To ask what the scariest thing ever to happen to you abroad was?

[RainbowBriteUk]

Mine was unknowingly walking in to a cafe where only men where allowed in the Balkans and they just all stared. Some quite icily. I just turned on my heel and walked out!

Two great novels to prepare young people for travel: The Beach by Alex Garland, and Are You Experienced by William Sutcliffe. The former is a nightmare scenario of travels gone wrong, and the latter is a bit of a hatchet job on the idea of a 'gap year' and is very very funny.

A few things: being perved at in the toilets at a pub in Paris and, years later, getting into an Uber (also in Paris) and driver stopping midway insisting I pay him in cash. He was being paid via a friend's Uber account. I said no and he left me stranded. I then got into a taxi with a really lovely cab driver.
I was less scared the second incident as older and tougher, I guess.

@Iamnotminterested same thing happened to me in India I had to fly home with swollen oozing legs and go to an emergency 24 hour clinic on arrival.

Being deported from Turkey - well not quite since they wouldn't let me in in the first place - something to do with visa fee having changed recently and a decision only to accept American dollars at the land crossing. Locked up in a room with a dozen others all men for a couple of hours except me and my friend.

Lets just say the men we were locked up with were not pleasant although thanks to there being a guard in the room they did not go further than fondling us and we were removed to another room after a bit to wait alone. At that point they even bought us coffee and cake so it did get better

Also had a weird experience in Romania where a man actually approached me asked (in quite good English) if could ask a question and then said "Are your breasts silicon - may I touch them?" To be fair he backed off pretty quickly when I yelled at him.

I got lost in Moscow and ended up walking through some kind of grey concrete housing estate by myself. I barely saw anyone but actually was really frightened as felt like I was being watched - could never put my finger on it really but I was irrationally terrified as well as being completely lost

On an adventure holiday years ago, camping in the Western Desert in Egypt. The rest of the group went off for a camel safari, but being massively allergic to animals at the time, I couldn’t go. I was told to get in the Landcruiser with one of the local Bedouin and he would take me back to the camp. His English was about the same as my Arabic, just a few words. After a few miles he turned off the main (only) road and starts heading to god knows where. We finally stopped in some tiny village with a cow tied up to the only lamp post. He gets out and starts motioning to me to follow him into a building. I’m feeling terrified by this time, no one knows where I am, I don’t know this man, I am a 25 year old English woman with little Arabic - but what else can I do? So I follow him into the building. It turns out that he actually wanted me to meet his wife and children! I was given tea, food and cigarettes, treated like royalty, and eventually got to meet nearly everyone in the village, who all waved me off when the time came to leave. I was nearly in tears at how lovely and hospitable they’d been, when they obviously lived in relative poverty. When I got back to the camp with Said, the driver, everyone was worried sick and thought I’d been kidnapped by Al Qaeda. I kept Said’s address and when I got home I sent them a postcard from the UK to thank them for a lovely afternoon and for meeting me. It just goes to show, there are some very bad people out there but the vast majority are just lovely

@Cryalot2

Oh gosh quit scary. My story is tame. I fell and broke my arm badly in a couple of places in Tenerife. Staff treated me like shite at the hospital because I had a British passport. I did not speak the language and mostly they spoke in Spanish and laughed at me even in theatre before the anesthetic kicked in . It was spotless, but I had no idea where I was and had a poor grasping of the language and it was in the days before the internet was used much and not everyone had mobiles. Dd was at grammar school and had 1year learing Spanish and she really excelled herself and later went on to do a degree in it and French, partly as a result. I still have screws which were inserted.

We're in hospital sur! (Near Los Cristianos)

If so that sounds an extremely unusual experience. Admittedly I haven't been there since 2006 but before that the interpreters were amazing and so were the staff.

My ds was born there

The outboard motor on our small boat packing up, in the middle of a crocodile-infested lake in Africa, just as it was getting dark.

On the Sex and the City tour in NY in 2011, about 16 weeks pg, and started bleeding like a stuck pig on the bus
The tour leader called me a cab to take me to the nearest hospital and bleeding stopped after an hour or so and luckily 9 yo dd is sitting next to me watching a robotic video now. But it was fucking scary not least the worry that the insurance might find an excuse not to pay up (they tried that but luckily it was sorted out). And I never even made it into the dildo shop on the tour!

