I've noticed several comments about vacations that brought back memories of my extensive traveling days -- some funny; some unpleasant; some disgusting; some laughable.

PLEASE NOTE: NEGATIVE COMMENTS SHOULD NOT MENTION LOCATIONS. THE PURPOSE OF THIS IS TO DETAIL PERSONAL EXPERIENCES, NOT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT OR SMEAR CULTURES/NATIONS, ETC.

My Pillow Has Legs:
The hotel was spectacular, total luxury and super expensive (except during the summer when rates dropped and made the luxury affordable - this was when my wife and I went). You weren't assigned a room, you were assigned a small villa with a private pool into which fresh hybiscus blossom were floated every morning. During the afternoon, the beds were decorated with blossoms. Anything you wanted to eat was sent immediately by room service. Guests were provided with pink jeeps for sightseeing. All in all a marvelous experience.

I kept wiping my face. I must be dreaming. So annoying. There it is again. I wiped my face again and, this time, I grabbed something. I turned on the light and let out a scream. I was holding a large lizard by the tail. I placed an emergency call to reception and asked for help. The guys who arrived to help found the whole situation humorous. I wasn't laughing. It didn't help when the men told me that the lizards were completely harmless and were indigenous to that area. They made no attempt to catch the monster (to me it was the size of a tyrannosaurus rex). I refused to go back to bed until I knew the fate of the beast. I stayed up the rest of the night armed with bug spray and a fly swatter and finally found the lizard behind the refrigerator and sprayed and swatted it to death. From that point on we had a lizard alert every evening to search out possible creatures.

Despite the lizards, in looking back, the vacation was fantastic thanks to the spectacular hotel and super service by a wonderful staff.

There's a Foot In My Food
We signed up for what sounded like a romantic afternoon interlude - a lovely lunch by the famous river followed by a visit to an equally famous monument. The motorcoach stopped by the river and we walked the short distance to the beautifully set tables. We took our seats and waited for the delicious aroma that was lunch to be served. Between the tables and the river was thick foliage. As we waited, we heard strange, sudden noises coming from the foliage which ocasionally moved suddenly and viotently. I was lucky enough to have selected a seat nearest the river which meant I was nearest the foliage. And nearest to the goings on in the shrubbery.

Just as lunch was being served, I saw the cause of the foliage disturbances. Rats as big as cats were fighting over, I assume, left over food or their 'turf'. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to create a panic by announcing the rats but I didn't know if they would attack me with a full plate of food, and I dare not tell my wife. While I was wondering what to do, lunch was laid in front of me. There was no choice of menu, but it had a wonderful aroma and was beautifully presented. I decided to momentarily ignore the rats and enjoy the beautiful meal. I wasn't sure what it was; I asked a waiter what was on my plate but did not understand his reply. I picked up my fork and moved what looked like potatoes to get to the main course. When it was uncovered all I could do was stare at it. It was the leg of a small animal with its paw still attached and covered with fur. That did it. I grabbed my wife and hailed a cab. So much for romantic lunches. Our tours ended right there, no matter how romantic or interesting they sounded.

Muchas Cuckarachas
We were finally here; a place that I always wanted to visit. We transferred from the airport to the hotel we had selected, promptly checked in and began unpacking. My wife took some items into the bathroom. I heard her, "Oh Rich." The sound of her voice told me that all was not well. I entered the bathroom and uttered an expletive. The room was crawling with huge roaches. I checked closets and drawers; every area was full of roaches - not a few - I'm talking hundreds. We repacked our luggage and went down to the reception desk, explained the problem and informed the desk staff that we would not stay there and asked them to locate another hotel in which we could stay. I heard several other people complaining about the same thing. The hotel staff would not help and it was getting late; we were exhausted from a long flight, the frustrating unsuccessful negotiations with the hotel staff and our empty stomachs. Back to roachland we went and got into bed (which shows you what one is capable of when faced with extreme hardship). We didn't sleep much; I kept thinking about the lizards crawling on my face a few years prior and could not bear having roaches follow the same route. We checked into another hotel the next morning after being shown a room to ensure it was critter free. It was and we began a wonderful vacation.

Well, that will do it for now. More later.

Any Trivialites have any stories to share?

Nothing like that, you really had adventures.

