REVscene - Vancouver Automotive Forum

CivicBlues · 05-04-2018, 10:08 AM

Jeeze, so many "stories" here are just poop stories. I rarely have issues with multi-day diarrhea anymore whilst travelling by following some simple rules.

More times than not it's transit stress/jetlag in combo with drinking the water that gives you intestinal distress. Cooked food is usually fine. And by "drinking the water" that includes iced drinks and eating raw unpeeled produce that's washed in local tap water. Stay away from both (salads especially) until you've acclimatized to the local bacterial flora.

Cooked street food from popular stalls in Thailand and SE Asia shouldn't give you many issues since they wouldn't be in business long if they poisoned their customers.

unit · 05-04-2018, 10:23 AM

basically just every day solo backpacking in india was an intense adventure. took lots of trains, tried all the different classes, ranging from the lowest sleeper class in the north where i didn't know there was no bedding, froze my ass off that night and had to beg an employee to upgrade me to a different class... that wasn't easy.. they're assholes to anyone riding in low classes. even the upper classes are not much better, just more privacy and space, but same smelly ass train. some trains had shitty couplings for the cars, so occasionally when they're barely moving, the car would suddenly jolt, giving me a damn near heart attack every time... coupled with my anxiety, i seriously have never been on a worse ride.

i have tons of stories of my trip to uganda too... take an 8 person van and put over 20 people in it with chickens, drive 6 hours on shitty roads and bottoming out suspension... did that too many times... amazing place though. highly recommend going if you're in for adventure. amazing people, best i've ever met, breathtaking landscapes, and hardly any tourists.

underscore · 05-04-2018, 12:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CivicBlues

More times than not it's transit stress/jetlag in combo with drinking the water that gives you intestinal distress.

In my case we think it was actually something one of my buddies picked up just prior to flying down. He spent the first night puking and then ended up with the same issues I did the day after he got home. I was sitting next to him on the plane and my digestive system is questionable at best so I think that's why I got hit the worst.

underscore · 05-04-2018, 01:31 PM

Now that I've got some time and remembered to do this here's the ski trip story.

Last summer a friend of mine invites me to come on a ski trip with some friends of his that I've never met before. It's at a resort that's on my skiing bucket list so jump at the opportunity to go. The person organizing it books a big stand-alone condo to fit the whole group in one place in the fall, I look at the pictures of the place and it seems cool, the only downside is the rental states no dogs so my friend and another couple will have to leave their dogs at home (this is important for later).

I don't think about it for the next few months until my buddy comes to town and we load up my Jeep, drop his dog off at his moms for the weekend and head out. Many hours later we roll into town, grab some supplies at the grocery store and head up to the hill to find the place we're staying at. According to some text messages we're likely going to be the first ones there so we go to the address we'd been given by the couple organizing it and pull into the empty driveway.

Right off the bat my friend is annoyed because there's a Kong dog toy sitting right in front of the garage so we're confused as to why we weren't allowed pets. I brush it off and we find the lockbox and try the code we'd been given, which was 2016. It doesn't work, but it's shortly after the new year so we try 2017 and it unlocks so we grab the key and open the door. We bring a bunch of stuff inside and start looking around. We find that the place is clean but one bathroom and two bedrooms are half reno'd but there's still enough beds for our group so no big deal. We see a dog bed, and dog dishes, and a fridge magnet that says "the dog is the real king of the house" and my buddy is getting a bit pissed that his dog had to stay at home. The fridge is half full of food which seemed a bit odd but I've never rented from an AirBnB before and figured maybe the owners were new at it or something so I move their stuff to one side. In hindsight these should have tipped us off but after 8 and 12 hours on the road respectively we weren't that sharp. We unload the clean dishwasher, I make a sandwich and my friend starts making sausages while he shovels off the deck around the hot tub. I sent a couple pictures of the place to my parents and fiance of the place and then look around a bit more. I managed to bluetooth my phone to the stereo and find the router with the wifi password on it and I'm happily eating my sandwich and decide to check Facebook before calling it a night and just meeting everyone else in the morning.

