My worst travel experiences

The street in Buenos Aires where Kim’s passport and money were stolen / Courtesy of Kim

Traveling abroad isn’t always fun. Sometimes it hurts

By Jung Min-ho

Don’t be fooled by Instagram photos in which everyone appears to be enjoying every single moment of their traveling experience. In reality, traveling abroad isn’t always fun. Sometimes it hurts and makes you feel like you don’t want to do it ever again.

Maybe you are a careful travel planner. Maybe you are not the type of person who flirts with danger. But things happen no matter how well prepared you think you are. The Korea Times asked travel lovers about their worst travel experiences.

Being scammed in Buenos Aires

A 32-year-old graduate student, surnamed Kim, was visiting Buenos Aires during last year’s summer break. Kim chose the country because he heard many good things about its people.

It didn’t take long for him to realize not everyone there was “nice and kind.”

“I was walking through a dark alley and suddenly something hit me in the back,” Kim said. “I turned around and saw a foul-smelling fluid trickling down my backpack.”

When he started to wipe it off with a tissue, a stranger came up to him and offered him help. Busy with removing the fluid, he didn’t respond.

“The guy helped me anyway. But at some point, I realized that he had disappeared with one of my three bags,” Kim said.

His passport, a U.S. visa and about $900 were in the bag. “Startled by what happened, I was speechless for a while. I later tried to find the guy but I couldn’t,” he noted.

Kim reported the crime to a local police officer, who took him to a police station. There, he spent hours struggling to explain the situation in his poor English to Spanish-speaking police officers and going through lots of paperwork.

“I was fortunate to have additional money and credit cards in the other bags. Without them, it could have been far worse,” Kim said.

It took about a week to have his passport reissued. For the student visa, he had to redo all the paperwork from scratch. “It took nearly a month, which ruined the first month of my visit there. It was fortunate that I planned a three-month trip and the crime hadn’t occurred in my last month.”

Other tourists he later met in a hostel told him it is a common scam technique, in which swindlers usually target Asians traveling alone.

“I try to look at the positive side of it. The scammers, at least, did not target everything I had, or they could have just hurt me. I’m glad I learned a big lesson without being hurt,” Kim said.

The memory of a creepy grin in Beijing / Yonhap

Public sexual harassment in Beijing

A few years ago around this time, a 34-year-old flight attendant, who declined to be named, was on her way to see her colleagues at a hotel in downtown Beijing.

“I remember I was wearing a pink jumpsuit that evening. It was freezing, so I quickened my steps to get there,” she said.

All of a sudden, she heard someone running toward her from behind ― and he stopped right behind her back. “When I realized what he was targeting, it was too late. The man pulled down my pants and underwear in the middle of the street. I was totally dumbfounded,” she said.

But it isn’t the worst part of the story. “And then, at a distance, he and other people nearby started laughing at me. No one tried to help,” she said.

But she did not try to fight him. “I thought it could be a trap to kidnap me. So I did not try to chase after him. I had to remain calm and think straight. I was all alone in a foreign country,” she said.

She was shocked because it happened in the middle of downtown when many people were around. Throughout her career, she has visited many countries, but that was, by far, the most unpleasant experience.

“It definitely gave me a terrible impression of China and its people. I do not go to the street anymore. I also do not wear that jumpsuit,” she said.

Everything was perfect before the food / Courtesy of the Palawan traveler

Food poisoning in Palawan

Everything was great before the incident. A couple of years ago, a 28-year-old English tutor, who refused to be named, was having her vacation in Palawan, the archipelagic Philippine province known for its natural beauty.

“I was invited to a party by some friendly people I met there. The party was fun until waiters started serving food,” she said. “The dishes looked unappetizing, so I didn’t want to eat anything. But because many people kept offering me food, I had some. That was the beginning.”

She started to showed symptoms of vomiting, fever and diarrhea. “I asked a hotel staffer to call an ambulance, which took me to the emergency room at a local hospital, but there was no doctor. So I had to move to another hospital,” she said.

After going through some tests, she received fluids intravenously and took some pills, which aggravated her condition.

“After taking the pills, I suffered a terrible fever that did not subside for the rest of the trip. It was the worst food poisoning I have ever had,” she said. “I showed the pills to doctors here after returning home. They said the pills were way too strong.”

“The food poisoning ruined the last part of my vacation, but I don’t regret my experience there. The people were really nice and Palawan was gorgeous. I would love to go there again and enjoy everything I did during my last visit, just except for the food.”