Travel Misadventures - Traveling Thru History

Hampton Inn Seattle/Southcenter: Not the Best Stay

Erin — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 21:10:01 +0000

When staying in a hotel, you expect the room to be cleaned between guests. Our stay at Hampton Inn Seattle/Southcenter showed that is not always the case.

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Road Trip to Canada, Day 1

Erin — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 20:21:06 +0000

My best friend and I spent four days in Canada together to celebrate her birthday and my graduation. This is what we did on our first day. #TBIN

The post Road Trip to Canada, Day 1 first appeared on Traveling Thru History.

Worst Night Bus Ever? You Decide.

Erin — Mon, 19 Sep 2016 14:00:53 +0000

Recently we had the opportunity to go to Cambodia and were there just before Christmas. If you ever have the chance to go to Cambodia, Christmas is a good time to go. Especially if you want to go to Angkor Wat. We were in both Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, where Angkor Wat is, and were amazed at how few tourists were there. We actually were the only people at some of the ruins in Siem Reap, which surprised us a lot. Being in Cambodia and getting more familiar with the country was a really great experience, definitely one of my top international experiences. Our first few hours there, though, gave us quite an opposite impression and made us a little skeptical about the rest of our trip. As we were arriving at the Cambodian airport, we got a little weirded out. Southeast Asia has this strange thing where they fog their airplanes just before landing. I had no idea what it is for at the time and we both had some concerns about it. Thankfully, though, one of our subsequent flights said what the smoke was for and it made us feel a bit better. The smoke is just some kind of anti-bacterial fog and not actual smoke. Thank goodness. That tripped me out the first few times it happened. Before we got all concerned about the smoke, though, we had some nice views of the Cambodian landscape as we began our descent. I’ll apologize now for the low-quality photos in this post. My DSLR was packed away, so I took most of these either with my cell phone or my really old digital camera. Landing in Cambodia and getting through the airport wasn’t so bad. That was actually the easy part of the evening. The landing was smooth (which you will learn to appreciate traveling around that part of the world) and we were able to get off the plane without any drama. We had gotten our visas several weeks before our trip, so we were able to get through immigration fairly quickly, too. It only took about 10 minutes to get our visas examined, arrival cards scanned, passports stamped, and be out the door. It was after leaving the airport that things got a little strange. We arrived in Phnom Penh about 4:45pm and had booked an overnight bus to take us straight to Siem Reap. The one we’d booked didn’t leave until about 6:00, so we had a little bit of time to kill………..but that’s not the one we ended up getting on. When we got outside the airport, we snagged a little tuk-tuk to take us to the bus stop so we could get there early and not risk missing it. One thing that is common in Asia is that time is relative. Buses and trains rarely ever leave on time, but you never know which day they will leave early or which day they will be running late, so being decently early is a good idea. We figured being about 30-40 minutes wouldn’t be so bad. We could pick up our tickets, maybe get a little something to eat, wander up and down the street, and then get on our way. Our tuk-tuk driver, though, had other plans. Once we told him where we wanted to go, he got all excited and told us that he knew of another night bus heading to Siem Reap that was leaving right then and there. He said it was better than the one we had booked and that it was the exact same price, so he wanted to take us there instead of to the one we booked. Um, okay, great. We’d love to be on a bus that is leaving now. But, dude, we’re not there. We’re still at the airport. We’ve already missed it. Not to be deterred, our spunky little tuk-tuk driver drove all over Phnom Penh to track down the bus. It was hilarious at the time. He went to the bus depot and found out the route the bus was taking and took all these little side streets to get to each pick-up spot as quickly as possible. It was actually pretty neat to get a super speedy scenic tour of the city before leaving. These are some of the interesting things we saw. Our view from the back of the tuk-tuk as we left the airport. These things aren’t too bad for a quick trip around the city. The weather was nice and there wasn’t a lot of pollution, so we rather enjoyed the fresh air and pleasant breeze. Obligatory selfie. We were super excited to be in Cambodia. We were going to Angkor Wat first thing in the morning and were brimming with enthusiasm for this wonderful new experience. And, no, I didn’t cut my hair. It was just in a bun. Whenever I fly my hair is either in a bun or braids. Also, this is a rare photo of Troy smiling. Sort of. Usually he’s making a goofy face or sticking his finger up his nose. So, enjoy this rare treat. His smiles are quite handsome. Snack carts are so popular here. Most of the time people just push them, but this one was unique because it was attached to the guy’s motorbike. We both kinda wished we could buy some stuff from him since we were both a little hungry, but we were in a hurry and already had some snacks in our backpacks, so we just zoomed right on by. This is off to the side of one of the main