As I'm munching away I see in my notifications that someone's posted in the FB group for the trip. I open it, and it reads something along the lines of "it was a bit tricky but I found the place, it's awesome, see you guys when you get here". Now alarm bells are finally starting to go off, since there's nobody else there. I call to my buddy out the door and ask if he knows X and if we're all staying in the same place on this trip. He says yes and I fill him in on the post. It's been a while since we looked at the pictures of the place so I pull up the link to the listing with the pictures and realize we're in completely the wrong place, we're even on the wrong side of the road. Now we're in fully alert mode, we're grabbing all our stuff and tossing it back in the Jeep as fast as we can while trying to make sure we don't forget anything, we're tossing dishes in the dishwasher and watching every car that goes by to see if it's gonna pull in the driveway. We know they have a dog but we have no idea what kind of dog it is or what kind of people own this place. Do they have a hidden security system? Are they the kind of people who would just send a not-so-friendly dog in the door with no warning? Finally we get the heck out of there and drive down the road to find the place we're actually supposed to be at, now that we've got pictures and are looking on the correct side of the road. When we get there a few other people are already there, the guy who made the post had similar issues finding the place but at least he was looking on the right side of the road and knew the name of the place.

What had happened was the listing didn't actually have an address, so one of the organizers had found it on Google Maps, dropped a pin at the spot and copied that address. What Google had spit out was actually a range of addresses for that chunk of the road, (ie 1002-1067) but my friend had just punched the first number in his phone not realizing this. It all worked out in the end but I've wondered what would've happened if I had just gone to bed and never saw the post. There were a few vehicles in the driveway of the other place on the day we left, we were half tempted to stop by and see if they were the owners and noticed anything but decided against it.

CivicBlues · 05-04-2018, 02:50 PM

LOL, now that's a story.

I assume that place was also an Airbnb since who would use such an obvious code for their lockbox?

Traum · 05-04-2018, 03:47 PM

When I was young, piss poor, naive, and stupid, a number of my university labmates had a presentation to deliver in Ottawa. Because they were presenting, their respective profs paid for their expenses for the trip. I was the new guy at the time, so I didn't have any legitimate reason to ask my prof to pay for the trip if I were to go. Still, I was new to Ontario, and have never been to Ottawa yet at that point, so I really wanted to go.

As luck would have it, the organizers sent out a call for volunteers. In exchange for some free labour -- which basically boiled down to some admin / clerical stuff, manual labour, plus a bunch of seminar moderator work, the volunteers get to attend the conference for free. I jumped on the opportunity, and even managed to convince my prof to pay for the dirt cheap dorm accommodation during my stay. I offered to drive 2 of my labmates to Ottawa, and they agreed to pay for gas (which was gonna be covered by their prof anyway). So off to Ottawa we went -- minimal cost to myself for a multi-day trip to Ottawa. Win #1.

Day 1 was eye-opening because I have never been in that kind of environment before. In one of the presentations, I even managed to ask a smart aleck, but totally sensible and legitimate question that left the presenter stammering in a good moment of awkward silence. But other than that, the day went by fairly normally. A bunch of students, myself included, went out for dinner & a drinks together after the conference, and I suspose that was pretty normal.

I had moderator duty in the morning of Day 2, but was free to do my own thing in the afternoon. Supposedly, I should have used that time to attend the presentations that I was interested in, but nothing had caught my eye. So instead of staying at the conference, I sneaked out to do some sight-seeing in DT Ottawa. Just as I was leaving, I ran into a very pretty Caucasian girl who was also skipping out from the conference for the afternoon. She recognized me from the smart aleck question that I asked in Day 1, and after a bit of small talk, we agreed to go sight seeing together.

My memory is failing me now, but I vividly remember her beautiful eyes were a rare colour -- either hazel or gray. She was an international student from Europe studying in Canada, and she had a beautiful French accent. We walked along Rideau Canal, up to Parliament Hill, checked out the Rideau Locks, toured around Byward Market -- basically a bunch of pretty standard touristy stuff. We were having a great time, and we ended up having dinner somewhere together as well. The day had turned into an unplanned but totally wonderful date, and it was one of the few rare times for me with a Caucasian girl.

I walked her back to the dorm, and she thanked me for spending a wonderful day with her. Before she left, she leaned in and gave me a quick peck on my cheek. Being young, naive, and stupid, I totally did not know how to react, and was just kind of stunned there.

She bid me goodbye, and said she'd see me again the following day at the conference. I was still too stunned to give any sort of meaningful reaction, and I stood there for quite a few more minutes before I was able to gather myself and head back to my dorm.

Because of my absence, my labmates asked a few questions when I got back to the dorm. But they didn't really pursue on the topic, and we quickly wrapped up for the night.

The 3rd and last day at the conference was only a 1/2 day thing. Try as I might, I unfortunately couldn't find the same girl anywhere on the conference grounds at all. I was really quite bummed because I didn't ask the girl for her contact info during our time together.

