Bad decisions make for good stories - Travel Edition - part 2

Probably my biggest journey is when I went to China for 5 months. I stayed in Tianjin, but I travelled to Zhangjiajie, Hainan, Shanghai and Beijing during my time there and boy was this an adventure!

These five months in China are both the best and the worst travel experience I have ever had. It´s quite hard to travel in China, since not a lot of people speak (decent) English and the culture is so different to what we in the west are used to. This leads to about a hundred misunderstandings a day. For example: you travel in one direction hoping it to be the right one, without knowing if it is, and without anyone being able to tell you since they won't understand where you're going anyway. If they do, you won't understand if you're going the right or the wrong way, and how you'll get to your destination. During a barbecue, you'll eat (quite literally) every part of a cow, whether you like it or not. Probably the worst part of my trip was that I managed to visit three different hospitals, all because of a broken tailbone and some very annoying kidney stones. In the hospital (where you'd think someone would speak English), they did an ultrasound on the wrong kidney, no matter how hard I tried to get that info across, I never managed.

Luckily health-wise, it all turned out alright in the end but I would advise anyone going there (or any other country outside the EU really) to have good travel insurance, with a health insurance included. Thank me if you ever need it! Safety and security isn't really a priority in other areas either. Bars have the highest volume I have ever heard, it´s literally not possible to talk to anyone in there, let alone order the correct drink so you better bring earplugs. Some more weird things I learned during my time in China: instead of popcorn or potato chips you get served fruit with your beer. You haggle everywhere, even at cafés in a big shopping mall where you'd expect fixed prices. And perhaps most importantly, for me as a foodie: everything you think is going to be sweet is salty, and the other way around. This led to some VERY disappointing moments. 

These we'rent the only disappointments though. The Chinese seem to think differently of preserving their natural wonders. We read about Hainan online internet, which was supposed to be this beautiful “Hawaian” island. When we arrived here, it was beautiful, yes, but there was also a massive soup of trash in the ocean making any kind of water activities a nasty no-go. We tried to book some tours but was not successful, were just kind of, denied? I am still not sure what went on there, if it was just fully booked or some kind of racism. Fortunately, it wasn't all bad. In Shanghai, I had the most expensive freaking brunch but it was AWESOME. Champagne and shellfish and just round after round with desserts. True foodie heaven, and highly recommended. Overall, China is big, weird, fun and very different!

On my trip through Central America, I visited Belize. It's one of the most stunning countries out there, truly a paradise and not overrun by mass tourism yet. I made some new travel friends during my time travelling in Guatemala, and we met up again in Caye Caulker where we decided to rent some bikes. Caye Caulker is this gorgeous Caribbean island, complete with the sandy beaches and coloured houses. It's divided by a thin strip of water into North Island and South Island. The South Island is home to Caye Caulkers only village, while North Island is dominated by dense mangrove forests and all the flora and fauna related to that. 

With the bikes, we went all the way up to the North Island to look for crocodiles, as these are supposed to live in the mangroves here. Unfortunately during our day trip, we didn’t really get to see them up close but just saw some shimmering in the water. The day after, we went kayaking to enjoy the amazing sunsets at Caye Caulker, when one of us decided to stand up in the kayak to take some extra-special pictures. This turned out to be a horrible decision, as it made us lose our balance and we tipped over, into the water. As you never know what's in the water, we needed to make our way back to the shore again. When doing so, we suddenly saw something from the corner of our eye, getting very close. When turning our heads, it turned out to be a (small, but still!) crocodile, so our wish to see the crocs up close became a little too real!

This story is about my trip to Ecuador, in South America. My partner and I had been to the Galapagos Islands for a while, and had just half a day in Quito (the capital of Ecuador) before heading to the airport at 01.00 in the morning. As our sleep rhythm would be messed up anyway, we decided to stay awake so we just chilled a bit in our hotel room getting ready for our flight. So far, so good, you'd think, until an hour before we have to leave the hotel to go to the airport, the power went out. In that moment, we didn't really think about things and just used our flashlights to get around the room and pack our final things. When the clock turns 00.55 and we take our bags to make our way down to the reception, the power is still out and it turns out that the hotel door and property gate couldn't open without electric power to it. At this time, we realised that we're trapped in the hotel. As we were already a little pressed for time to get to the airport on time, this was really bad news.

The receptionist was running around to find a solution, and we end up going out through a non-electrified back door to get past the front door. Unfortunately, this didn't solve our issue as we still couldn't get through the gate. Our taxi driver is waiting on the other side of the gate, wanting to pick us up. To try and open the gate from the outside, the receptionist gave him the keys while we turned our flashlights on to help him do it. A good half hour has passed and we haven't progressed at all which was extremely frustrating, but there was simply nothing we could do and everyone was trying their best for us. After another 20 minutes of fighting with the door, they finally got it open and we rushed to the airport like there was no tomorrow. In Quito, the distance from the city centre to the airport is quite far, so we were under a lot of pressure when we left the hotel over an hour late. But our driver just flew down the streets of Quito and luckily we managed to make it to our plane, just in time!

This story is from the time I backpacked through Colombia, a surprisingly big country, so it took some time getting around. One day, me and two others from Israel wanted to travel from Bogota to Salento with a night bus. Night buses are great, as you save on accommodation, plus you move while you sleep gaining valuable time to explore during the day. Anyway, this bus ride was supposed to take around 8 hours, which was fine as this would get us at least some hours of rest. We paid a little extra for the nice comfy seats which could incline further so you could sleep better, so we were totally up for the journey.

Well… little did we know. The roads were flooded, so after a while we couldn’t continue driving any longer. We stranded somewhere along the way and there was simply no way we could go further along the road. But we were in the middle of a road, not near any city or hotel so we couldn’t really leave the bus either. Occasionally we could drive for half a meter, only to stop again shortly after. This went on and on and on. Long story short: the bus ride took a whopping 42 hours!!! Yes, I'm not even kidding. What would have been a comfy 8-hour nightly bus ride, became a two nights and almost two days journey. But... always look on the bright side of life, especially when travelling! Luckily for us, there were some stunning views along the way. I'm also really glad for the kind locals who drove by on their motorbikes to sell us some sodas and snacks, and as a meal some fried chicken and rice, which isn't much, but what we had to survive on. We could leave the bus to stretch our legs at the times we were halted for a long time, but it wasn't an option to go far as we had no idea where we were, and how we would get out again if it wasn't on that damned bus. It was the worst bus ride ever, but looking back it was also fun and an experience I will never ever forget! We even made some friends on the bus, and the best thing is: this story is what got me the interview at KILROY! 

There are so many more stories to tell, and we'll be sure to keep sharing. Not just via our blogs, but also on social media and during our events and webinars. Book a meeting with us, and get personal advice and tips for your journey. 

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