disaster travel stories...

[mrjbeam1981]

post em here guys.

this wasn't much of a disaster but it was quite stressful...

my fiance and i were heading to Kenya last year. she had gotten there a week before to catch up with her family and i was to arrive a week later. i arrive in Sydney at about 12pm and i'm starving so i go through international terminal to head for a feed. as i'm walking through the terminal i notice a Thai Airways flight cancelled - i didn't think anything of it because my flight was about 4 hours away. so i go have my feed, do a bit of shopping etc. get to the check in lounge and i see a few people huddled around waiting. then i notice in flashing lights "ALL THAI AIRWAYS FLIGHTS CANCELLED", so i was thinking Sh!t. i gave my fiance a call (4.30am kenyan time) to say, not to worry babe, but my flights had been cancelled and we were waiting for someone to speak with us soon. as you can imagine she is stressing quite a bit. i reckon we were waiting around for about half an hour before someone came over and said that the reason why it was cancelled was the plane didn't even come to Australia. i then ring my travel agent to ask what she can do for me, she had know idea the flights were cancelled. she rings back in about 10 mins and said that i would have to wait until 24 hours for the next flight. i said to her that was no where near good enough and to do something better. as i'm hanging the phone up with her, the Thai Airways people call my name out and say they have booked me on the British Airways flight to Bangkok leaving 10 mins before the other scheduled flight. i board the plane and was hoping we can make some time up in the air. i get in my seat and look out the window and see some very ugly black clouds rolling in. thats right, we were stuck on the ground for 1 hour and 30 mins. when we finally get in the air i was now praying we could make some time up, but nope, all we got was head winds all the way.

i arrive in bangkok, i look at my watch and it says 11.00pm. my flight to Kenya was scheduled at 11.50pm, so i am making a dash through this unknown airport. i get to the check in counter and can you imagine about 500-600 people standing in front of a check in desk in no sort of order, no lines nothing. i just had to push my way to the front check in and run for my flight. i got to the other plane with about 5 mins to spare. as soon as i could i ordered a double scotch, i was on my way to Kenya.

so i arrive in kenya (see the sunrise from previous thread). i'm going through customs and i realise that i need to have some money with me to buy a visitors visa. i had planned to get some cash out in bangkok. so i am trying every atm on the side i was on. they were all not working. i get up to the customs guys and say "i know this doesnt look good, but i have no cash on me". after about 3 minutes of talking with this guy he says look, give me your passport, go through get some money of your girlfriend to pay the visa and come back. so i did that, met my new father in law, raced back to pay for my visa, i was officially in Kenya!

i go to get my luggage (about an hour after i landed) it was nowhere to be seen. i went over to the luggage checkpoint, they scanned my ticket and informed me that my luggage was in Johannesburg. at that point i didn't really care i said to myself it'll arrive!

[gadj1976]

Honeymoon!(wait, there's more)

Cook Islands, nice resort, bad bout of gastro.

Knocked us out for three days in total.

First time I verbalised the word "wife" was when I went to the resort front desk and said "can I have a bucket for my wife". Nice.

[Q.]

Not my disaster story, but I'll tell it anyway...

Djenne in Mali is a popular destination for tourists and West African traders. It sees loads of people on a Monday when it holds a huge market.

Buses drop you off at the junction to Djenne and keep heading down the main road. You have to wait for a ride into Djenne on the back of a ute or in a van or something and cross a river via ferry to get into the town.

Anyway, our friend Lily who had been travelling on and off with us, was due to meet us in Djenne. We were already there and she was making the long bus ride from the capital, Bamako. She ended up getting to the juntion late at night and the ferry had stopped running, so she had to spend the night sleeping in a van with a couple of other locals and a couple of travellers.

Curled up on one seat with her backpack on the seat behind her, her sleep was slightly disturbed during the night to a couple of people moving about in the van. She thought nothing of it.

Woke up the next morning and her backpack was gone from the seat behind. Her first thought was that it had been moved and tied to the top of the van ready to cross on the ferry. Nope. Backpacked nicked.

Half of Djenne went looking for her bag that Monday, even a public radio announcement was made, but she never got her bag back. She was left with the clothes on her back and her valuables tucked to her waist.

Lily took it well though, most other chicks I know would have burst into tears and been asking for a plane ticket home.

When we were around other tourists I'd bring up the story and feeling sympathetic they'd find something from their own gear that Lily could use. She ended up with a bag from a market and a bunch of clothes and toiletries from people and carried on with her trip.

The big downside was she'd lost her malaria medication with the backpack and a month or so later when she was in Ghana she got malaria and was hit for six for a week.