To this date, I continue to have some very fond memories of Ottawa.

underscore · 05-04-2018, 09:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CivicBlues

LOL, now that's a story.

I assume that place was also an Airbnb since who would use such an obvious code for their lockbox?

When I thought about it afterwards I don't think it was a rental, at least not at the time. Two bedrooms and the one bathroom were mid-reno with the doors open and stuff everywhere in them, the vacuum was out, some swim shorts were hanging in the one shower, and the kitchen cabinets were packed with food.

It made me wonder 2 things, first just how many places use super basic codes like that? Especially at a ski resort, it would be pretty easy to just try a few codes at places that look empty, odds are you could get into one of them. If it's a rental it'd be even easier to find out what weekends aren't booked and just show up. Second, if the owners of that place have a teenage kid they probably got in shit if the parents thought they let their friends use it without permission or something lol.

Obsideon · 05-04-2018, 11:26 PM

Thailand food standards?... so I saw this noodle soup stall on the side of the road.
I ordered one... started eating it.
Then I saw how they were cleaning the used bowls... basically...
1) Toss leftovers onto the curb
2) Dunk the bowl into a pail of murky water
3) Ladle a scoop of hot soup into the bowl
4) Dump that soup into the street
5) ... make next order ...

Spoiler!

chinook79 · 05-05-2018, 08:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Obsideon

Thailand food standards?... so I saw this noodle soup stall on the side of the road.
I ordered one... started eating it.
Then I saw how they were cleaning the used bowls... basically...
1) Toss leftovers onto the curb
2) Dunk the bowl into a pail of murky water
3) Ladle a scoop of hot soup into the bowl
4) Dump that soup into the street
5) ... make next order ...

Spoiler!

This is pretty standard practice on all SEA street food vendor. That's why I prefer food court over street vendors in SEA unfortunately.. similar taste, similar pricing, and much better sanitary condition... at least in SEA

syee · 05-05-2018, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chinook79

This is pretty standard practice on all SEA street food vendor. That's why I prefer food court over street vendors in SEA unfortunately.. similar taste, similar pricing, and much better sanitary condition... at least in SEA

That reminds me of my last trip to Vietnam. I was in Hanoi and went to get street pho. Grabbed the chopsticks (which were the disposable kind), and noticed that the plastic packaging was already opened. Grabbed another - same thing. Pulled the chopsticks out of the packaging and they're all damp. Looks like the place just "washes" the disposable chopsticks and throws them back in the plastic to make it look like new. So glad I got my shots done before I went on this trip!

chinook79 · 05-06-2018, 03:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by syee

That reminds me of my last trip to Vietnam. I was in Hanoi and went to get street pho. Grabbed the chopsticks (which were the disposable kind), and noticed that the plastic packaging was already opened. Grabbed another - same thing. Pulled the chopsticks out of the packaging and they're all damp. Looks like the place just "washes" the disposable chopsticks and throws them back in the plastic to make it look like new. So glad I got my shots done before I went on this trip!

If you have seen what I have seen from the trip to Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Philippines street food vendor, "washed disposable chopsticks" is last thing you will worry about street food. Despite seeing those.. I still eat those and *knock on wood* have not gotten sick from it. I think it was because that I only go for "hot street food" and when it comes to drink, always get bottled water.

underscore · 05-06-2018, 06:48 PM

Even bottled water you have to watch out, I've been told that in Vegas the people selling bottled water on the street take the empty bottles and refill them from the tap, without washing them at all.

chinook79 · 05-06-2018, 09:20 PM

that's true especially since it's so easy to make the used bottle look alike new bottle with sealed cap..
btw, if you are in Indonesia, be cautious of the meat you eat on the street..
It's not unusual for street vendors to rat poison stray dogs and sell it as "beef"
not only are you eating dogs unknowingly, you could potentially be eating meat contaminated with rat poisons..

https://globalnews.ca/news/3587171/t...now-it-report/

CivicBlues · 05-07-2018, 09:41 AM

LOL story sounds like SJW Animal rights hysteria. But if true that's why I always stick with Chicken in SE Asian countries. Outside of Cambodia and western steakhouses their "Beef", even with not suspect, is pretty tough and flavourless.

punkwax · 02-07-2019, 10:28 PM

Late to the party here but I have a story to share. Didn’t want to post it earlier because of the industry I’m in but now that marijuana is legal I’ve relaxed a little and don’t mind telling it.

