What's the dirtiest, grungiest, most uncivilized, or crime
ridden place you've ever been. Whether it's Medan, Jakarta,
Sao Paulo, Cairo, New Delhi, or even New York. What
experience did you have there and lived to tell about it?
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Colon, Panama is the worst, dirtiest, most disgusting, run-down, crime ridden place in the entire western hemisphere. I always to try overlook some of the negative aspects of any place I visit but found Colon to have absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I felt "watched" and was just waiting to be attacked/robbed/ mugged or even worse. Avoid this place like the plague. What is interesting is that Colon used to be one of the nicest and most picturesque towns in Panama (or so they say).
Hi. I would definitely have to vote Lima as the worst, most crime ridden, depressing city I have ever been to, and I have travelled through over 40 real bad places - from South East Asia to Kigali in Africa. Maybe Lima has changed since 1995, but the smog is utterly gross, and the streets are vile. As you leave Lima and drive south to Ica, it looks like some strange planet after a nuclear holocaust.
It really sucks!
Pasha,
That's an interesting choice I have to admit. I was in Lima
in November 1996, and I had also prepared for the worst, but
it was far better than I had thought. -To all those who want
to base their trip to Peru in Lima, don't worry, you'll
survive!
Richard
Actually, I didn't find Lima that bad either until I was
jumped at 2pm mid-day on a busy street by three guys....
Well, at least the hotel (Espana) was fun... and no, I was
not in what would be considered a "slum" area taking
chances. I had been on that street many times before...
just luck of the draw!!! Go, but watch yourself!
I haven't really been anywhere which I hated intensely.
Indoonesian cities are fairly ordinary, but the people are so
nice it compensates.
I've heard nothing but bad stories
about Johannesburg -- a friend was almost killed in a
vicious daylight robbery in a good suburb.
As for Colon, I'm not surprised it stinks!
LONDON, what a depressing, horrible place.
Was East L.A. because the place looked familier, I spoke
the language, knew the law of the land but felt in imminent
danger.
I think my appartment qualifies for the title. Don't go near
it!
Richard
I have been to four of the six cities in your list, Dean.
I even lived in Jakarta for three months (and quite liked
it as a matter of fact although it wouldn't be my first
choice of Indonesian cities to live in). Medan was pretty
bad. I was running a fever when I arrived there in 1988
with a female friend from university. At that stage the LP
guide was 7 years out of date and said that all the hotels
were crap anyway. We headed to the one that sounded the
least worst and got a room with no windows and walls like
cardboard. There were all these fearsome looking men
lurking in the corridor who would leer at us whenever we
went to bathroom. From very early in the morning we could
hearing the sound of people loudly clearing their nose and
throat in the bathroom to deposit the contents in the
drain. Went out into the street the next day and saw lots
of people walking around with hankies over the faces so
they wouldn't breathe in all teh dust and car fumes. Had
heaps of trouble getting a bus out of the place but
eventually made it. Weren't even there 24 hours.
Athens is such a scumhole. If you're visiting Greece, give
yourself no more than one day to see a couple sights and
then get the hell out of there! Traffic is everywhere and
the pollution is just unbearable. The islands are great,
especially Crete (although its capital, Iraklion, ranks up
there with Athens in the "don't even stick your tongue out
unless you want instant cancer" category), and hiking Mt.
Olympus and visiting Meteora are wonderful, but stay away
from Athens, the dirtiest place I've ever been on this
incredible, lonely planet.
worst ever is dera dun in india...yuch!
We've seen quite a lot of places during our bike trip around
the world, but Medan still is one of the worst. There are
more in Indonesia: Pekanbaru (Sumatra), Dompu (Sumbawa) and
Jakarta of course. Madras and Chiang Mai are also on top of
the list.