In 1971 I went to Kenya and the bedroom didn't have glass windows, it just had open brickwork to allow ventilation. The room was on the ground floor so the lizards didn't have far to climb to get into the room. Unlike Rich's lizards, these were fairly small and as I was sleeping under a mosquito net which was tucked in they couldn't get at me so I slept peacefully.

One annoyance I had on one holiday in a spa town in Italy is that being single I was given the 'ha ha' room, this one was right next to treatment rooms where people had massage. At that time the German health system would pay for German patients to have spa treatment so they tried to have most of their treatment in the early hours so as to have the day free. The hefty men who gave the massages used to stand outside the treatment rooms for a chat, outside my bedroom door. I put up with it for two nights then told the hotel staff to find me another room, I sat at reception and refused to move until they moved my room.

My first husband and I had a nice vacation spot on the beach. One evening right before bed, I noticed what appeared to be a cockroach crawling up the drapery in the hallway leading to the bedroom. As I didn't want to pass by it, I called hubby over to kill it, maim it, or whatever with the fly swatter found in the kitchen. As he approached the critter, I swear it all of a sudden sprouted wings, and sounding like a helicopter, took off down the hall towards the bedroom. Hubby and I both screamed like little girls and ran back into the living room, which made us lose sight of the helicopter and where it landed in the bedroom. Needless to say, we both slept on the couch in the living room that night. We never did find it again even though we stayed there a few more days.

The hotel was very nice, clean and well appointed, and was surrounded with beautiful gardens. After a walk through the gardens, my wife and I decided to have dinner in the hotel restaurant. We entered the restaurant and got in a long line of people waiting to be seated; the place was very crowded. My wife and I had no plans so we didn't mind waiting. Suddenly we heard a commotion at the front line. People were yelling and pointing. The Maitre'd looked flustered. When I looked where people were pointing I became flustered too. As soon as some diners finished and got up from their table, people from the end of the line would run to the vacated table, sit down and begin looking at a menu. People who had been waiting for up to one half hour were understandably upset; they became enraged when the Maitre'd did nothing to remedy the situation and waiters began taking orders from these people. Many of the diners began leaving in disgust; this made my wife and I move forward in the line and that much closer to dinner.

Finally our turn came and the weary Maitre'd showed us to our table. I was about to sit down when I was shoved aside and almost fell. A large woman then pulled out the chair, sat down and placed the napkin on her lap. She had crossed the line that I established for myself that determines my involvement in situations. I grabbed the woman's upper arm, lifted her out of the chair and placed her as far away from the chair as I could. I'm sure that the look on my face told her not to pursue the matter further. Finally we sat down and looked forward to a relaxing evening. The waiter approached and said, "Fitch allny." "Excuse me?" I asked "Fitch allny" came the reply again. "I'm sorry but I don't understand you" I said. The waiter was clearly getting upset. I motioned to the Maitre'd and he approached the table with caution. I explained that I could not understand what the waiter was trying to tell me. The Maitre'd looked at me and said, "Fitch allny." Thinking that this must be an episode of 'Candid Camera', I smiled and asked how the fitch allny was prepared. They both replied, "Fitch allny." Suddenly it stopped being funny. A man at the next table motioned for me to come over; I did. "They are trying to tell you that they only have fish left to be served." Ah....so "Fitch allny" was waiter speak for "fish only". I smiled and asked what kind of fish it was. "Fitch allny". "Is it baked, fried, broiled."? "Fitch allny." Becoming agitated, I said, "OK. Fitch allne". When the fitch finally arrived, I took one look at it and saw it staring back at me. The entire fish was draped across the plate, fins, gills ,eyes and all. I couldn't eat the fitch.

We went back to the room, raided the refrigerator and vowed not to ask for iggs, frite or twoost for breakfast.

Touch wood, I have never had any significantly negative travel experiences. Or if I have, I've managed to forget them.

However, just before Christmas, we took a vacation and the hotel we stayed in was playing Christmas carols over the hotel intercom system. Hearing Christmas carols in a non-Christian country in tropical heat did sound rather funny to start with, but then it got stuck on "Frosty the Snowman". For over a day and a half, we heard "Frosty" over and over and over and over...

Finally, Maynooth had a polite word with the lady at the reception desk and asked her to change the record. She smiled a Mona Lisa type smile and attended to it promptly. The nature of the smile made us think the staff were probably placing bets on how long it would take before someone complained.