Back in 2001 my girlfriend (now wife) and I went to Jamaica. We connected via Toronto where it was -10 so I was dressed warm and comfortably in fleece sweats and a hoody for the flight. Needless to say when I got there in the 30+ heat I was a little clammy from the humidity, which was uncomfortable but turned out to be a blessing in disguise.. which I’ll explain a little later on.

Every trip I go on I tend to do some research ahead of time which I’m sure isn’t uncommon. Somewhere along the way I had read that the Jamaican government had a program to try and bust people buying weed so they’d have to post bail and that was a way they’d generate revenue. Ok.. don’t buy weed. Check.

I get to the airport in Jamaica and no joke at least a dozen people ask me if I smoke. I say no to all of them and almost get outside. There’s officers all around with guns so no chance I’m looking to score in the airport of all places. I get near the exit and the last guy asks me where I’m from. I say Vancouver. “Ohh you know the good shit then mon, you smoke?” Since I’m almost out the door and he’s the only person who actually asked me a question aside from just “do you smoke” I tell him I do at home but I’m not interested here. Here’s how the rest of the conversation went:

Him - “Come with me to the bathroom mon.”
Me - “No thanks I’m good man”
Him - “You’re at the airport mon, this is the best place to buy weed.”
Me - “I’m in Jamaica. I’m sure the airport isn’t the best place.”

I carry on walking. He lifts up my shirt and puts a bag on me. Since I’m overdressed it sticks to my stomach.

Him - “This is how we do it here. Now come to the bathroom”
Me - “I said no man. I didn’t ask for this.”
Him - “You owe me $100 US dollars, let’s go”
Me - “I told you, I didn’t ask for this and I’m sure as hell not giving it back..” as I look at all the officers around.

I tell the wife I’m grabbing my wallet from my suitcase and shake my shirt enough that the bag falls inside of my suitcase and quickly zip it up. He follows me outside lowering the price with every 10-20 steps we take.

Him - “40 dollars US mon that’s it”
Me - “I only have travelers cheques. They’re useless to you. I told you I didn’t want it. I’m not giving you anything”

We’re only a few feet outside and he must’ve recognized an officer or something.. I’ll never forget the tone of his voice when he said threateningly, “Todays your lucky day mon.” and disappeared.

We take a few more steps and a dude in a red vest and matching cap says, “welcome to Jamaica! Please let me take your bags.” I say no as our shuttle is about 100’ away in the parking lot. “Let me do my job mon, you are on vacation” he pleads. Again, I say no and continue on. He physically takes the bags out of my wife’s hands and then goes for mine, one of which has a bag of weed in it which I’m totally paranoid about. I decline one last time and he literally wrestled them out of my grip and kept saying “you are on vacation, let me do the work.”

We get to the shuttle and he sticks out his hand and says “it’s customary to tip the red caps $20 US per bag” I look at him and tell him the same thing I told the other guy. “I didn’t ask you to take my bags, you took them. I have travelers cheques and no cash. You aren’t getting anything.”

Obviously by now I’m pissed off and not loving my first few minutes in Jamaica. We get in the shuttle, almost crash several times on the way to the resort as it’s absolute madness on the roads out there and finally get to the resort. When I stepped out and got my bags,
I actually walked to some grass and kissed the ground thankful I had made it there safely. Sounds crazy I’m sure, but I did.

When we got to the room I pulled out the bag of weed. It was at least a half ounce. My wife had no idea any of this happened in the airport and was completely oblivious despite walking beside me the whole time. The whole exchange was that incognito. I told her the story and she couldn’t believe it much like everyone I tell the story to.

We were easily the most popular couple at the resort for those two weeks. Everyone knew we had a bag and we shared on the beach daily. It was a great time but I’ll never pay to go back to Jamaica myself. If I get offered a free trip.. maybe lol

Hondaracer · 02-08-2019, 04:19 PM

One that just popped into my mind here was from my wife and i most recent trip to europe.

The first night we arrived in Budapest from YVR we checked into our Airbnb and went out for dinner, stupid tired and hungry we pound through a few drinks and a great dinner and then try to walk to the river to see the Buda castle, chain bridge, etc.

Its kind of hectic when you get closer to the water/promenade because there is a 2-4 lane road you seemingly have to cross to get to the stairs down

We eventually find a little sketchy underground entrance which i assume leads below the road for safe crossing. Go down some sketchy dark stairs and then come out where i expected in a little lit alcove which opens up out onto the promenade. Just as i'm about down i turn to look and there is clearly like a hobo encampment inside this little alcove under the stairs which i just came down..

hmm...ok..

i walk a little further and i see a couple legs stretched out as they are lying on somthing with their feet facing out towards the walk way..

