While you’re lazing around reading Fifty Shades of Grey on your Kindle on the sandy beaches in Byron Bay, there are others having the worst summer of their lives. Whether they’re pissed off from losing luggage in transit, kicked out of their hotel room at Schoolies, or arrested for petty crimes, they probably didn’t anticipate their summer vacations taking an unwanted twist. However, sometimes these tragedies make great stories. Four people have shared their horrible – but now hilariously trivial – summer experiences with Chattr:
Image: Giphy
Helen was exposed to a traveller’s worst nightmare. The 23-year-old science student lost her luggage on her way home from Malaysia, and the trip wasn’t so great itself either. The loss of luggage was just the cherry on top!
“I went to Malaysia with some mates. The hotel staff were hella sexist and would only speak to the guys in our group. There were some issues with the rooms and the girls tried to explain to the staff what the problems were but they were ignored.”
Not the best start to the trip. Malaysia has very different social structures and values to Australia. For Australian tourists, places like Malaysia, Abu Dhabi and Somalia will most certainly cause culture shock with their opposing systems.
“We all got different flights home and I had a stopover somewhere in Indonesia. There was a staff member waiting for me to take me to my next flight. When I got back to Sydney my luggage was lost. Of course this happens to me!”
Uni graduate, Monique, tells Chattr her most annoying summer holiday experience when she was in Greece:
“A group of us were in Mykonos and thought it would be a good idea to hire a car for the day and drive around the island and closer to the other beaches away from the masses of tourists. My three friends and I jumped in our little car and spent the day beach hopping and visiting delicious little food stalls.”
However, an exotic day in Mykonos soon turned out to be a moment Monique will never forget. After swimming in the last beach they visited, they started the car on a steep hill that stretched for at least 500 metres. They didn’t even make it 10 metres before their car stalled.
“We spent the next hour pushing the car up the hill only to go up an additional 20-30 metres. With all hope lost, we thought that we would die like in one of those Greek tragedies and be known as the four tourists who died from being run over by their stalled car trying to get home to drink cocktails at sunset.”
Thankfully, a few locals had noticed their struggle and towed the car the rest of the way!
Source: Giphy
Oliver, a 21-year-old biology student in Sydney, learned the travel tip of downloading maps before exploring foreign cities – the hard way.
“I was in Budapest on holidays, and I wanted to sleep in at the hostel instead of going out and exploring the city early with the rest of my friends. We agreed to meet at a supermarket, which was fairly close to the hostel, later in the day. When I got a message from them telling me to meet them there I left the hostel and started following the directions that my friend gave me.”
Either the directions were wrong or Oliver was a spaz, but after twenty minutes of walking around, he realised he was completely lost. Despite almost an hour of asking locals for directions or if he could use their phone to access a map, he was consistently ignored.
“I was wandering around a foreign city with no idea how to get to the meeting spot or back to the hostel. Eventually I found another hostel and walked in and asked if they knew where it was … and it was literally right around the corner. I managed to get back safe and sound and learned a very important lesson: always download the maps of the foreign city you’re staying in beforehand.”
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Sydney University student, Sam, has a foggy memory of his time at Falls Festival last summer, however cannot forget the fact that he was fined for petty violation.
“What began as one of the most unreal experiences at my first camping music festival with banging tunes and even better people quickly spiralled into disaster after what I thought was an innocent dip in a pool.”
It was the evening of the last day of the festival, pouring with rain, when Sam and his friends were slipping down steep AF mud hills. In all of the excitement – and in his inebriated state – Sam realised his newly bought Dune Rats shirt, perfect for the occasion, was all muddy.
“Clearly, that left me with no option but to desperately find somewhere to wash it off and restore back to its bright yellow colour in time for the much-anticipated Vince Staples, Peking Duk and The Kooks, all of which I was extremely excited for.”
In Sam’s quest to solve this minor inconvenience of a muddy Dune Rats shirt, he spotted a mock up beach area with half a dozen blow up pools. With a security guard near the entrance and the pool area being ‘closed’ for the night, Sam was on a mission; nothing would stop him. After jumping in, the security guard yelled at Sam to get out over something that seemed so minor.
“Luck was clearly on my side that night as a couple of police officers also happened to be walking past. With no shirt on and dripping wet, I then had the privilege of being escorted and stuffed into a police van on the outskirts of the venue and issued with a $350 penalty infringement notice for… ‘trespassing’! For ‘entering an enclosed area without lawful excuse,’ of which I clearly beg to differ! With zero belongings on me, as all my stuff was still back at the campsite, I was subsequently kicked out of the venue leaving me soaking wet and foregoing the rest of the night’s performances. Joke’s on them though as I had a pretty clean shirt by the end of it!”
Even though these experiences are downright shit, this lot can only laugh at their misfortune. If things don’t go your way this summer, at least you know that it might be slightly humorous by winter. Safe holidays!