Yes, Colon, Athens (ugh!) and the many others listed are certainly up there with some of the worst. I do freelance scouting for several US based tour outfitters and have been paid to endure delays in some of the most God awful, forlorn, pox ridden hellholes humans have ever produced! Here are 10 of my favorites: ( not in order of awfulness)
1. Ulcinj, Montenegro: Summer resort from the trash heap! Poor, sickly spot with no sanitation. By the end of the summer, sunbathers were pushing aside trash to get to some sand on the only small beach. Had one poor guy beg me to get him out of "this shit hole"
2. Cairo: You all know, how sad! On my last visit I watched a band of municipal firemen pick apart a lovely British Colonial firestation only to tile the exterior in hidious green tiles! The building was perfectly fine! When will they stop!
3. Petropavlosk, Russian Far East: Bad enough living on the edge of nowhere, but the dismal, cracked concrete hell of some of the worst Soviet Russia had to offer is so depressing, especially with the glorious natural backdrop of volcanos as a contrast!
4.Guanzhou, China: Dare you breath! The runaway fumes of unresticted industry and pools of God knows what in the streets made this place an immediate health risk!
5. Brindisi,Italy: Souless rows of shuttered tenements, constant traffic, a port more awful than most industrial Italian ports and bad pizza, magnify this under 100F heat and you wonder why Dante didn't set his Inferno here.
6. Constantsa, Romania: I watched as rust bucket tankers were unloaded by teams of horses! Talk about depressing, lots of street orphans and prostitutes working the docks!
7. Kars, Turkey: Mud, mud, mud...mud in the streets, mud on the buildings, horses, asses, mules adding to the mud, surly innkeepers and pissed off inhabitants, can't get much worse in Eastern Turkey, an otherwise fascinating and friendly place.
8. Hammond, Indiana: Sad, run down and hopelessly depressed mid West town surrounded by defunct behemonths of steel mills lined up along the shores of Lake Michigan like so many dying pachyderms.
9.Tuticorin, India: UGH! The nightmare! I can't even begin to describe it!
10. Guayaquil, Equador: Hot, steamy, thoroughly nasty, miles of tin roofed slums and dangerous gang members. I've lived in New York for almost my whole life and saw more shooting in a weekend here than at home in a lifetime.
The worst place I saw recently might be Kuta beach, Bali. I feel sorry for Indonesia to have so many cities criticized here, but indeed, how a country with such a rich cultural heritage let chances to attract visitors (and money) slip away like this... Well, many people still seem to enjoy the general atmosphere of Kuta, its racing motorbikes in the lanes, its constant holes in the street or road works left unfinished, dust and rubbish smells, all the hawkers, touts, and when you're a woman, rude boys that hassle you all day long, and the dogs... I describe it as the worst place because it has everything that could make it a paradise on earth, and especially when you've come here from Europe or the States, Bali is such an exotic place that you can't be expecting such a disaster...
I've seen other places like Karachi, Cairo, Shenzhen, Datong that could compete in your column, but at least you don't usually consider them as a final destination...
For those who go to Bali, I would advise to go to Kuta one day for the experience and stay somewhere else. Anywhere else on Bali. You'll make no Balinese friend there anyway, as you'll be seen as a walking-purse as soon as you arrive!
For those of you who describe London or New York as the worst places on earth, I must admit I really don't understand. New York is famous for its crimes, but far less dangerous than LA, Houston or else Washington, isn't it ? And any sordid suburbian town in any country can be the worst place on earth. Take Paris as an example : the entire North-Eastern part of the city is quite sordid but at the opposite, you'll find the world-famous Champs-Elysees, Eiffel Tower or Opera...
As a conclusion, dear Dean, why don't you ask what were the most beautiful and impressing places we've ever seen ? Those are much more difficult to find !
After travelling all over Europe, Asia, the Middle East,
America and Canada; I've come to the conclusion that the
worst place I've ever been is... Columbus, Ohio.
A sad, sad city with sad, sad people.
I second the emotion of whoever mentioned Brindisi, Italy.
Twelve hours in that town was enough for me.
