Disgusting travel tales from other backpackers

All you need to do is choose the top bunk or the bottom. An easy decision you may think... take the bottom because all your stuff is within easy reach and when you’re trolleyed there’s no negotiation of dodgy ladders. However, I was at a hostel in Brisbane enjoying an early night (sometimes one needs ones beauty sleep) when my new dorm ‘mate’ woke me up pleasantly by placing his leery stinking mouth near to my ear and shouting 'boo' very loudly. He then got in his bunk (the one above mine) and fell into a deep beer-induced sleep. After a while I managed to drop off myself. However, a short while later I was woken by something wet and slimy landing on my head and on the floor next to me. I felt it with my fingers only to realise that it was, horrors of all horrors, vomit. The sod had puked on my head and my stuff! Horrified I leapt out of bed, went straight to the shower and washed away the offending slime. I then went to reception, demanded a new room and puke-boy’s key deposit so that I could wash and dry all my stuff. Just as Puke-boy was thrown out he announced: 'that’s the second time I’ve vomited on someone'. After three hours in the laundry (its 5am) I get into my nice clean, puke-boy free dorm and get into bed ... the top bunk. From that moment onwards I always slept on the top: no chance of any puke-boy wannabees getting me again. The positive end to the story is that reception-man put a present under my new clean pillow: puke-boy’s cutlery and plate deposit, and some money refunded because I had moved into an 8 bed dorm from a 4 bed. Fantastic! I left Brisbane with a profit and a profound new philosophy: always take the top bunk. Gabi Cross

I was walking to the airport to pick my friend Rach up, when a guy pulls up in a car next to me and asks me the way to Alajula. So I’m explaining in my i've-been-at-language-school-for-4-weeks Spanish that I haven't got a clue and go to walk away, but he just keeps talking. So I try again - 'no entiendo, no hablo espanol y NO SE DONDE ESTA ALAJUELA'. I tell him I have to meet my friend at the airport and walk off again, and he starts talking about something else entirely. Thinking it might be important, I try and listen and understand, but he has to repeat things a lot, and our whole conversation must have been about 3 mins. He's starting to get on my nerves by this time and I have to go meet Rach anyway, and that’s when I notice he has his trousers unzipped and his (stiff) rooster is hanging out! I couldn't believe it! I looked at him, said: ‘oh, es muy pequeno, lo siento’, (ooh, it’s very small, I’m sorry) and walked away faster than I’ve ever walked from anywhere. I was laughing but how disgusting?! Still, I survived unscathed and will NOT be being very nice at all to any more men here I don't know, which is probably a lesson well learnt! Cat Barrow

Whilst in Asia beware of people spitting! In Malaysia there are actually 'do not spit' signs on buses and even in restaurants! Whilst catching a bus in Laos a woman got on with her husband and within a few minutes suddenly felt the need to clear her airways. She pulled back the window and prepared for the hacking up. When she'd managed to gather the entire contents of her lungs in her mouth she stuck her head out of the window but unfortunately miscalculated the head out of window/speed-of-bus ratio and the whole load flew back into the bus and hit 6 of us who sat around her! Gross! Emma Gould

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