streets in Phnom Penh. Every so often you will see a congregation of food carts and people coming to get snacks or meals. We really wanted to stop and check it out, but, alas, we were on a time schedule. This is a typical convenience store. This is basically what most stores on the main streets look like: open front with shelves of wares out on the sidewalk. We were only stopped here for a couple of minutes so the tuk-tuk driver could pop in the bus station office and ask which route the bus was taking and then we were off again. And you think YOUR traffic is bad. This is actually not that bad of traffic for this part of the world. Cars are always up on each other and nobody really pays attention to lane lines. At this point our tuk-tuk was halfway on the sidewalk, but nobody really cares about that here. The only time we got concerned was when we almost got squished by a big bus. Scooter gangs are the most common site on the roads in Asia, which makes sense since scooters seem to be the most maneuverable. They seriously do whatever they want. I’ve seen scooters drive on the sidewalk for a block to bypass stalled traffic, I’ve seen scooters at a red light dart across the road between cars that have the green light, I’ve seen scooters drive between cars going the opposite way, and I’ve seen scooters going up and down stairs. Nobody really cares what scooters do. Kinda wish we’d been driving around town on one, but alas, we were not. The tuk-tuk was fun and we don’t regret it at all. After driving around for about 20 minutes, we made it to this little hole in the wall shop where our driver stopped and ran inside. And I mean that literally. There were several doors lining a portion of the wall down an alley and that is where the tuk-tuk driver took us. I thought we were asking directions again, but the tuk-tuk driver came back outside and told us that the bus would be here any minute and that we could get tickets by paying the man inside. So, we paid the man inside and got our tickets. We were pretty happy about getting tickets for a bus that left an hour earlier than the one we’d reserved. And we were also happy that we didn’t have to pay to reserve a spot on the other bus, so it wouldn’t matter about taking this one. They were both the same price, so it all worked out in the end. Or so we thought. This is about $10.14 USD. Once the bus arrive and we got on the bus, we started to realize we may have made a grave mistake. This bus…….was………awful. And it was non-refundable. So, as unfortunate as it was, we were out of luck. The first thing we noticed about this bus was that it was not a sleeper bus. Troy had reserved us seats on a sleeper bus and this one was definitely NOT a sleeper bus. This was a double-decker travel bus…..kinda. There was a downstairs where all the luggage went that was tall enough for people to walk around, but it wasn’t set up so people could travel down there. The people went on the upper level………which was just seats, no sleepers. It looked comfortable enough, though, after we got on and looked around, so we just sat down and off the bus went. We figured we’d just lay our seats back and sleep that way. That is, until we realized how bumpy the ride was. Holy bananas was that ride bumpy. It was like going over train tracks the entire time. Unfortunately, that was just the beginning of the craziness. After the bus stopped a few more times, we realized people were looking around and picking specific seats. Once we actually looked at our tickets, we realized we had seat numbers, so we got up and found those seats. And immediately wished we hadn’t. What we hadn’t noticed upon entry to the bus was that most seats only had one arm rest. The other arm rests were either missing or the plastic was gone, leaving only the metal body, which was rather sharp. My seat had the metal body on one side and plastic on the other. Troy’s had plastic on the outside, so we were at least fortunate that only one of us had sharp metal stuff. I put Troy’s hat over my one gimpy arm rest so I wouldn’t get my arm all scratched up. The other fun part about our seats was that mine leaned back really far and wouldn’t sit up. Troy’s sat straight (and I mean STRAIGHT) and wouldn’t lean back. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, Troy’s seat wouldn’t stay on. lol. The first bump we hit, he slid forward, flailing his arms around and almost tipping sideways into the aisle. It was sooooooo funny and I laughed really hard. Troy was only slightly amused. Every time the bus hit a bump, he would slide forward and have to catch himself. It was pretty funny the first 5-6 times. But by the 20th time, it wasn’t so funny anymore. He eventually wedged his backpack between his seat and the seat in front of him, but that meant he had nowhere to put his legs and had to straddle the backpack. We figured once we were on the road that we’d just switch to different seats, but by the time we left the city our bus was completely full and we were stuck in our less than ideal spots. For the first hour or so, we sat like that: me leaning at an awkward and uncomfortable angle and Troy with a backpack between his legs. I was able to doze for a bit, but couldn’t stay asleep for long because ‘things’ kept crawling on me. I’m hoping they were just ants, but my suspicion is that they were other things. Yuck. And it didn’t help when Troy got super excited because down the stairs (we were seated across from the stairs) on a piece of luggage was a spider the size of a half dollar. He turned on the flashlight on his cell phone and went down to check it out. Thankfully, the dang thing didn’t bite him, even though he was moving luggage...

