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[tampabulls]

Northeast Baltimore. It's not good when there is a movie and television series about your city called Homicide: Life on the Streets. Also, The Wire.

[eIn07912]

Somewhere between Poi Pet and Siem Reap, Cambodia. Around 2am.

We crossed the border late and just getting a car out of Poi Pet was a hassle. We get about an hour into the drive and the driver pulls off what I'm generiously going to call a highway into this broken down abandoned town in the middle of nowhere. No lights. No cars. Just darkness and what seriously looks like a town from Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

He tells us to get out and grab our bags. Another car pulls up and he puts our bags in there. Then the drivers of the two cars and a few other people get to arguing. That's when I noticed one of the other guys has an AK47 slung over his shoulder. Me and the couple I decided to travel with turn white as ghosts and slowly begin backing away. I find a nice wall I'm going to run behind should he start to fire that thing off.

The argument slowly begins to calm. And eventually all our bags go back to the original car and we finish the trip to Siem Reap. But I'm telling you, I've never been more afraid in my life. This is in the middle of nowhere Cambodia. You don't leave the beaten path unless you want your leg blown off by a land mine. Plus, it's pretty much lawless in this part of the world and guys with automatic riffles make me extremely uneasy.

[highdials5]

Good thread! I've been watching "Banged Up Abroad" this weekend - a TV series from back in the UK. Each week it tells the story of someone who went abroad (usually drug smuggling) and ended up in some shithole prison for a few years. Recommended! It certainly is making me glad of my freedom.

[opthomps]

Managua in Nicaragua last december. It felt like I was the only man without a gun. Exciting though

[DrugstoreCowgirl]

Zona 1 in Guatemala City. Cockroaches everywhere, tranny prostitutes on every corner, people shooting up in the park, and we saw a girl laying limp in a planter in a parking lot next door to our hotel and a guy was having sex with her. I actually cried there.

We got lost in a ghetto in Philadephia when we were trying to find the Mutter Museum. That was an intense situation.

I was in Peru when they had that very bad earthquake in August of 07 and my friend and I had to take a bus back from Arequipa to Lima. The roads were broken in half and literally one side was 5 feet higher than the other, or there were cracks 2-3 feet wide. Only one side of traffic could go at a time (this was the Pan-American, so the most major highway in the country). It took forever and we ended up having to stop because we were in this town that had been destroyed and all of the people formed a mob in the street and were screaming and yelling and coming toward the bus. I think most of us were really scared that there was going to be a riot since it was 2 days after the quake and it didn't look like any help had come to the city yet. We were stopped there for over an hour and I can't even explain how relieved we were when we finally started driving again.

[DrugstoreCowgirl]

[No_hite_pls]

[steveinincheon]

Sustenpass, Uri Canton, Switzerland. Of all the inner city ghettos I have seen in my life, never have I felt more in danger than when my friends and I hiked a high pass in the Alps totally unprepared. I had a 25 kilo pack on, was wearing cheap inadequate tennis shoes, and had to descend a ridiculously steep, narrow and icy spit of rock with 300 meter drops on either side. Incidentally we had ignored the locals' warnings that this pass was too tough to handle without crampons and rope. Several times I slipped and started sliding only to be stopped by my friends' hiking poles inches from the edge. Ahh the joys of being 20 and stupid.

I haven't been to Latin America or Africa, but I have never had problems in the US inner city. I've always found that using common sense and acting confident has been enough in places like Detroit, the South Side of Chicago etc. - but I've never actually lived in these places.

The only time I was actually robbed at knifepoint was in Paris near the train station at 4 am. I was also followed for several blocks by a group of angry junkies at 4am when I was f-ed up in Amsterdam, but eventually they let me be.
I have never felt unsafe anywhere in Asia, except on the roads.

[ThingsComeAround]

I've been scared to the point of almost crapping myself, but thanks to a lack of diapers I scrounged the strength to overcome..

First fear I recall while travelling was in Jo'burg, SA.
I'm from NY, and went to a conference with a sizeable group.
However this city (in 2004, probably now also) was like stepping 20/30 years into the past in terms of race relations are concerned. I am a dark man, however I have never been more worried & concerned when a bunch of Dutch start staring because I am walking with a white NZ girl

Another memorable moment came when I traveled to Baltimore with some Korean friends. They were clueless when it came to directions, so we took a "short-cut" through the city. Now, I have been through bad areas of Brooklyn. Bedford-Stuyvesant is not pleasant. Whichever part of B-more we rolled through was worse than that- I saw disheveled whites and blacks, crackheads, etc and I proceeded to lock the door, and roll the windows up. The Koreans laughed. No, I am not used to extreme druggies and no I don't feel comfortable around them.

Last memory I had was in Moscow, at the end of my Trans-Siberian trip. Travelling through Russia is fine in the East, even on the train (however the restaurant ripped us off a few times, whatever). In the city of Moscow, I was worried that we would be mugged- my first night in Moscow was very unpleasant. Drunk kids would shout, and I headed for the hostel. I have seen black people in the city, however none after dark. At the hostel a few girls asked me to visit the club with them, and I flat out refused. Not risking my life, ladies. Not wealthy enough to buy a get outta jail ticket and I don't speak enough Russian to get out of a jam. You go and have fun

[dbmctague]

Hailing from Baltimore, I've been robbed there twice. Once on the fringes of Hopkins University and the other near Druid Hill Park. Both were in the evening. Oh yea, my sister's place was burglarized once. Despite how cool baltimore can be, it's just not worth it in the end. I'd advise against most people moving there. Crime is always a huge problem and the growing yuppy scene in places like fells point and federal hill keeps me away from the more accessible parts of the waterfront. Sadly and despite the pretty good art/music scene, it isn't good enough of an attraction to keep me there. I was never "in the game", but the show "The Wire", from what I can tell, does not exaggerate.

I've been to some pretty rough places in Europe. Their "no go" areas, like we have in the US, aren't nearly as bad. However, whenever I see a group of ghetto looking Middle Eastern looking men walking towards me...lets say it's not a reassuring feeling. Don't mean to be racist, that's just how it is.

Though I don't think I've ever been to a safer city of this size than Seoul.

[davidmatthewsullivan]

Outskirts of Juarez Mexico, 2000. Lawless.

[Capo]

[Zach with a Z]

Belize City. That place is a dump.

[Zach with a Z]