Backpacking round Europe aged 21 with a friend - both females. Blonde, young, wearing shorts and vest tops. Took a wrong turn in Marseilles and found ourselves in the middle of a North African ghetto. Tons of men came out into the streets to stare at us- not another female in sight. A couple of them tried to get us to go into a dingy cafe - no mobile phones or anything in those days. Didn’t want to run so we just turned round and walked quickly the way we’d come. There was a lot of jeering and whistling but we made it back to the train station physically unscathed. Ironically we had been to Casablanca and Marrakesh prior to this and not felt unsafe.

Later that night a barman whacked a beggar over the head with a baseball bat right beside our table - blood spattered onto us. So upset we rushed off and my friend left her bag with passport etc in it behind. Nightmare trying to get it back and the bar basically made us pay to have it returned.

We were away 3 months and everything bad that happened to us happened in Marseilles- would never go back!!

Went to Vegas for new years as a child with family. Downtown was extremely crowded and police put barriers up, creating a bottleneck that kept filling up as more people walked in, unaware that they were making it worse. Police stood outside the barriers to make sure no one climbed over. We were stuck for hours, it was extremely hot and people were literally packed in so we were all touching from all sides. Most claustrophobic moment of my life especially as I was smaller than everyone and felt like I could easily suffocate or fall and be trampled.

I was holidaying in Italy when I was 16 (I was a young 16, looked maybe 14) and one of the Russian chefs tried to literally drag me back to his room in the hotel from the bar next door. It was all jokey at first but he kept pulling my arm up the street. I started to feel uncomfortable and really tried yanking my arm back from him but he was too strong. Luckily, an awesome woman from Manchester who we'd made friends with came over and basically man handled him off me.

Same holiday, one of the Italian guys we were chatting to (he and his friends knew our Manchester friend) actually followed me into the bathroom of that same bar, grabbed my face and tried to kiss me. I remember just yelling no in his face twice, ducking under his arm and making a quick getaway. I was really naïve, hadn't even kissed anyone yet, and didn't fully realise how dangerous these two situations were (I do now looking back). I told my friend what this guy did, my friend then told the owner. The owner of the bar was a lovely Italian guy who told the guy who followed me to leave, which he did.

My dad deciding to take me into a Saudi police station with him. It was also the jail, walking past all these men in handcuffs staring at us. I was ten. In fairness, he knew we’d be in and out really quick if my mum and I were there too. But I saw things a child shouldn’t have to see and it stuck with me.

As an adult, the scariest things has to be Israeli airport security!

The outboard motor on our small boat packing up, in the middle of a crocodile-infested lake in Africa, just as it was getting dark.

Jfc! what happened????

Going for a swim in the sea off Crete. I suddenly realised I couldn't feel the ground easily and waves were knocking me away from the beach. I somehow managed to get to some rocks and crawled over them and up some steps in the rockface. I walked back to the beach with blood pouring down my legs and arms, people walked past and ignored me. I found out afterwards that part of Crete is known for it's currents and people drown every year. I am a strong swimmer but barely went in the sea again.

I warmed myself up with some hot chocolate back at my hotel room and then drank a substantial amount of Raki before crashing out in a stupor.

Scariest moment was getting stranded on Fraser Island on a beach. It eventually got dark and it was very scary wondering if the tide would reach the car.

My colleague was stabbed in Brazil. He was mugged walking back to the hotel after going to a restaurant.

DH put some grapes in the sink in Aus to wash and an entire nest of huntsman spiders came out and crawled all over his hands he has a huge spider phobia now.

My friend medically assisted someone in South Africa he saw shot in the leg in the middle of the street.

The Denny’s next to our hotel in the USA was held up at gunpoint as we watched from the lobby.

A girl was raped next to my villa in Corfu. Found out the next morning when it was crawling with police.

Maybe abroad travel isn’t for me!

OnthePiste
On a coach coming down the steep mountain round from a ski report in the early hours. Coach lost traction on black ice and started sliding sideways towards the sheer drop. Most people were asleep and did not see what was happening. Coach hit the crash barrier and ground to a halt. All I could see was the drop..in true MN style I was shaking and crying! The driver was in shock as was the ski rep.

