h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

They say (well, *I* say ) that the the best travel memories are when it all went wrong. So ...

Anyone got any good ones? Been ripped off, stranded or found something wasn't what/where/when you expected?

Gif

I was in Warsaw, Poland, towards the end of my inter-railing. The internet said to take the 22.47 to Amsterdam for my last leg. The station timetable said take the 22.47 to Amsterdam. It also said there was no other train at 22.47. So, I get on the 22.47, and off we go.

Very soon, the ticket inspector comes round. At this point, I shall quote from my travel notes: "SH!T!!!!!!! The 22.47 to Amsterdam does not go to Amsterdam - It goes to St. Petersburg!".

Fortunately, the man sharing the compartment is very friendly. He does not speak any English - and I do not speak any Polish. However, it is amazing how well you can communicate in an emergency. We get off the train at the first stop (where he lived), and he puts me on a bus back to Warsaw station.

I get back to Warsaw about 23.25, and decide it is far too late to seek accomodation. There is only one more train untill 0600 - and it goes to Budapest. So I took it, had a good night's sleep, and eventually got to Amsterdam via Budapest and Vienna - and arrived 2 hours earlier than if I had waited in Warsaw overnight for the next Amsterdam train!

While in France during a 3 week backpacking vacation, We were waiting for our train at Gaur Du Nord, we still had 2 weeks left and things were going pretty good. 10 minutes before departure we stood up to walk to the train and my friend noticed that her small bag where our passports and her credit cards were was nowhere to be found.
Making it worse I'm only a resident of the U.S. and Venezuela, my country of citizenship, is not issuing any passports because their government is stupid and can't do anything right. And the icing in the cake was the Venezuelan Embassy telling me that the only thing they could do was send me back to Venezuela (where I have no family or friends left) or wait for two months to see if PROBABLY then they could issue me a passport.

So I had to beg the airport attendents to allow me to board a plane back to the U.S. without a passport (this being after 9/11 and breaking every anti-terrorist protocol created) and only with my green card and a police report from the train station. Somehow it worked.

The best part still to come and after 28 hours of no sleep when arriving to Dallas International the conversation with the Immigration attendant went something like this:

Attendant: Can I see your passport?
Scare-out-of-my-mind-me: It was stolen... But I got my green card and a police report from France.
Attendant: oh, that sucks. (swipes green card through all-knowing machine) Welcome back to the States, NEXT!

Needless t say that night I got the best sleep ever.

Got to love the U.S.