My Top 3 Scariest Travel Moments So Far And What I Learnt From Them

Festivals such as Mexico’s Day of the Dead or the more popular Halloween celebrated in various countries all try to come up with the scariest costumes and ideas. For a traveler, nothing can be scarier than some of the experiences he or she faces on the road. Like many other travellers, I have had my share of bad experiences on my travels. Here are the top three scariest travel moments I’ve faced on my travels so far.  

Misplacing my Luggage in Europe

This is the most recent experience that scared me so it’s on top of my mind. At the end of a superb but exhausting five weeks of travels through Portugal, Canary and Azores islands and Spain, I landed in Seville, my penultimate destination before flying off from Barcelona. I’d already had a bad experience with Vueling Airlines while flying from Lanzarote to Barcelona and then onwards to Seville that led to me book another flight for 90 euros but the really scary part happened when I couldn’t find my bag on the luggage carousal.

At Seville airport, baggage was also divided into EU and non-EU luggage for some weird reason. I ran back and forth between the two sections trying to locate my checked-in bag but to no avail. Of all the remote airports I’ve gone to, I couldn’t believe that I lost my bag in Spain’s fourth-largest city.

I had also landed pretty late and the last city bus from the airport left at 12.30 AM. I had to wait patiently before an old man who took forever to fill his lost baggage form before I could do the same. As my bad luck would have it, I missed the city bus by five minutes and had to pay the princely sum of 25 euros by cab after waiting for an hour trying to find co-passengers to split the fare to the city centre.

I had to wait almost 48 hours before I got my bag at my pension, that too after repeatedly making calls to the airport’s premium number. It was a harrowing experience that’s led to me think of trying to travel only with carry-on luggage next time onwards.

Lessons Learnt: Don’t travel by Vueling Airlines, keep your most valuable belongings with you in your carry-on bag and try to see if you can travel without checked-in baggage.

Losing my Wallet and Mobile in India

This happened in Ajmer and inside the holy shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti. Which is ironical because I’m sure people pray for prosperity more than anything else at Ajmer’s famous dargah. I entered the dargah and took in the surroundings before standing in queue to go inside the sanctum sanctorum. All of a sudden, the loudspeaker announced that the sanctorum would be closed from 12 pm onwards. A huge stream of believers joined the queue in the typical disorganized way most Indians line up. Among them was a thief who made the most of the confusion and helped himself to my wallet and mobile phone. While my wallet didn’t have money, it did have my Press ID card from The Times of India, the country’s top newspaper for which I was then working. I was afraid it could somehow be misused as the Times of India opens a lot of doors automatically. As for my mobile, I was scared that someone would call all the celebrities and other important contacts I had saved. I learnt my lesson the hard way after this incident since I didn’t believe in password-locking my phone at the time.

Lessons Learnt: Always stay alert in crowded places, keep your valuables in your front pocket and check to see that they are in your pockets

Setting Off with a Stranger at Midnight

This happened on my first foreign trip in Vietnam. I had booked my flight to Ho Chi Minh City but nothing further. My itinerary was as open as the country’s paddy fields. After spending some days in the city, I took a local bus to get inland to the Mekong Delta’s Ving Long city. I was scheduled to reach at 7 pm, not a wholly unreasonable time to get to a new place in a foreign land as a first-time traveller.

Things, however, didn’t go as per plan. My bus had a punctured type that delayed my arrival by three hours to a nondescript town even by today’s standards. The result was that I reached at midnight and quickly saw I was the only tourist in the city. A couple of xe om’s (bike taxis) stood waiting for me and after some haggling, I picked one to take me to a hotel mentioned in my guide book.

Now, in barely visible street light and with no orientation of the city, I headed with my strongly-built driver to what I assumed was the hotel. My driver spoke with someone on his mobile phone and then took a sudden turn from the main road into a dirt track that had nothing but vegetation on either side. I was now beginning to get skeptical and asked if this was a shortcut. The driver didn’t respond. We drove on for five minutes that seemed like an eternity to me. Suddenly, a small village appeared up ahead and I wondered if my valuables would be stolen from me here.

The driver passed the first few settlements and stopped in front of one house and gestured for me to wait. It was a silly thing to do because I was a dead duck with my luggage if I tried to run anyway. He went inside one of the houses while I tried to get my bearings. I wasn’t carrying a cell phone so I didn’t know where I was. I also wondered if any mobile network reached this village.

My driver emerged with a plastic bag two minutes later and a big smile plastered on his face. When he got close enough for me to inspect the bag under the street light, I saw it was a bag filled with noodles. Still smiling, he showed me his house and how his wife had called him to get his food. I breathed a sigh of relief and moments later we set off for my hotel. At the end, he completely surprised me by offering me the bag and telling me to eat so I put on some weight like him. It was a scary experience that quickly turned memorable.

Lessons Learnt: Never judge people too quickly and keep calm in stressful situations.

What are some of your scariest travel experiences? Do let me know in the comments below.