What Odd Places In The World Have You Been?

[JoshuaA]

Strangest places Ive been would have been when I was in China, we went to a province called Shanxi for one night and the hotel was just mad. It was about 12-15 stories high no lift and surrounded by proper factories, the rooms were on coridoors of eight and the door at the end locked. We were asked if we wanted hookers as we checked in or roughly what it translated too then we saw the rooms not great lol the girls I was with were terrified and one of my friends had to share with two guys from Krygistan (spelling) I later played cards with these two as one of them explained why his knife was particularly good for fighting with! We also learned that when you die in Krygistan they kill your horse and eat it same for your 50th wedding anniversary.... Through the two days we stayed in that area one of my friends was offered a fifteen year old girl as his wife from her father because they said he looked like Beckham we also saw a girl who could spin tables and bells with her feet.... for once we were not the only white people for a good few hundred miles and an american guy got put in this giant bell which she then span around on her feet again if he was not there on the front row it would have been one of us

Without a doubt one of the best times of my life ever!

The other funny part of that trip was when we went to Shoulin Temple and we got more attention than the performers

There are other stories but Ill save them for an other time haha

Wills

China is awesome for that, I've only been to Hong Kong, Shaanxi, Guangdong and Beijing provinces however I've quite wanted to go to the Qinghai province or even up to Urumqi, from all the pictures and books it looks like a different world out there! However it does have somewhat of an Islamic influence in that area which causes a lot of civil unrest. Southern area of china are completely unwelcoming towards them. I think they have more racist views that most of UK/America towards Muslims.

I had a similar scenario but not as extreme when it comes to Kyrgyzstan s with killing knives! I found myself in a random underground bar in Guangzhou at the count down to new year, I decided it would be more viable to purchase alcohol from the 7/11 outside than to buy at 500x the price indoors. So I bought a bottle and downed it outside with some friends and stumbled back to the club, I got pulled over to the side by a Pakistani, Somalian and Iranian I thought I was going to get robbed if not stabbed or at least be part of a bad joke. In fact they had pulled me over to celebrate new year as the count down from 30 seconds had begun and recognised that the British celebrate it furiously and wanted us there to join with them. I ended up spending that 5/10 minutes jumping around singing songs with the most random people in the world... Another funny moment and probably the weirdest in a hotel in China I've had was when I woke up one morning to find a maid cleaning my hotel window... she was hanging out from the room next door on the 5/6th floor of a building with a sponge .

The Shoalin temples are impressive, they are so happy with you as guests if you fully embrace their way of life for your time being there. Sleeping on stone beds with no AC, eating Rice and nothing else maybe so Pad choi if you're lucky.

To be honest it is a beautiful place, I have to give it to the Chinese though they are very adaptive and in the outskirts of bigger cities rural areas they literally can make anything from whatever.

The main fear I have is being robbed, it almost happened when I took my girlfriend to Xi'an once and we got tailed by pick pockets, followed for a few streets through a few under ground tunnels, took refuge in a starbucks next to the bell tower in Xi'an, got told by a worker at Sbucks that they have the intentions to jump on us and the worker showed us a back door exit in which we came out into a mcdonalds next door we had a burger and I phoned up my Chinese driver and asked him in poor Chinese to pick us up and I would pay him 200RMB to pick us up and take us back to the Hotel. He arrived in no time even though it was like 10pm at night, the journey for him to take us home took maybe... 3 minutes haha, My girlfriend was petrified.

 

[Wills]

Wow what an adventure! I was staying in Zhengzhou in Hennan (spelling) and we wandered around quite freely and always felt safe, the worst thing that happened to us were probably being followed by beggars or this one time my friend stumbled into a push pike and knocked it over appologised to the guy and we left then the owner caught up with us and wanted (roughly) £30 to repair a basket on the front of the bike which now closed a little less quick than before so our chinese friend took us to a bike shop the owner of the shop laughed at the bike guy and sold him the same basket for £4.

We very rarely saw an other white person which was a bit of an odd feeling but we also kind of felt safe! Oh I tell you one time that scared us actually between our bus stop and hotel was this massive bank and every morning the front door was guarded by 3 guys with machine guns and 3 guys with big maces like medieval weapons about foot foot long with spikes on first morning we see this the exchange or what ever was going on had finnished and these guys shouted at us so we stopped and (crapped oursevles) and they just wanted photos with us we got that a lot! All over the place! On more than one occasion we gathered crowds of 50-100 people just gathered round us taking photos and staring at us

Definatly want to go back to china at some point, we went to a place called Kai Feng which is just amazing but we were rushed through by the guide we had and spent less than a day there but that would be my number one place to go back too.

Wills

 

[JoshuaA]

I got exactly the same, I got was accused of breaking someone's scooter and claiming to a guard that it was worth 1000rmb of damage and insisted I had to pay towards it. I refused as I could understand some of the conversations they were having... Calling me Gweilo and they discussed how much money to want, I refused and the police station on the estate was only around the corner. I went to the police station and they pretty much make everyone tremble at their knees when they're on the beat I walked in expecting it to be like a proper station in stead it was a few wicker seats with guys watching TV and smoking cigarettes. I tried to explain to him English/Chinese he didn't understand so I phoned up my Chinese tutor and she spoke to the officer and like you the police officer burst out laughing and told the chinese person where to go. My tutor spoke to me afterwards and said that the policeman commented on the fact these guys try it on with people all the time. Fortunately for the police officer I recognised him the next day, I bought him lunch at the local Coffee shop. The place where I usually go is a large estate with 3 schools a supermarket, farm. lake, parks and multiple restaurants. Massive but very expensive to live in!

One of my favourite things to do which the Chinese don't understand is when someone shouts "Taxi!!" repeatedly I say "Wo jiao bu taxi!!". My tutor thinks its really funny but she knows for a fact none of the chinese understand the joke involved.

I love the country so much though, some of the natural scenery is so stunning! Have you ever been to Hong Kong? I Love it to but you need a good week or two to get your head around navigation in it. Beautiful city but since it had British influence you can find your way around easily and about 90% of the population speaks English.

Instead of going back to China this year I'm going on a trip to the Dolomites, was suppose to meet step family in Serbia however I don't particularly enjoy the area, the people are great though. Trip is suppose to include 6 countries got a rental car ready . Got a clean licence to rack up some international points in slovenia.

 

[mbsqw1d]

a place called Neston in north west england. There are rumoured to be people there with three eyes etc as they like to spend a lot of time with each other from the village rather than strangers. I bought some beers from a tesco there and I was looked upon as a total stranger as I was not from community.

AAAAHAHAHA! I work not far from there and have had to go a couple of times for training. I couldn't agree with you more, that place is warped! There's an amazing butty shop there though....

Hadfield however where 'Roysten Vasey' from 'The League of Gentlemen' is filmed, is an apt setting for the comedy tv series . I must however, defend it's inhabitants (my Gran lives there)

[edit] I live in Chester (born&bread Manchester may I add!) and you can guarentee to leave the house each day and see a handful of 'strange folk'. I'm not being soft and I have seen my fair share but, the people I have seen in Chester are a class of their own!