#19

Was getting the train from Preston to Edinburgh and somebody who couldn’t speak much English came up to me and pointed at his (Edinburgh) ticket and pointed at the platform sign and said “Supermarket?” a lot. I managed to explain that this was the Edinburgh train, and I’m getting it too so I’ll stick with you, and yes I’m sure there’s a supermarket at the other end (?).

The only other word he seemed to know was coffee and he kept trying to get me one in gratitude. I said no, but when we changed trains at York he disappeared and came back with a big grin and exclaimed “no coffee - RED BULL!!” and handed me one, then kept going on about supermarkets again.

I woke up on the train to him poking me and shoving his phone into my face. I groggily take it and some guy says “thank you so much for looking after my brother and making sure he gets off the train at Haymarket”, and a lightbulb went off above my head and everything made sense.

This is a rubbish story.

4 Likes
#21

nah, it’s a good story.

I wonder if the kid’s still in edinburgh

#22

Suppose the driver’s got to do something to stay awake.

5 Likes
#23

Travelled across the whole of Russia with an expired visa only to get stopped on the Mongolian border where we were found out and forced to go to some weird town in Siberia with a giant Lenin head to get new visas and then new train tickets but there wasn’t another train for 3 days so we stayed with a kind Russian grandma who fed me lots of dumplings and called me Pushkin.

2 Likes
#25

She can’t drive, so I’m now deeply concerned for your safety.

#26

those Viz letters too… :joy:

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#27

Also paid a Russian taxi driver $100 upfront then the journey was only 15 minutes. Loads of other stuff too. It was a wild few days.

#28

How did you find the kind russian grandma?

#29

using his remarkable sense of smell

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#30

“This one smells kind”

That is a remarkable sense of smell indeed

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#31

When I was a young, wet behind the ears new graduate, I travelled down south for a job interview. On the way back up I had some time to kill and stood for a bit in WH Smith’s reading job adverts in New Scientist. Train arrives and I go to my purse to get the tickets and I can’t find my purse. Search everywhere and it’s gone. Have a mild panic attack that I’m stuck in London with no tickets and no money. I end up going to the ticket office and actually cried in front of the clerk and said my purse had been stolen (as I assumed that was what happened). They thankfully took pity on me and gave me a new ticket and I got on the next train. Got a phone call the next day - my purse had been found on the shelf in Smiths where I’d been reading magazines and handed in. :joy::joy::joy: doofus.

2 Likes
#32
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#33

err, didn’t mean to post that :joy:
have it anyway

11 Likes
#34

I like it. It’s a mid-thread palate cleanser.

#35

2nd doing of the day.

'sake.

#36

Was getting a bus from Malaysian Borneo to a city that’s basically at the frontier of the jungle in Indonesian Borneo, and you have to change buses in the middle of nowhere at this crossroads with a restaurant on it. The bus we got off there was a modern air conditioned job and the second one was like a tiny mini bus with people hanging off the sides and crammed in two to a seat etc.

Anyway the bus actually drops you off miles outside of the city, everyone else had lifts waiting for them. We didn’t. This 14 year old girl who was there for some reason took pity on us and gestured to us to wait here, fucked off on her moped and came back 30 mins later with her friend, and the two of them gave the two of us a lift to her parents house, where we were apparently invited to stay.

Her parents did not agree. They gave us a look which indicated that it wasn’t that uncommon for their daughter to pull this kind of shit.

On to Google translate and they tell us “not concern, we friends also of Dutch”. OK? Back on the mopeds from whence we’re deposited on some random house’s front porch and told to wait there. Eventually this Dutch woman turns up and is all like “oh hi, yeah, I always get dumped with whatever white people happen to turn up here with nowhere to stay”.

Pretty boring story that./

8 Likes
#37

Tried to hike up a mountain in Kerala when I had the runs and ended up shitting in the middle of a tea plantation. On the way day I was still suffering so our guide asked a dude by the side of the road if I could use his loo. Obviously it was just a hole in the ground next in a shed next to his house, but I was very grateful for it. Don’t think I left it in a very good state though.

1 Like
#38

Mine are drinking stories.

Talked with a wasted local in Gothenburg at a pub. Good bloke. Had a pub crawl with him around small quirky bars.

I had one night to spend in Montreal a few years ago. It was a connecting flight between Vegas and Heathrow. Ended up drinking with a Californian couple until around 4am. Brilliant night.

Dull pointless stories when typed here but bought back excellent memories.

#40

just like Indiana Jones

#42

Very kind.

(I let her go ahead of us in the queue at the train station ticket booth and then she noticed our troubles and offered to take us home)