MG, that reminds me of an incident just a few months ago. I wasn't on vacation, but at home visiting a jewelry store to have a few pieces appraised. While I was waiting and wandering around the store, I heard on the speaker system a favorite song by Dean Martin. Then awhile later, I became aware of the music again and realized it was the same song so I started paying attention and realized that the song was on repeat and kept playing over and over. When the jeweler was ready for me I asked him why it was the only song being played. He didn't know what I was talking about and all of a sudden one of the employees burst out laughing and said that he did that the day before just to see if anybody would notice. None of the employees did and neither did the manager. I guess I was the only one.

Vendome, that rat story made me want to throw up!

I was in my favorite city staying in a lovely old hotel that was full of history. I've never been one for breakfast but I was up early and decided to go to the dining room. I sat at a table and noticed that the orange juice was in a dirty glass. I looked around and discovered that every glass at every table was dirty. It appeared that someone had drank the juice and put the glass back where it originated; there was pulp on the glass and mouth marks on the lip. The dining room had just opened and the servers had just arrived. I drew their attention to the glasses; in unison they said, "Oh no. Not again!" It seemed that this problem started the morning before. The procedure in this dining room was for one employee to set the table at 6:30 am (it opened at 7:00 am) and put the rolls on each table and pour the juice. No one was in the room for the one half hour between setting up and seating guests. The staff was full of apologies; I assured them it was not their fault. I then picked up a croissant and stopped my hand in mid-air. A huge portion had already been bitten out of it. I summoned a server who almost started to cry.

I got up at 6:00 am the next morning to get an early start for the dining room. I was excited; I felt like a cross between Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes. I found a seat behind a large plant and watched. It wasn't long before a figure all in black walked towards the dining room, looked around and entered. I then followed her/him/it to the site of the juice/croissant felony and walked up behind what turned out to be a her. In mid-sip, and with a croissant in her free hand, she jumped when I introduced myself. She hadn't cleared all the tables yet. She was quite large. OK, let's face it, she was fat. I offered to provide her with a trough and a shovel after I called over to reception and asked for some assistance. Away she went both out of the dining room and out of the hotel. Her reservation was cancelled. The next morning I found tables set but no juice or rolls. They were provided when the guest was seated.

Perhaps I got involved with something that wasn't any of my business. But I made it my business thinking where her hands and mouth had been. That's a thought I tried to dismiss as quickly as possible. And with reservations at that hotel, she was not a starving street person. She was just devoid of manners and common courtesy.

Sorry about that. Just count your blessings that you just read about it and didn't experience it.

"I felt like a cross between Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes"


Speaking as a member of the Sherlock Holmes Society of WA, may I say that you did Sherlock Holmes proud!

Having a few months to kill between leaving school and going to 6th form college I was attempting to find somewhere to go for a while to break the monotony as I'd finished a term ahead of my friends and no one else was around during the day. After a couple of other false starts my mother's friend was back from Israel for a visit and said he'd sort me out there. I'd been once before and liked it so was happy to have the chance to have a change of scenery before I was back to studying again.

The first night was spent sharing the floor of his spare room with another visitor, and then went to my grandpa's cousin in town and slept on his floor that night. I then spent the next day in town in my temporary host's office (both were lawyers) and by day three wondered why I hadn't been taken to my permanent quarters yet. 'I'm still trying to sort things out' was the best answer I could get. After another day wandering around and going to a football match he announced the family I was meant to be staying with had gone to Belgium for a family funeral and there was nowhere else to stay. Why a funeral should last more than a few days away I'll never know, but being fairly resourceful went to the travel agent to try and fix myself up. I wanted to take the bus to Eilat and was told due to security issues foreigners under 18 were not allowed to travel alone in the country (what if I'd got on the bus without booking I wonder?) and was forced to then book a flight home the following day. The customs officer checking my case said I'd made a mess and folded everything and packed it nicely for me, and I was home five days after leaving. So much for seeing the world...