I would have to say Manila is the worst I have been to. It
tops LA and Vegas but they are similar in some ways. It is
extremely hot and humid. The first thing I noticed was the
heavily armed guards at banks, restaurants, bars. Guards
dont mess around, they carry pistol grip sawed off shotguns
and fully armored personnel carriers roam the streets as use
for bank cars. Criminals are armed to the teeth as they have
liberal gun laws. Prostitutes and transvestites roam the
streets along with beggars. In broad daylight one day, as I
walked down the street two young boys were
urinating on a building in downtown, one hand on their
privates the other out begging while saying, "hey mr. give
me some pesos". Everyone tries to scam you. The hotel people
tell you not to go out at night because its too dangerous
and then they try to put you in a hotel car for your safety
which they charge you 3 times the going cab rate. If you are
a single male the odds of you getting in a cab and actually
having the cab driver take you to your intended destination
instead of a whorehouse is about 1:1. No matter how many
times you say no a percentage of cabdrivers will insist on
taking you to prostitution bars which are technically
illegal but the huge corrupt system of bribes and kickbacks
keeps most vice related businesses operating.
brindisi has my vote too for a sad, sad place
also sunauli and shirdi
in general transit towns seem to get a raw deal, the dust, trucks and crowded emptiness
Oh, I was in Bucarest(Romania) and especially subburbian of
this city is very devastated and sad.It is postindustrial
view of old factories and devastated buildings.A lot of pollutions, wild dogs on the train station(it in the other cities).
Okay, some people have mentioned some pretty exotic worst places in the world, but I think New Haven, Connecticut, USA deserves a mention in this elite company. My theory that the town was built over some kind of giant Indian Burial Ground (perhaps used by all the Indians of New England to bury their possessed and evil deadl). Everyone with any sense has long since moved far away. Traditional smalltalk on the street revolves around excuses for not having moved away yet and plans to do so in the near future. In addition to crack wars and a skyline that can only be described as `butt-ugly', the entire zeitgeist of the town is stultifying and soul-destroying. And...well, anyway, you get the point.
Bihar is generally hard going but this place! The taxi
drivers, the tuk yuk drivers, the buses, the streets, the
heat .. it was all really really dreadful. We were on our
way to a Buddhist hangout called Bodh Gaya and although it
was pretty dreadful, getting there through Gaya was the
worst. STAY AWAY!
Beautiful,Josephine FALLS,kARANDA,WANDEKALA, GO BUT WATCH
OUT FOR LOCAL INHABITANTS
Don't expect to find much to do here on Guernsey, Channel
Islands. Although it might be quite pretty and fairly clean
(a little rubbish on the beaches) there really is hardly
anything to do here and this makes it hell. I have lived
here since 1984, and it has become necessary for me to make
many many trips around 'the planet' to get away from this
'hellhole'. Guernsey, as part of The Channel Islands, is a
tax haven. The main source of employment is the finance
industry, and although this may be good for locals to earn
money, it is incredibly soul-destroying at the same time.
It is quite amazing, I have travelled all over the world,
hell, people are nice to each other, friendly etc, in Asia
e.g. Indonesia, India etc., and despite Guernsey having
houses quite close together, nobody really talks to each
other. People in this western world all seem to want to
lock themselves up their houses, closing their doors to the
outside world. There is absolutely NO community spirit
here, in fact, there is no spirit at all, the island is all
about money and this negativity causes a spiritual void !
This is as true as the sky is blue !
The people here are all motivated by money and are not
particularly friendly. There are way too many cars on
island roads (60,000 population, probably more cars than
this) which are narrow, like the mentality and thinking of
locals (yes, real locals here are not exactly the 'sharpest
knives in the draw'.)
The main activity on this island is drinking - locals drink
heavily (not me !) to keep themselves sane, no doubt!
However, I keep myself sane my cycling to work and back,
working out, and leaving this damn rock as much as possible
(St.Malo, France is nearby - 1hr 45 mins by boat - but
'locals' don't go there very often !)
