Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

Mine is more a "I wonder what that was all about?" kind of thing.

I had been in Greece for a few days doing Athens and decided it was time to get out into the countryside for the first time. Bought my ticket for Marathon, Let's Go Greece gripped firmly in hand. Ride for about 45 minutes or so, amazed at the insanity of Greek drivers whizzing past the bus (Koreans have nothing on Greeks in that department).

The driver knew where I was going, so at what he said was the appropriate spot, I got off with an elderly couple. Step down and whip out the guide book because this place does not look like the book said it would. The driver pulls away and the old couple start shouting and waving fists. After a few minutes the old gentleman, black suit and tie, comes over and babbles in a friendly manner. I do my best Greek to say where I was headed (meaning I said the name of the museum over and over while shrugging my shoulders and looking as lost as possible). He seemed to understand. Shakes his head, indicates I should stay there and goes back over to the Mrs. and must of told her my story. She comes over, black dress and head scarf, and seemed to commisserate and indicated I shouldn't leave. For 20 minutes or so we stand there in the baking sun and watch the bus in the distance start and stop. Finally it does a loop sort of thing and heads back our way. Eventually, it stopped and picked me up again. I watched the old couple totter off down the road and have wondered ever since why I got dumped off a bus on the side of the road in the middle of absolutely Nowhere, Greece for 20 minutes. It finally did drop me off at the museum.

The other nagging question I had: Why after 2,500 years of tourism, isn't Greece better organized for tourists?

[trevorcollins]

Seven years or so ago I was in a town in the west of Cambodia named Battambang. These days Cambodia seems to almost be an emmerging shining light in Asia. At least relative to what it was a few years ago.
Military coup had just gone down, everyone in the country had an M-16, even the dudes working the rice fields. Anyhow a few weeks earlier the border had opened up with Thailand. So being nice and naieve it seemed like a leisurely stroll across the border into Cambodia would be in order. Whoa, talk about stepping straight into the wild west.
Anyhow, I was out and about in the countryside on a motorbike one day, headed for some temples. Local dudes were talking about some abandoned artillery pieces up on a hill not to far away and it seemed like a prime destination.
Get up there with my moto driver and he decides he's had enough and will go and eat some scorpions or tarantulas or whatever other prime cuisine he'd been talking about earlier in the day. Leaves me at the mercy of the local monastery English students.
No problem, that's cool.
"We can be guide. Want practice English" one says in an incredibly thick Khmer accent.
So we stroll up this hill, reach these guns. Apparently they'd recently been used to shell a Khmer Rouge enclave a few kilometers away. No soldiers around guarding them or anything. Presumably they were down in the town shacked up with the imported Vietnamese hookers, puffing away on an enless supply of local grass.
I guess no one had that much confidence that the cease fire was going to hold so they'd left these things here rather than move them to a better location or sell them to the Burmese army as had been the case with a lot of this old hardware at this point.
Anyhow, we're on the top of this hill, having sweated our cans up the hill for the last 30 minutes or so in the blazing tropical sun, and frankly the view sucked.
Up ahead there was rubble of some old destroyed building.
Kids are still rabbiting away to me. "Favorite color? Hmm...that's a tough one" Slowly making my way down the ridge to this building. One of the kids suddenly stops me and says....
"Sir....Mutenxshjoks"
"Huh?"
"Mrtihubws"
"Monkeys? Cool!"...continue on my way.
Kids are all standing 30 meters or so behind me at this point and one of them says insistently....
"No sir!" and proceeds to spell....."M-I-N-E-S!"
So I retraced my steps and blah blah blah.
What a dumbass, huh>?

[brachy]

The last time I stayed at the Hilton in Oahu, I left the 'save the ocean' tag on my bed, so they didn't wash my sheets for a night.... that was crazy! I'm on my vacation gosh darnit... but I felt like being a little wild that day i guess.

[Panic Button]

[quote="yesterday's child"]

[bosintang]

It's not really that crazy of a story, but it felt crazy to me at the time.

I woke up one morning on Kho Samet in Thailand with a nasty hangover, decided I was bored of the beach, needed some adventure and that I was going to Cambodia as soon as I could. The next day I left Bangkok on a 3rd class train to Arryana Prathet. After crossing the border into the netherworld of Poipet, I, woefully inprepared for Cambodia, and by myself, bartered with a guy for a ride on the back of an overcrowded pick-up truck to Siem Reap.

