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!

@Gwenhwyfar Why Americain though?! I can’t help but feel like they’re trolling the Americans with this haha.

Here in Ireland they are late form everything . Does my head in.

🙄 I can't believe you can't believe it- Its what they are for - news alert - we all do it.

What I found a culture shock about England aswell, is how reserved and formal a lot of people are.

It's a very particular culture. I feel like people in England are trained from a very young age not to show emotion.

You should try Spain! They are never on time or they cancel altogether.

My friend there told me that they call it "Spanish time"

After an 8000 mile round trip I doubt a bit of tumble drying would be a big deal for the environment.

I was in Albania earlier this year, the smoking was constant. The cab driver from the airport to my hotel even offered me one.

I think some older buildings might still have them, but newer/refurbished places probably won't.

I do prefer to poo in my own toilet. If i absolutely have to poo when im out and about, i will, but i prefer to do it at home.

Obvious reasons, it can cause a noise when you do it, and i find it embarassing to do it right beside someone else.

While Skiing in the Italian Alps as part of a group of about 20 friends. From day 1, members of our group were one by one, day by day going down with some sort of vomiting and diarrhoea bug. One morning, the friend I was sharing a room with was feeling unwell so I left her sleeping and went skiing. I had a good morning on the slopes and was about to head down the mountain back to the hotel for lunch, when out of nowhere, I got that sudden, urgent, rumbling, cramping feeling. There was only one restaurant in the slopes area, so I took off my skis and headed into the building to use the loo. The loo it transpired was just one (currently occupied) cubicle with a wooden slatted western style door with a gap top and bottom which opened directly onto the restaurant seating area. The restaurant was packed to capacity with skiers and snowboarders having lunch. Occupied tables and chairs were only a couple of feet from the toilet door. There was no way I was going to let the imminent explosion happen there, EVERYONE would have heard it. So, carrying my skis I set off back to the hotel. Over an hour later, after taking the 2 chair lifts and walking down steep paths, including getting a bit lost in the alpine village where the hotel was, I reached the hotel. I dumped my skis outside and rushed back to our room and our ensuite. My poor sick friend was awake, still in bed but feeling a lot better, which was lucky because we had to evacuate the room for a couple of hours after that to let it air. I truly believe I must have a super human pelvic floor and sphincter muscle, I still can’t believe I held it all in for so long through all that 😆

I agree. It's not common in private homes at all to use disposable plates and cutlery, especially in the South. Any self-respecting Southern women will have at least three sets of china in regular rotation: her wedding china, her mother's and her grandmother's.

And most of the hotels that do it tend to be more affordable options that include breakfast, but they don't have full kitchen facilities. It's not ideal, of course, but they do it to keep building (and other costs down).

Yeh we was in Albania for the second time earlier this month, when you book an air conditioned flixbus coach to get back to Tirana from Lake Ohrid in Macedonia and instead get a hot, sweaty little minivan with a driver that has to smoke about 15 cigs in 3 hours!!

Yes, exactly. And sitting with legs crossed – or even in lotus

I've also often seen, in Spain, Portugal etc, women in their 70s, 80s and maybe older stumping up and down hills with their shopping. It's my ambition to be more like them!

I'm not sure if this was typical behaviour from Italian police but whilst on holiday in Amalfi, we were dining in the hotel which had a window overlooking the gardens and fountain. A Fiat careered round the bend at top speed, lost control and hit the fountain. The male driver and passenger were clearly instantly dead, the driver was hanging out the window, head in the fountain, eyes glazed. The police rocked up, adjusted their sunglasses, smoothed their hair and proceeded to chat up two young female English tourists watching the horror. I was distraught and said aren't you going to call an ambulance or something, I think they're dead or seriously injured?" Nah look he's ok! Gonna be alright. Doesn't matter"! Was the reply with a poke of the poor deceased. I asked the hotel owner to call an ambulance but no response. Eventually some considerable time later a doctor rolled up then an ambulance & they were still chatting the girls up.
Bali; Hired a Balinese driver to drive us round the island. It was really cheap & he was so nice. Kept getting stopped by police whereby he'd hand over his driving licence & some money. He told us it was a bribe to avoid a fine or penalty. We bought him lunch and at the end gave him a nice tip to make up for having to fork out the bung money & for his patience etc. He was so shocked he was almost in tears, he told us this was a months wages in Bali. I felt really humbled and upset, it was so little to us but meant so much to him.

Well done on that, I know what a formidable beast it is when your bowels want to pull themselves free from the rest of your body 😁

I bet the image of those people in the car never leave you, we were on a beach in Goa once and a young man who'd drowned was casually laid out on the sand next to two chatting lifeguards one evening, I felt so sad knowing his mum and dad and family were about to get their hearts ripped out. I never forget him, his face was covered but his sandy body and sand covered black shorts stay with me.

I recently read that there's a unifying factor in all those longevity hotspots that researchers have only recently cottoned onto. They're all really steep hilly areas.

(cackles in Cornish 😆)

You're right, never, nor my daughter, she was around 8 & traumatised. I tried to minimize it but she knew. That's awful, poor lad. I suppose people who deal with death on a fairly regular basis get innured to it but at least they could feign respect & act professionally.

For those of us with IBS, it’s part of life…

It’s not a separate bidet, but usually one built into the toilet, it has a tap on the wall at the side of the toilet bowl. Sometimes you get something like a small shower head on a flexible hose (a bum gun). Hope that helps 😊

Not in the Greek islands. I’ve seen that in North Africa and Asia.

The first time I saw a dead body was in Nigeria. Hit by a car too but covered by sheet. My cousin told me they would have been there for a few days so clearly not an unusual thing.

Not in Greece though. Those bidet hoses are common in many other countries outside Europe - shame they are not more common as they are great (2nd only to the fancy Japanese toilets with all the inbuilt functions). A friend who spent 2 weeks in Sri Lanka thought it was for washing the floor and never cottoned on what it really for.

Common in Northern Europe too. You'll find them in most toilets in Finland, even public toilets will usually have at least one stall with one, if not all of them.

Re Bum guns. I have one from a well-known online goods site, it's brilliant as I'm disabled. Its handy for cleaning the loo too!