I honestly felt my life flash before me, I have never felt such terror!

I was a ski rep and can confirm this is terrifying. We were going up a mountain and snow caused a huge backlog and we stopped to put snow chains on. We could see a queue all the way up from where we were.

Me and driver got off and I asked passengers to remain seated as per drivers request. A few ignored and started to get off which released weight from the coach and it slid backwards. I had to politely ask them to remain seated on the coach they'd just been on whilst it skidded and gently explain we needed the weight on board!

I nearly drowned in the sea in Sunny Beach Bulgaria when I was 19.

The area seemed a bit dodgy, we'd seen someone the night before have their leg broken by the mafia outside a club so we were a bit on edge.

We went to the beach and decided to go for a paddle, the water was thigh level one minute, we really were only paddling, but very quickly we go pulled out further and further. The current was so strong and it happened so quickly. We all started to swim, the stronger boy swimmers swam through it, but me and my best friend Kate weren't managing very well. The waves were coming so fast and we could hardly get a breath in before the next wave washed over us. We were swimming towards the shore but seemed to be going further out. Now I know we were caught in a strong rip tide.

Next thing I know a Bulgarian man swam up really close to me and tried to touch me under the water. I was already in a bad way because I was struggling to swim back, I said 'no thank you' but he continued trying to grab at me and was speaking in Bulgarian but in a very low tone, it was very odd for the situation and this definitely made me start to panic. I shouted 'Kate!' KATE!' Who was swimming a little infront of me! I just remember her saying 'just swim!'

Not only was I beginning to drown but now there was a stranger touching me! He started grabbing at my hips, I'd told him no and said I was fine, he continues, then I totally freaked out. I was kicking him and screaming 'GET OFF ME!!!! NO! KATE! HES GETTING ME' Then another 2 Bulgarian men appeared on a jet ski and the one in the water tried to hoist me on to it while the other 2 pulled.

I've never been so frightened in my life. I could see land on the horizon which I figured was Turkey. In the moment I just thought, that's it, I'm done for, they're going to jet ski me to Turkey and I'll be sex trafficked out of there in no time at all. I was fighting with everything I had to get them off me and get back to my friends, but that water was dangerous too. They eventually got me on it and the jet ski started moving and I had no choice but to cling on to the driver.

Instead of heading toward turkey they looped around and took me shore BECAUSE THEY WERE LIFEGUARDS.

They almost definitely saved my life and I feel eternally grateful but also mortified at my behaviour. I know it sounds so stupid. But I didn't know they were lifeguards, the area was so dodgy and I already felt on high alert due to the shady things we'd seen happen there on the trip. They didn't have any lifeguard uniform! They weren't speaking English so couldn't tell me they were lifeguards. And obviously I was scared because I wasn't managing in the water.

Anyway when I got back to the beach I was in shock I think. I was just so glad I was on dry land and hadn't been taken. I had no idea where my friends were, I eventually found them further up the beach. I didn't even know if my
Mate Kate had made it back ok. She had thank god. I was covered in scratches that were bleeding, from the struggle? I remember the salt water making them sting.

It seemed so obvious looking back, but to me at the time it was just a weird man awkwardly touching my hips, no explanation! Then more men coming and trying to force me on a jet ski after I'd said no!

And to make it worse the guy who I was seeing at the time (knob head, it never worked out) watched me wander back in utter distress, had seen the whole thing unfold from the shore, stubbed out his cigarette in the sand and said 'you are so fucking embarrassing' turned and walked back to the towels😂😂

Possibly the time we went to Israel, and the plane filled up with smoke just as we were descending. Something to do with the plane's water system malfunctioning, but our immediate thought was a bomb!

Otherwise, probably when we were in Canada, and our next-door neighbour's delightful dog bit me!

Morocco here, surprise surprise. I'd been so excited about going but I've never been anywhere as aggressive and hostile. There was no way of just wandering around without being bothered. It was also roasting hot and impossible not to get lost so we were just permanently uncomfortable.

We speak fluent French so understood the extent of what was being said to us and it was awful, a level of hassle I've never experienced anywhere else. Never again.