Embarrassing travel culture shocks

[WildBalonz]

Since it’s summer and holiday season I thought it might be fun to share some silly or funny or embarrassing cultural shocks we’ve all had when travelling!

I’ll start with an incident that is both funny and embarrassing depending how you look at it. A few years ago me, my brother, his wife and her brother (my brother and sister in law) went on a trip all through China. We were on a tour bus traveling through some rural areas outside Guangzhou. We had a pit stop to stretch our legs and use the toilet etc and our driver proudly told us that the public loos we had stopped at had western toilets which were very uncommon in these areas. Great we all thought, however what he didn’t mention is that instead of individual cubicals they had very small almost like shower screens separating each toilet. Not much privacy at all! It made for a very embarrassing poo for me my sister in law and two other ladies on our tour 😂. I laugh at it now but at the time it was probably the most awkward and embarrassing experience our lives. Luckily she’s a good sport and we joke about it these days!

I can’t believe you had a poo in a public toilet tbh

🙄

Ofgs there is always one

Same. I just fill the public toilets with flowers and rainbows.

🙄

I’m sorry what lol. Is that not what they are for?

When I opened your thread, and before I read your post, toilets in China without privacy screens were the first thing that sprang to mind.

So my other cultural shock was more recent and that was staying in a mid market hotel in the south of the USA(actually more than one) where breakfast was served using plastic disposable cutlery and plates. The waste was just mind boggling. It was like recycling and care for the environment was a completely alien concept.

Glad you hit back on this. Began to wonder whether these women ever do anything more than pee!!

Travelling in a taxi in Mumbai , when a large motorbike sped past with a man , balancing a s baby ( approx 14 months ) between his legs on the seat as he rode the bike

the taxi driver was amused at my shock

I suppose my own "culture shock" also involves toilets. But only as distant as a small town in Italy, where we were visiting the school. I and my sister (we were teens) needed to pee.
"Well we're in a school", said sis, "there must be a loo!".
But not what we were expecting!
It was OK when we got to the lockable stalls in the grls' toilets (which were signposted, so we weren't going anywhere we shouldnt have) but it was via the boys'!!
And Italian boys' school toilets don't seem to leave much to the imagination.
I had to drag my sister away from what seemed like pipes into communal urinals!!

Why, what do you do in them instead? Eat your dinner?

I can't believe what a ridiculous comment this is

Hitchhiking in Poland just after the fall of the Iron Curtain, so everyone was still pretty poor . This nice couple who spoke no English stopped for me and kindly offered vegetarian me what I thought was some kind of omelette. I took a big bite out of it and it turned out to be a schnitzel. I then had to try and tell them why I couldn't eat it. I still recall the shock and incomprehension on the poor woman's face. Wasting valuable meat! 😳

France in the 80s as a family, we went to a posh, very French restaurant. My dad had some kind of duck dish, which he was horrified to see had a shard of glass in it. My dad called the waiter over, explained politely in broken french about the glass. The waiter was most apologetic and rushed off with the plate. 2 minutes later we heard raucous laughter coming from the kitchen, before the waiter came back and very kindly explained that the 'glass' was in fact rock salt. Something our then uncouth British palate had never encountered. My dad was so embarrased, my mum almost dying from 2nd hand embarrassment. Me and my sister were quite young but having been told the story since, when rock salt has been very much part of British cookery, we just think it's so funny!

Not really culture shock, but having lived outside of the UK now for years I still find myself getting annoyed when others are ‘late’ for things - except they don’t really see themselves as late, being ‘late’ to them isn’t really a thing

My first holiday 25 years ago with my now husband, we went to Cyprus. Was pretty shocked about the whole toilet paper not getting flushed down the loo and having to put poo-ey loo roll in a little bin!

Not me but my grandparents took my Dad and Aunt on holiday to France when they were young. They went to a restaurant with no menu and were served a massive bowl of pate to share as a starter. They didn't realise they were supposed to take what they wanted and then the same bowl would be passed onto the next table for them to do the same. They ate the whole thing as they thought it would be rude not to - apparently the waiter was aghast when he came to retrieve the empty bowl!

Still happens in Cyprus and all over the Greek islands!

It does explain why a significant minority of Mners don’t get out more.

I understand there are people who cannot poo in public loos - I know of chap who didn't poo at all on holiday not even in the hotel. He must have been in a lot of discomfort by the end of a fortnight and I don't even want to think about when he did actually get to a bathroom at home!

Were they sex-segregated loos?

Because we once popped into a gay bar in Miami, specifically because I needed a wee, only to be directed to a communal loo with a half screen (from the wall to the elbow) which looked directly onto the urinals.

Apparently there was some building code which meant they didn’t have to put ladies in cos at one point ‘gay bar’ meant ‘men only’.

It was a great bar and very welcoming!

And the first one !

Traveling on a coach on Turkey and a kind old lady mimed how to use a floor toilet. She showed me how to gather up my skirt and squat. 😬

Honestly, in a life where I’ve lived longterm in quite a few countries, I think the most genuinely culture-shocked I’ve ever been was the few days after my arrival to study in the UK. Princess Diana had died two days before I arrived, and I was watching the news and seeing all that footage of people weeping hysterically over the flowers outside Kensington Palace and doing bits to camera with tears running down their faces, as if in the aftermath of some horrible mass death.

I thought ‘This country has a lot of maniacs.’

What surprised us was in american the tipping culture. Food is so expensive but staff get paid hardly anything and we are supposed to make up their pay in tips. The owners of every establishment must be mega rich.

In India water for the toilet was in a tin can at the side of the hole where you had to go to the toilet. No screens round it just a hole in the floor behind a wall. Quite normal in Vietnam to transport a fridge etc on the back of a motorbike, during New Year celebrations all manner of stuff was trasported by bike including large orange trees in pots they use as decoration.