The whole trip was crazy, but memorable. My favourite memory is one part where, like most of the journey, I really had no idea what what was happening. The truck stopped in this little village, and the driver got out suddenly dissappeared; so fast that he didn't even bother to close his cab door. Nobody on the truck was talking at all or seemed too concerned that driver just ran away. It was complete silence, and I couldn't gage anything from the passengers' body language.

In the field, next to the truck, a little boy was defecating while his mother massaged his backside. Bad case of diahharea, I presumed.

Finally, after 15 or 20minutes, this official-looking guy came by and started poking around in the back of the truck. After a few minutes of silence, he muttered something in Khmer, and everyone groaned and started mumbling away in irritated Khmer. I had no idea what was happening, but I got the hint we weren't leaving anytime soon. I hopped off the back of the truck, looked over to see some of the passengers were having a heated argument with the locals over something or other.

I took a walk down the road to have a piss and a stretch. I walked far enough that I was away from everyone else and could only see the truck and the village in the distance. Out of nowhere, a water-buffalo with a leash on it came wandering by me. Nobody was holding the leash mind you, and I wondered where the hell it was coming from. Out for a casual stroll, I guess.

I returned to the truck to see that the official-looking guy dissappeared, and the passengers and the locals settled whatever argument they were having and were all sitting around drinking tea. An hour or so later, the driver returned and we continued on our merrily way.

[Cedar]

One time I was climbing around the temples of Ayuttaya, and at the top of a temple that was about four stories tall, in a room barely large enough for three people, I met a guy I worked with in Seattle ten years previously. That was pretty strange!

[Panic Button]

One time I was climbing around the temples of Ayuttaya, and at the top of a temple that was about four stories tall, in a room barely large enough for three people, I met a guy I worked with in Seattle ten years previously. That was pretty strange!

This one just reminded me of a story that's better than the one about doing acid in Whitley Bay.

A few years ago me and my ex-bird had just moved out of a shared house and we went to Prague in between moving.

We were sat in a outside a bar one day and one of our ex housemates walked up to us randomly. We had no idea (for some reason) that she was going to Prague and she had no idea (for some reason) that we were going to Prague.

That was a pretty mad experience in itself.

Then approximately a year later me and the same girlfriend were at a full moon party and THE SAME GIRL WALKED UP TO US RANDOMLY AGAIN, after we hadn't seen her for a year!

To bump into someone like that once is mental but the chances of it happening twice must be one in a billion or something.

[HapKi]

I was flying out of Kimpo back in 2000, going to Taipei on the first leg of my around-the-world trip. Billy Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins were sitting on the floor in front of duty free. Nobody was paying them any attention.
I walked up, shook his hand, and lied and said I saw the concert the night before.

[whatthefunk]

hmmm...drink first mushroom shake at about 6 pm at bungalo. drink second one at about 8 pm at bungalo. get thrown in back of pick-up truck with a completely insane brit. drive to other side of island. full moon. brit drilling me about the names of the other islands ive been to. i tell him ive been to every island. he calls my bluff and attempts to kill me. run away and loose my friends. drink third mushroom shake at sketchy bar. fall down a hundred feet of steps. definately not mushrooms. pass out in the ocean. wake up in the morning washing in and out with the waves with no shoes or shirt wondering where the hell i am.

[Summer Wine]

I was taking the boat from Kimbe, WNB to Lae, Morobe PNG. 24 hrs and I was 1st class which basically mean't I had my own bed and a closeable window. (Well everybody shared the window and all the others you could open.) It was shared accomodation. The whole top floor was 1st and everyone is in the same room. The waves were visiting the top of the boat, you stick your head out and catch a face of wave. Chucking up was fun.
I had one of the worst nights of my life, hey throw up' oh its ok, at least I will die of sea sickness before I drown. Theft was another issue you had to worry about as well. It was a great trip. The other was: Well as another said, there's a thousand.

1 night in a (edited) bar being accousted by american gang members who thought I was an undercover cop there to spy on them and the tribesmen (NZ). IT wasn't your country, you're on holiday, let it go you

[Summer Wine]

[Summer Wine]

[Summer Wine]

[whatthefunk]

wait, so i didnt ge this the first, second, third or fourth time...you were taking a boat from where to where????????

[Summer Wine]

SORRY FOR THE ABOVE POSTS: IT DIDN'T LOAD THE PAGE, SO I DIDN'T KNOW IT THROUGH ONCE LET ALONE 4 TIMES. IT SEEMS I CAN'T EDIT THEM Well now it seems I can.