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!

Not a massive culture shock but I always found it very odd that American toilets have gaps in the doors so you can see everyone on the loo. I remember being so freaked out changing a tampon and making eye contact with someone walking past.

Omg deep fried spiders on sticks there's just no need is there.
I worked with Filipinas abroad and they loved balut, eggs with embryos in them the crunchier the better apparently.

That in Spain, if you discover your boyfriend has a different girlfriend at weekends, you are not allowed also to have a weekend boyfriend as well.

Exactly. And if its while I'm peeing, it's - shall we say - useful!

"Anchor points by the window, a boxed up rope ladder and instructions on what to do in case of a fire - terrifying"

I remember this from my hotel room in civilised Norway !

My first gap yah at 21, Delhi was my first stop. It remains the biggest ever assault on my senses as I exited the airport. The noise, the smell, the chaos, the rough sleepers, the beggars. It was an absolute shock to me.

I think you were lucky to not have a squat toilet, and ANY screen to stop people seeing you on the toilet.. toilets are my main travel crutch!!

That sounds like magic! These ones definitely weren't like that though... I got as far as stepping into a cubicle and closing the door before I bailed!

@TwinklyRoseTurtle - how are you able to tell the difference between people like me, who have a bowel disease, and have no choice but to do a poo in a public toilet, and people who are choosing to do it there?

For all you know, you could be judging someone like me who has had to use a public toilet for a poo because my colitis has flared up with no warning. Frankly it is shit enough having IBS and lymphocytic colitis, and having to have diarrhoea in public toilets without knowing that people are either judging me or laughing - your posts seemed to do both.

If I could not do a poo in a public toilet, I would have two choices - either never leave my home, or have catastrophic diarrhoea while trying and failing to hold on long enough to get home.

Be thankful you aren’t having to make these choices.

Also in China, I discovered the ‘squat’ loos, with a lady standing by the door handing out single sheets of loo roll. However the worse bit was discovering that it is VERY difficult to squat whilst wearing skinny jeans. (It was a while ago).

also in China, being really stared at, I actually made my DH walk 20 paces behind to prove it because he didn’t believe me. As a tall, large, natural blonde I walked past a queue of Chinese guys standing at a bus stop and it was like one of those shampoo ads, they followed me with their heads as one! I found it hilarious.

Greece: Having to squat over a hole on a ferry. There were handles to hold onto on the floor and wall and hooks to hang your clothes, though.
Taxis stopping for other fares like a bus would. That one got me yelling at the cabbie that I didn't appreciate being taken advantage of. He stared at me like I was insane. Imagine my embarrassment when I read about the practice as legit afterward. Felt like an idiot.

As part of a small group tour, we were wandering around a market in Vietnam.

There were live frogs that were skinned alive at the point of purchase, our guide explained that was the way to ensure they were fresh.

We were visiting the Jurassic Coast, saw the Durdle Door. As we walked past a cafe in the nearest town (village?) an employee exited the cafe and dumped a bucket of dirty plastic cutlery in the small stream by the side of the road. I am pretty sure that the café only existed because of the many tourists and then he just dumped litter in the middle of everything. We were so gobsmacked that we didn't even say anything.

I know this isn’t really the point of the thread but I now really need to know which sumo athlete you saw. As an avid sumo fan, I feel like the answer may make me very jealous.

We saw a few top division guys in April but missed my faves.

Oh my god this happened to us a few years ago with a cheese plate!! Seeing our decimated chewed remnants be served to the next table after we’d all had a good crack at it was utterly horrifying 🤣🤣 we’d had no idea!!

I saw this in a student room in Oxford in the 1980s.
I thought it was a good idea.
It wasn't a college room but high up in one of those Victorian houses for a PhD student living out.
Apparently it was a requirement of the university.

It was alarming! I was v sad for her, and even more her young sons, but she level of personal anguish people displayed was just bizarre. Perhaps it was an opportunity to greive for other things? A national catharthis?

Bad manners? That's what they're there for. I mean, at work I use a public toilet rather than the staff toilet if I know it's a poo, but it's rare there's a queue forming when I come out, and if there was, well I'd just be temporarily mortified, and scuttle away muttering "errr sorry about that!" Or hold my head high and grimace apologetically, depending on who it is waiting! If you need to go...you need to go! Doing yourself no favours by hanging on, that's for sure.

Not even that far afield but a culture shock with the original Glastonbury loos - basically just a huge pit with planks of wood over and holes in the middle (they did have rudimentary doors).

I got over this once I had children. By the third baby you have basically had a team of people see every part of you inside and out. I came out of there with new found sense of “I don’t give a fuck” 🤣 said baby is now 4 and likes to loudly tell strangers in bathroom stalls that she needs a poo.
you have to find the funny side or the embarrassment will kill you 🤣

Being constantly stared at and complete strangers asking to have their photos taken with me ( again in India ), probably because I'm blonde and blue eyed

Same happened to my ex in China, @Appalonia - this time because he's 6ft 4in and they couldn't quite get over it (though at least it was easy to find him in crowds!!)

And @handsdownthebest was spot on about there being no concept of personal space, as I discovered when viewing an attraction among hundreds of local people and the pushing and shoving actually lifted me off my feet

I was simply furious about the attitude that the Queen was failing the nation by staying up at Balmoral - all the ‘Your people need you, Ma’am’ crap. She was staying up there with her grandsons who had just lost their mother - their need for privacy and the support of their family vastly outweighed the ‘needs’ of Joe Public.

not my point and she didn't say this initially

In Japan, it was the single use plastics. We went to a baseball game where the whole stadium let off a load of single use plastic balloons that then just went straight in the bin. The Japanese are huge on recycling and sorting waste but their plastic gets burned to generate power and so the attitude to plastic is really alien to me, where I think of it as going to landfill.

Also, calling the waiter will never not feel rude to me, even though I know it’s normal in many restaurants there. I feel weird whenever I do it.

Trying to cross a road in Hanoi with my friend. Had explained multiple times to walk at a constant reasonable pace the bikes will go around you.....she first screamed, then froze on the spot then tried to run! Multiple bikes nearly had a pile up!