My recommendation to you is not to come here, unless you
are an alcoholic, or like boredom, because you will not
find anything to do other than get bored. And when you
choose to leave, you may find that you are stuck here
because the boats won't sail (too rough) and planes don't
fly (too foggy). You will also be stuck if your car runs
out of petrol on a sunday, because you cannot buy petrol
here on this day. The island is also somewhat of a police
state, so this means - all beach barbeques (should you have
one in summer) should end at midnight : no more
drinking/music : people should 'leave the beaches' after
midnight.
If you do come here, bring a good supply of books !
Here's a little story to illustrate this police state of
Guernsey :
About ten years ago, I was walking down the high street
here in St.Peter Port with some friends. As it was raining
we were all taking cover under an umbrella. We were also
quite jolly, having just had some drinks ! So, we were
singing a little bit, but not loudly. As we were about to
enter The Commercial Arcade, a pig (oooops, sorry,
policeman!) advised us to quieten down a bit; however, fact
is, we were not at all loud. We continued on our way, still
singing along. The pig followed us through the arcade, and
up the high street. He stopped us about 1/3 of the way. He
gave us some bullshit about us making a noise in an area
where people are trying to sleep (what rubbish - there are
perhaps only 1/2 a dozen flats in the arcade). My friend
started laughing. Basically, to cut a long story short, the
pig said that unless my friend stopped laughing, he would
be arrested ! All of us were 'staggered' to hear this. It
seems that you cannot laugh in public here too much,
especially late at night in residential areas with the
police around ! Just goes to show what this island is like!
There are way too many police all just looking to arrest
someone. Like the traffic inspectors, arrests/tickets
issued equals promotion/bonus possibilities !
Incidentally, other Channel Islands like Sark and Alderney
have even less to do, and locals drink more. Jersey is a
better island, more to do etc.. Go there instead !
BOTTOM LINE :AVOID THIS PLACE LIKE THE PLAGUE, UNLESS YOU
ARE INTO TAX AVOIDANCE AND/OR BOREDOM !
The Ultimate Buffalo.
GREG, get real will you.my wife and 2 kids have lived here for 2 years and alot of what you say is absolute rubbish, especially about the taxi drivers and prostitutes walking the streets. my wife has often had to catch a taxi home at night, no dramas. as for the polllution, your spot on and people urinating in the street well you get used to that and as the traffic is pretty bad you sometimes have to join them.
It is amazing the fact that so many people choose spots
that they hate that in the third world. Sure there's filth,
sleaze and over-development, but nothing can compare to the
cultural vacuum that I have seen in the suburbs in
Australia...be it Glen Waverly, Blacktown or wherever.
Medan, Pekanbaru, Jakarta, Manila and even LA have
character, despite the filth and degredation. If you
happened to get robbed or the trotts while you werew there,
bad luck! "Suburban Australia on a Shoestring" could be an
interesting concept...?
But let's face it, who travels to love places anyway?
Imagine a city with 40,000 inhabitants. Take out the best
and brightest 38,000. What you have left is Moynaq.
I agree wholeheartedly with Hell is Guernsey-I lived on
jersey for 3 (or was it 33 )years. Hell, hell, hell. For
even less stimulation and talk about middle of nowherevill
Vancouver BC wins hands down. Dull, stupid natives, no
points of reference besides plasticky "native" culture, no
hope losers to a person. Only escape is Seattle 4 hours and
no one can afford it with the loonie fir to wipe butts with.
Best place oneart-London. Buzzy, bright, on the ball!
I must admit, in my 6 years of on again off again travels thru Europe, Egypt, India, Asia, Aust., New Zealand and the Americas, I have seen some pretty horrible places. But if you go anywhere with narrow sights all you will see is the bad things.
Kuta beach is one that sticks out in my mind, but the Ozzies seemed to love it there, so there must have been something that I missed.
I hated to see Nevada on the list. Las Vegas is what you make of it, and I guess that person made it to be hell.
