I'm going abroad again, a few years since I've been in Europe, although I've been further afield. In the capital city I'm going to I probably won't have time to participate, though when I'm there I may make time.
It reminds me of the one time in many years of going off the tourist trail when I came seriously unstuck, which was in Europe. In my experience the punting "risk" in most countries is very low and far lower than many non punters would think. Manila, Rio, Bangkok, Bombay, wherever... No one involved, or at least very, very few, want trouble. Be reasonably sensible and respectful and there generally are very few if any problems.
But not for me in Budapest. I went there when it was being called the Bangkok of Eastern Europe. The wet and grey day I arrived it was more like the fucking Barnsley of Eastern Europe, or at least the so called "red light district" was. There were a few bars here and there and not a female to be seen.
I went into one big, almost empty, scruffy looking bar in the late afternoon. One way or another, after a few minutes I got chatting to three birds who were there and who had good English. I thought they were probably hookers, and they looked good. Budapest was looking better.
That was until I went to the toilet, in fine form. I came back, started chatting again, had a slog of booze, and that's all I remember. Having your drink spiked doesn't make you feel odd, or dizzy, at least it didn't for me. There's no advance warning of something not being right. The lights just went out. It's virtually a complete blank. I did have vague flashes of being somewhere and people laughing at me, one guy in particular, not pleasantly, but that's all. God knows where I ended up.
I came round lying face down on the floor of my room in the very large hostel/hotel type place I was staying in sometime after midnight. As my senses slowly returned I suddenly remembered my moneybelt, and then I woke up very rapidly. It was gone, along with everything in it. The bastards had taken the lot. They could have left my air ticket and my passport out of some kind of decency but there was nothing. At reception I was told I'd been half carried in by two guys who said they were friends and they took me to the room. The hostel name was on a card I had with me. I suppose they could have been worse and just dumped me in the street. But I still don't think of them very kindly.
So with nothing but the clothes I had brought I had to start putting everything back together again. Hugely important, I'd written down the Barclaycard emergency number in the UK and they were brilliant. Within a few hours a courier arrived with £200. They kept me in money and I stayed the full 10 days as planned. But a lot of paperwork needed to be filled in for a new passport and so on, though I still managed to do some punting. I had no thought of going to the police. It was just bad luck.
So it's Europe again, with no repeat of that.
But that's the one and only time I've come seriously unstuck in maybe 1,500 encounters over the years, which has to be a very acceptable ratio. Everywhere else, apart from one or two minor hassles, the other 1,499 have pretty much been fine.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2023 17:43 by Nesslad.