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How We Almost Got Stranded in Myanmar

Erin — Fri, 10 Jul 2015 01:15:22 +0000

When visiting a foreign country, an important part of your trip is being able to board the flight when you’re done and return home. You arrive, you enjoy your time and then, when you’re time is up, you go home. But what happens when you can’t go home? That almost happened to us in Myanmar. During our trip around the country we had a really great time. We wandered around Yangon. Flew to Bagan. Visited some amazing temples and ruins. Flew back to Yangon. Rode the Circle Train. And then went to the airport. When we arrived at the airport we had some issues with our bags. Our bags had been right at 7kg when we left and we’d bought a few trinkets, which added a little bit of weight, but not that much. The trinkets we’d bought weren’t all that heavy, maybe 1-2lbs (.45-.9kg), so we just packed our bags to a little over 7kg and put the remaining items in our backpacks before heading off to the airport. Getting to the airport was easy. Our taxi driver was pretty awesome and drove us by the house of Aung San Suu Kyi, the famous Burmese political activist who was put under house arrest for 15 years, before taking us to the airport. Since we had some extra cash and we liked our taxi driver, we gave him all of our extra cash when he dropped us off at the airport. It wasn’t a lot, maybe a couple dollars worth of kyat, but we figured we didn’t need it anymore since we were at the airport to leave the country. haha. Go us. When we got up to the counter the AirAsia people weighed our bags as usual and frowned at the extra half kilo that the bags weighed. That just wasn’t acceptable, they said. We’ve dealt with this before with AirAsia (they’re hit or miss with whether or not they’ll let the extra half kilo slide), so we just said we’d shift the extra bit to our backpacks. No big deal. We’d done this before. And they said okay. So we shuffled things around, put our bags back in the scales and the girl just looks at us. Um, what’s the problem? We had to weigh our backpacks, too. Uh, what? We’ve never had to weigh our bags AND our backpacks before. But, we followed instructions and put our backpacks on the scale, too. Yup. Over 7kg. When the girl insisted we had to check one of our bags, we asked to speak to a manager. That’s not AirAsia policy. But, when the manager came over, he also insisted our bags were overweight and that we had to check them. What the crap? The lady had told us we could shift weight and that would be fine, but now you’re saying it’s the weight of all the bags? That’s messed up. And totally not what the website say. It kinda upset both of us. Especially since my underwear had fallen out of my suitcase in front of a group of Asian men who snickered and scowled. So embarrassing. We tried talking with the guy and getting him to change his mind. We begged and we pleaded because we had no cash and they didn’t take Visa or MasterCard, but he wouldn’t budge. We tried looking up the AirAsia baggage policy to show him we were in compliance, but internet in Myanmar is very unreliable, so all we could do was protest the charge and tell him that we had no way to pay it. During the course of the conversation, after I finally got him to look at me and acknowledge I was there, I made the comment that it wasn’t right to have one policy for flying into a country and another policy for leaving the same country, that the rules should be the same both ways. He said he didn’t understand me, so I rephrased and said it’s a dishonest policy ………………….and that’s as far as I got. Oh. My. Goodness. The guy just about flipped his lid when the word ‘dishonest’ came out of my mouth. He got very offended and said we were very abusive and he couldn’t allow people like us on the flight. He told the girl at the counter not to issue us a ticket even if we paid for the bags and told us we were not allowed on the flight. This really shocked both of us because nobody had raised their voice, nobody had been argumentative, nobody had been remotely angry. Troy had been a few steps away going through his bag looking for money and just stood there with his mouth open. He looked at me and said, “Wait, what? What just happened?” When I told him we’d been kicked off the flight he tried talking with the guy to figure something out and the guy just said no and started walking away. Before he left Troy asked if there was someone else we could talk to and he said, “I am AirAsia and you can only talk to me.” He said how dare I call him a liar and say he is a dishonorable man. And then he left. So there we were, kicked off our flight with no other flight counters open and nobody else to appeal to. Since we didn’t know what else to do we just hung out by the ticket counter and watched other people get their tickets. We were both kinda freaking out because we couldn’t buy a ticket from another airline, we couldn’t get a taxi, we couldn’t get a hotel and our phone wasn’t working. We were very, very stuck. After a few minutes we started going through our bags again, looking for money. We figured if we could somehow convince the guy to let us back on the flight we would just check the dang bags and be done with it. After about half an hour the guy came back to the counter and when he was walking away I stopped him. I figured part of his issue was that I was a female and Burmese culture puts women as silent observers while the men were the power players, so I decided to just go with it. I apologized profusely and told him I hadn’t meant to offend and I was very sorry what I said had been rude. I told him that in America we are used to calling attention to things we view as incorrect and our culture is a lot more blunt. I explained that I wasn’t calling HIM a liar or saying HE was dishonest, just that I was disagreeing with a company policy and had misspoken. I told him I should not have been so belligerent, even though I hadn’t even been remotely obstinate, but whatever. I just wanted to get on the plane and go home. Thankfully, it worked. The guy finally said if we could pay the baggage fees we could get on the plane. He also said to me, “A country’s character is shown in the way it’s citizens speak to each other.” I wasn’t sure if he was trying to be a snot or not, so I just smiled and went back to gathering my bags. Thankfully we’d found some ringgit in my bag. I’d brought extra ringgit in my carry-on in case Troy’s cards get lost, but had forgotten I had it. It wasn’t enough to pay for both bags, but the guy booked our bags as 1 large bag at 25kg instead of the 2 bags at 20kg and took every last ringgit we had. Then, about five minutes later, he gave us our tickets and we ran for the gate. Our flight was boarding in 30 minutes and we didn’t want anything else to keep us from getting on it.