Continue to walk about 5-6 feet ahead of my wife when i turn back to look at the hobos lying there. Both were asleep and the one guy who was a fairly big guy (in more ways than one

) was completely, butt naked lying on his back on the mattress..

I stand there and look for a second as my wife is walking up.. the guy has probably a 8' penis flacid. just hanging out staring at me standing at the end of the tunnel..

I'm a little taken back thinking hmmm... alright...

Wife comes up and we continue to walk.. i kinda stutter and im like uhhh.. did you just see that?..

she hadnt lol :/ wtf..

Mr.HappySilp · 02-11-2019, 11:50 AM

EDIT

unit · 02-12-2019, 04:09 PM

was just in thailand bike touring. my friend and i are both vegetarian, so we were touring around the countryside looking for somewhere to eat in one of the villages.

anyway we were starving and looking for a restaurant and it's actually quite difficult to be a vegetarian in this part of the country. in some parts of the day all they eat is literally pork soup, similar to pho but pork broth. you'd stop at 5 restaurants that have like 10-20 things on the menu but all they're serving up is a bowl of pork soup. so i learned the word for vegetarian by then and i'm asking around, getting desperate, not wanting to just eat banana snacks and corn all day.

thing to note is a lot of these villages have houses that use plastic advertisement banners as patio sunshades. they collect them from wherever the fuck and stick them on their houses to block sun, so a lot of these houses look just like restaurants and stores. same tables and chairs as the stores, same ads on the outside as stores, to me they all look kind of the same. later i'd figure out that the easiest way to distinguish the difference is that stores/restaurants always have some sort of fridge selling drinks, and houses always had their fridges inside.

so we walked up to this one family who is eating dinner with like 10 family members at different tables and asked for food. they offered us their pork soup, but noooo, we're vegetarians. we explained to them we don't eat meat, and we would need a food that was just vegetables. couldn't they just fry us up some veggies and noodles instead of cook them in the pork broth? they had everything right there. they finally understood and one of them even ran across the street to the corner store to buy us bottled waters. they made us a nice veg noodle dish and around halfway through the meal my friend and i started to piece together that this wasn't a restaurant at all. we had just walked over to someones home and demanded the pickiest food possible (presumably for free). of course we offered them money and of course they refused. we sat and laughed with them for a while but i'll never live that down! not sure how well they understood that we wouldn't have done that if we didn't know it was just their family dinner... super nice people for sure.

Hondaracer · 02-12-2019, 06:15 PM

i would think it would be hard to get by as a vegetarian outside of the "modern" western world

even in like central/eastern Europe it would be a nightmare

unit · 02-13-2019, 08:49 AM

totally, with the exception of india which i found was very easy obviously in every state i visited. in big cities around the world it's very possible to find veg/vegan food easily, but you have to seek it out every meal, you can't just walk up to any restaurant and expect a few decent veg options. sometimes there will be almost nothing for you to eat except bread and (basic) salad, maybe a small appetizer.

Hondaracer · 02-13-2019, 08:56 AM

Oh yea india seems like veggie heaven lol.. maybe the one place I could get by eating vegetarian. I’ve been recently watching a bunch of travel bloggers traveling throughout India and while I have no interest in going there, the food looks amazing

yray · 02-13-2019, 09:06 AM

diarrhea too

blkgsr · 02-13-2019, 09:52 AM

india is one of the most amazing places i have ever been to. the food, the chaos, the people, the sights

I've been throughout SE asia, central/south america, europe etc

Hondaracer · 02-13-2019, 09:54 AM

The opinions on India seem to be always polar opposites. Some people absolutely love it while others fucking hate it lol.

Have a few family friends who go there once every few years for work and always say it’s by far the worst place they go to. And some of them live half the year in places like Thailand etc lol

CivicBlues · 02-13-2019, 10:23 AM

I hated it most of the time I was there but in retrospective it was a great experience. The noise, smell, and constant hassling wears you down and I was mostly by myself the whole time which made it feel isolating.

I'd go back but to a different part of the country like the South which is supposedly more chill. The North can suck donkey balls but it's where the majority of the top sights are (Taj Mahal, Mosques, Forts, Deserts).

Oh the food was great, I really only got sick once and it was probably due to over-exertion more than anything. Just remember to take Dukoral before you go.