Worst country and hotel you ever been to?

[Deleted User]

When I was in Paris on business I stayed in a dingy hotel that reminded me of a 1950s gumshoe film, rooms like ashtrays, bloke behind the reception desk in a string vest, I was waiting for Robert Mitchum to walk in wearing a mac with the collar turned up.

Leicester YMCA in the 1970s was a bit grungy as well.

duchy

This thread reminds me of a trip to Western Australia with a group of travel agents - biggest complaints were "The fish and chip shops don't sell mushy peas" and "The yorkshire pudding didn't taste like home"

Travel is absolutely wasted on some people - fortunately some of the Med resorts do a great job with their resorts that offer, British beer, fish and chips and print the Sun locally for these people who think foreign travel must be just like England but with better weather.

pendragon_arther

Nairobi is probably the worst place for me:

The Six-Eighty Hotel whose personnel chose to think my Kenyan wife was a prostitute and treated her as such.

The Marble Hotel where a Muslim chanted to Mecca at 5am at the top of his voice and renovation work commenced at 7.30am with loud banging.

MasterPoo

pendragon_arther wrote: »

Nairobi is probably the worst place for me:

The Six-Eighty Hotel whose personnel chose to think my Kenyan wife was a prostitute and treated her as such.

That is disgusting! I hope you gave them hell!

PompeyPete

MasterPoo wrote: »

So I should fly to Thailand and order McDonalds and I'll make sure I order a roast dinner, I hope they serve it with Yorkshire pudding!

If you want Yorkshire Pudding served in the sky, then you have to choose the right airline...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VLYpKGVBUg

They operate out of a disused Asda car park called Leeds International.

:rotfl::rotfl::beer:

PompeyPete

totallybored wrote: »

I like to use airbnb to live someone else's life for a few days, does this count Admittedly it's in very nice apartments / houses in trendy bits of western cities but it's closer to immersion of someone else's life. I bought organic spelt sourdough bread and drank craft beers each day.

We've used Airbnb twice, in Kathmandu and Sanur (Bali).

This is where we stayed in Kathmandu for a week in March last year...

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/571246

We were totally immersed into the lives of our Hindu family hosts, and it was one of the best experiences of many years of budget travelling.

Every evening we were invited to eat Dal Bhat...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wfFmfxtCCU

...with the family (3 generations), and then enjoy their company in the lounge, learning about the family, their life, jobs, childrens' education, discussing the day, and what we had planned for the next day. Absolutely priceless.

Having spent 5 weeks in Nepal I'm heartbroken at recent events, yet privileged that we had the opportunity to spend a decent amount of time totally immersed with such wonderful people in a beautiful [but fragile] country.

Moto2

It's all well and good breaking bread and eating with locals but you can get a better experience in your luxury hotel.
Themed restaurant nights and showcase cooking events are very authentic indeed, no, no - really they are. They often have a decent wine cellar too.

.......... and there's a big fence all around the place so that you don't get disturbed or have to put up with the proles interfering with your dinner.

mandragora_2

Crete, Agia Galini, Hotel Selena. Dissssssgussssssting. It's in a lovely location, should be amazing, but it's filthy. Views include free show of grey brassieres.. Run by the Greek Susan Boyle.[IMG]http://<a href="<a href=http://s1071.photobucket.com/user/Poppymandy/media/SP_A0121.jpg.html&quot; target=_blank rel=nofollow>http://s1071.photobucket.com/user/Poppymandy/media/SP_A0121.jpg.html"</a&gt; target="_blank"><img src="<a href=http://i1071.photobucket.com/albums/u509/Poppymandy/th_SP_A0121.jpg&quot; target=_blank rel=nofollow>http://i1071.photobucket.com/albums/u509/Poppymandy/th_SP_A0121.jpg"</a&gt; border="0" alt=" photo SP_A0121.jpg" style=""></a>[/IMG]

PompeyPete

tomtontom wrote: »

It is not a criticism, I enjoy the same kind of holidays, but I don't kid myself that I have the slightest appreciation of the lives of the locals. We're protected from these realities because if we did know we probably wouldn't ever go back.

Obviously never stayed in a Homestay, which are all over the place in Asia, and suit all budgets. Here's a few in Thailand...

https://www.homestay.com/thailand

and Vietnam...

https://www.homestay.com/vietnam

Masterpoo seems to think they're all in field in the middle of nowhere, with a dunny down by a stream.:)

Gavin83

In terms of counties I didn't like Indonesia or Tunisia but I only went to a small part of both so dont really feel like they can win my worst country award. Therefore that title goes to Brunei. I was expecting a fairly well off country similar to Singapore. Truth is one family have all the money and everyone else is disturbingly poor. The whole city stinks and its not even cheap to visit. Worst thing you can't even get alcohol to numb how boring this place is as its a dry state, they even take unopened alcohol from you at the border. Luckily I was only passing through.

As for hotels there have been several Ive left without even staying a night. Generally this is because it hasn't even been close to what was described or paid for. I've stayed in some incredibly noisy places and some with cockroach problems. In one hotel I opened the door to see no less than 50 cockroaches with several crawling over the bed. I went into a room in another place which had an 8 inch spider right above the bed. I actually stayed there but in a different room!