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How We Almost Didn’t Get to the Great Wall of China

Erin — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:39:46 +0000

When you visit China, there are several things you want to see. You want to see the Terracotta Warriors, giant pandas, the Forbidden City and, of course, the Great Wall. When we were in China we planned to spend the majority of our last day at the Great Wall. The first part of our trip had several hiccups, but we’d meticulously planned our last day and felt like everything was going to be perfect. And then we woke up. Scott, Troy and I got up early and made sure we were ready well before our tour guide was supposed to arrive. It was an early day, 7am, but we wanted to get an early start so we could spend a long time up at the Wall. After waiting outside for about 40 minutes, Scott went back inside to call Peter. When he came back out about 10 minutes later he said Peter was running late, but would arrive in 30 minutes or so. Scott ran to an eatery a few streets over, but Troy and I decided to stay close to the hotel in case Peter showed up ‘early’. Eventually he showed up, but not as we’d expected. We were concerned because we had rented a car and one tour guide, not a van and two tour guides. The woman with Peter told us he brought the van so we would be more comfortable and that Peter didn’t speak very good English, so she, Leelee, was along to make sure everything was communicated correctly. Shortly after we left the hotel Leelee said she wanted to make sure we were all on the same page. She said that for 400 RMB she would be taking us to a tea house, the Olympic stadium, a jade exhibition enter, the Badaling section of the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs and a pearl market. I had wanted to go to the Summer Palace as well, but Leelee said there wouldn’t be time to do it all. Scott asked her if there would be time to see the Summer Palace if we skipped the tea house, Olympic stadium, jade exhibition center and pearl market, but Leelee said it was company policy to visit those places and she couldn’t do anything about it. We didn’t have to buy anything at them, but if we could at least spend a few minutes at each one, that would be fine. Troy and I had come across a similar gig in Thailand where the drivers received kickbacks for bringing tourists to certain shops, so we figured we could just play the game, spend a few minutes at each place and then leave, hopefully cutting out enough time to hit the Summer Palace on the way back from the Wall. The first place we stopped was Dr. Tea. It was a cute little tea house where we were taken to a private room to receive a tea demonstration. Once the demonstration was over the demonstrator began showing us different products we could purchase. We weren’t really interested in anything, but she kept telling us she doesn’t get paid unless we purchase something and that we should show our appreciation for her demonstration by buying tea or a mug. At our continued refusal to purchase, she got quite upset. After we went outside she stormed over to Leelee and they started arguing in Chinese. When Leelee got back in the car, she assured us it was fine that we didn’t purchase anything here, but insisted we HAD to purchase something from the exhibition center and the pearl market. We said we’d think about it. As we drove to the Olympic stadium, Leelee began chatting with us. She asked about our phones, how expensive they were, if we had iphones, how much our cameras cost, what the price of things in the US were and what kind of jobs we had. She repeatedly mentioned how ‘rich’ we were. Eventually, Peter pulled the van off the side of the freeway and Leelee directed us to look out the window. It was the Olympic stadium! That thing is huge. When we just sat in the car and waited for Peter to take us over there, Leelee informed us that this was as close as we would be getting and that we should get out to take a few pictures. We were a little bummed that we weren’t actually GOING to the Olympic stadium, but that just meant we were now on our way to the Great Wall and we were all really excited. Until we got back in the van. Upon buckling ourselves into our seats, Leelee turned around and said she wanted to make sure we were all on the same page. Wait. Didn’t we do this already? Leelee