only be described as an airlock. Upon exiting the airlock, there would be two more guards armed in the same way.
At that young and impressionable age, it hammered home to me just how crime-ridden Naples must have been back then. I don't know if it is still like that over there, but it was one of those things that highlighted the critical difference between a no-gun culture like the UK and mainland Europe. It was a passive, implied violence, but a violence all the same.

So again, not necessarily a "Worst" situation, one just so completely alien to me at that time.

Before going to Sicily to meet the ex's family I was getting wound up about how the mafia still runs shit and how I'd end up in a barrel if I start running my mouth. I laughed it off thinking 'lol stereotypes or movies' until I arrived and realised they pretty much run the rock, was like a big brother society with a list of people you could'nt speak to or shops you couldn't be anywhere near with some informer being murdered the week before I arrived. I was quiet as a mouse and heard Naples was the same, this was only a few years back but heard from the locals how it's got better in recent times with arrests, not so corrupt policing and community fight backs. Loved the place though, lovely country with some locals being arseholes with others stuffing my face with food and drinks, some good stories too .

Belfast in 96 was pretty scary for me, I was only young and think I experienced the same thing as you with being taken out my comfort zone. A curfew was in force in the area I was staying, banks had a small army with guards on every other corner, temporary barracks set up on a football field. Looking back I still think how strange it was just from seeing the army with the jeeps n stuff patrolling British roads.

Worst place I've been was Prague, thought it was a dirty horrible city filled with a bunch of cunts. I've been told I was unlucky on the trip from mates and it was in winter but meh, I have no intentions of going back.

[seremtan]

i've been to Prague in winter; didn't have any issues. then again, this was in 1991, so it was all poor people recovering from communism and Canadian backpackers

[Mat Linnett]

I laughed it off thinking 'lol stereotypes or movies' until I arrived and realised they pretty much run the rock

Yeah, didn't want to say straight out "Naples is a Mafia city", but that's pretty much how it felt. Scary as feck.