Air Agony --
I love to fly. I'm like a little kid every time I take a flight. And the longer the flight the better. Then I flew Air Agony, the flag carrier of this large nation. It was a short flight of about one and one half hours. Prior to boarding, the ramp agent made an announcement that no photos of the aircraft could be taken. Finally, after a security pat-down, we boarded. I wasn't prepared for what greeted me. The interior of this jet made a World War II bomber look like the lap of luxury. No overhead bins, just fishnet webbing. A horrid odor permeated the cabin. The seat covers were stained and slippery. My wife had the window seat; I had the aisle. We got the routine safety/seat belt lecture from the elderly stewardess. My wife and I located our seat belts and attempted to secure them. The problem - she had two buckles; I had two inserts. I looked for the stewardess call button - there was none. By this time the plane was at the end of the runway and revving the engines for take off. And takeoff we did. It was so fast we were glued to the seat back and seemed to be in a vertical climb, going straight up. Finally we leveled off. It was snack time. The elderly stewardess approached me and said, "Jew?" "Excuse me?" I replied. "Jew?" I looked confused. Her ancient co-worker approached with a tray of urine specimens that turned out to be some kind of juice. Then I understood - jew. juice.

With about 30 minutes to go before landing I hoped to take a short nap. I pushed the seat recline lever and my seat back snapped back. I heard a cry of pain when my seat back hit the knees of the passenger seated behind me. My attempt to "return your seat back to its full upright position" were unsuccessful. So there I lay, flat on my back with no seat belt and the plane dropping out of the sky like a rock.

I checked the internet when I came home and discovered that the plane was built in 1959 -the trip was in 1989. That's a bit too old for a passenger plane, especially one piloted by Evil Knieval. Fortunately we had only one flight on Air Agony. Something tells me that that plane is still flying and those same stewardesses are asking passengers if they want a Jew.

I love it.

Back in 1975 my husband and I went to the USSR as it was then, on a package tour. A number of the people on the tour had made other trips to the USSR so knew what to expect. We were warned that the telephone in the room might ring and it would be a wrong number. This happened numerous times and what was so amazing, and unconvincing, was that in an hotel with over 2000 rooms, the vast majority of which were occupied by non-English speakers, every time this happened the accented voice would ask for Charles, Henry, Fred etc in accented English, never any other language.

The trip was however excellent even if Aeroflot cabin did what they had to then left you alone, no attempts to sell dutyfree goods etc.

What was hairy was getting out of the country, KGB checks before you left the terminal building, then more KGB checks at the foot of the aircraft. That was one time you really wanted your visa and passport photos to look like you.

What was remarkable was our trip to Leningrad, as it was then. My father-in-law's family had lived in St Petersburg prior to the revolution, his father had been a mill manager and my f-i-l used to travel to England to school. His family escaped with what they stood in, little more, and at one stage his father had been stood in front of a firing squad then permitted to leave as someone spoke up for him. We asked my father-in-law to describe where he lived so we might try to find it. From his description and the various landmarks it would appear that our hotel, a newish building, was actually built on the site of the family home!

My grandparents took me to America twice, once when I was 20 and once 35, the first time we went to our first proper American restaurant and my grandma asked what I want, I naturally said a hamburger. Had you known my grandma the reply wouldn't have been such a surprise, "What do you want a hamburger for?". There really was no answer to that.

On the way back the second time we got upgraded to Club Class, and unlike everyone else had our own screens and TV menus and headphones and I was watching a comedy, and my grandpa next to me said 'stop laughing!'. I was very grateful for two free long haul holidays, but had to cope with 24 hour surveillance and interrogation the whole time and came back feeling like I'd been released. The second time I was sent for a bath every morning, had the usual survey after the toilet, and still had to ask permission to leave the road and go in a shop, after a few minutes grandpa would usually come in and tell me to hurry up. They liked things done their way and when you were with them (although my grandma softened a lot when grandpa died at nearly 90) although I must say when he stayed with me for a week in Copenhagen on his own at 14 he didn't boss me around at all, so seemed they only worked as a team on that front. If anyone hasn't heard the Greyhound bus nasal-related story send me a message, I think one recount was probably enough.

My wife and I are planning to travel to the Caribbean this year. Having never been there, I'm wondering if anyone has good suggestions as to where they might suggest we visit for our first trip there.
Bahamas? Jamaica? Aruba? Cuba? St. Kitts? Turks and Caicos? Trinidad and Tobago?
Any good suggestions or "steer clear" info would be helpful.

Please don't hesitate to send me a private message if you have a story you'd like to share.

Thanks for reading...yak from The Regal Beagles