went into a monologue about how we’re only paying 400 RMB for the tour and that we were getting a great deal because we’d gotten a bigger vehicle and two tour guides instead of one. She then informed us that the tour company keeps 200 RMB, leaving only 200 RMB left to cover vehicle rental, gas and hers and Peter’s services. After expenses they were going to walk away with nothing, so she wanted us to guarantee them a 200 RMB tip at the end of the day. We said we would guarantee the 400 RMB we had agreed to at the beginning of the day and if we were happy at the end of the day we would give them a tip. She insisted emphatically that we had to guarantee 200 RMB, effectively saying the trip was now 600 RMB instead of 400. We finally agreed to pay 600 RMB if we didn’t have to stop at any more shopping destinations and could just go to the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs and the Summer Palace. Leelee got upset and said we HAD to go to those places and we HAD to purchase something from each one. She insisted we were rich and could afford the small tip they were asking for. One of the things she kept saying was that Americans like to come to China and take advantage of the Chinese and that we should be better than typical Americans. We were taken aback by her comments because 1) we’d been kind and polite to both of them the entire time even though they were almost 2 hours late and 2) we’re not rich. I’m an unemployed college student who saves every penny I make from people reading these posts in order to go on these trips. Most of my clothes and shoes are years old, my camera is an old hand-me-down with functions that don’t work because it’s so old, and I never eat out or go to movies. I kept saying we should just leave and call one of the other cards Scott had picked up, but Scott was still trying to negotiate. We already had a vehicle and a driver and had no certainty that we’d be able to get another one, so he wanted to try to compromise. Leelee would not agree to anything except a price increase for the same tour we’d agreed to in the morning, so were kinda stuck at an impasse. After several minutes or failed negotiating we all decided to grab our things and leave. My friend’s husband had worked in the American Embassy in Beijing for a few years and we decided we’d contact her friend who said he’d help us if we ran into trouble. When we started putting our backpacks on and getting ready to leave, Peter said ‘no leave’ and locked the doors. Seriously, when the doorlocks clicked, I started to panic a little bit. Were we being held hostage?! Were the doors child-locked so we couldn’t open them manually? What on earth was going on??? I was so happy when Scott reached over, manually unlocked the door, and got out. The look on Peter’s face when Scott opened the door was one I will never forget. He was so angry! He and Leelee started yelling at us as we all climbed out, one yelling in English and the other yelling in Chinese. No clue what they were saying, but they were angry. Part of me was worried they would start driving away with me still in the van since I was in the far back row, but Troy reached back and yanked me out of the van as soon as he was out. I think he was worried they might leave, too. Once we were out of the van we bolted down the street. Leelee got out and was screaming after us in English while Peter was yelling after us in Chinese. We had no idea what either one of them was saying, but we knew we just needed to get out of there. After we’d run far enough that they were out of sight, we walked down the freeway for a little, trying to figure out what we were going to do. Eventually we found a bridge that went over the freeway and into town, so we headed that way. We were worried they were going to call the police and we’d be arrest because one of the few words we understood was ‘police’ and we were frightened. Troy gave Kevin, my friend’s contact, a call while we were walking and Kevin promised to find someone who could take us to the Great Wall, but it might take him some time. Feeling better, we walked towards the only thing we recognized: the Olympic stadium, where we stayed, dodging calls from the tour company and waiting for Kevin to call us back. Continue reading here to see the ending to our crazy morning!

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