But, for those of you who actually enjoy travel, as I do, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Bavaria Germany and French Switzerland anywhere in the Greek Isles and the coast of Portugal are the most beautiful places I have ever been. Over look the pox marks and enjoy the small beauties that around every corner. Tread lightly.
live large and enjoy your time while in forein
countries.things are cheap so enjoy the finer things. I
really hate hearing people bitch about late busses and
dirty rooms DEAL WITH IT .I have lived and worked in
thialand for the last 4.5 years. One of the most important
things is to talk their language and respect their way of
life. Enjoy Thailand Ca pai nai Thialand
if you are looking for awork in petra -jordan
for holliday-work or more in a hotel or atravel agent
please just contact me,
no problem about accomodation and food.
best regards
twaissi
edom@go.com.jo
Poland. Gadansk, Poland . I have been there three times,
and personally saw a robbery in broad daylight each visit.
One of them was my wifes purse as she was getting on the
train. It is a business and the train personel will do
naught. The Customs will confiscate anything of value you
bring into poland. But then too, the US Customs has stolen
over 100,000 usd from me so why should I bitch about the
polish Customs. The US Customs look about as bad as the
polish customs except the poles are skinny and repulsive
while the U S customs are fat and repulsive. Stay home.
I guess all you Kuta-haters have not traveled too much in
the U.S. Of course Kuta is overcrowded and commercial and
that is a pity but PLEASE! It has a beautiful beach, good
restaurants and my hotel in Legian (north Kuta) was
delightful. If you have ever been to Detroit, you will
know the feeling of absolute despair that must accompany a
dead-end life. The downtown is hanging on by a thread, with
an area about four blocks accross that seems safe and
habited. Around that is mile upon mile of crumbling
deserted warehouses and worse. The suburbs are trashy row
houses and there is not a good restaurant to be found except
a few high-end steak joints. DO NOT GO THERE>
why spend so much time and energy being negative about
things that you are not willing to change instead of
thinking about positive things, good places you've been and
wonderful people you have met
Cancun is clean and you don't have to worry about the water,
but the place is completely devoid of soul. Any Mexican
culture the place has is suffocated under a mile of
cheesiness, with sky-high prices and cab drivers who bring
you only to outlandishly overpriced hotels for an obvious
kickback, and the ticky-tackiest strip mall of junk you can
find outside of Route 9 in Framingham, Mass. (site of the
nation's first strip mall!) This is not to insult Mexicans
at all--what makes the place awful is all the Americans, who
for some unfathomable reason want to go to a foreign country
where they really don't need to have any contact with an
actual third world economy. They should do Mexicans a favor
and just go to Florida for spring break.
I'm not the veteren traveller, but I know what's a hell
hole and what isn't. I have to agree with anyone that hates
Detroit. However if you like large vacant buildings, randon
broken fences and old rusty cars, you may feel different.
Second on the list is Bucharest, Romania. You may be fooled
at first with the nice train station, but it's not a place
to send postcards from.
My worst experience was Athens. I even had warnings to
spend no longer than a day there. We arrived at 7am and
planned on taking an overnight to Thessaloniki (if you like
large, smokey, inconsiderate, smelly, loud people that don't
speak your language, take this train). We had to check our
bags and spend the entire day in the city with out a place
to sleep. At noon we saw the Acropolis. It was 110 degrees
F. Then we went to see the National Museum, and it was
closed due to the heat wave. We had to keep ourselves busy
for 15 hours. Thank God the world cup was going on and food
is cheap there. The moral of the story is: If you are
travelling to Athens, go to the islands instead.
1. Africa: Lagos! Am I the only person to go there and life to tell the awful tale?
2. Europe: Zinnwald, Germany: On the former East German-Czech border and fully exposed to smelter fumes for years(Zinn=tin in German) this area isjust about without plant life. It can't all be blamed on the Communists, but all those years of meeting the quota did not improve the place.
3. South America: Georgetown, Guyana
4. North America: (tie) Trinidad, Colorado and Juarex, Mexico
5. Asia: (tie) Shenyang and Chengdu, China: It is a good rule not to breathe air that you can see. An example of unrestrained use of poor quality coal. Perhaps they will look llike Zinnwald in 50-`100 years.
6. Australia: I have been there, and it looked all OK to me, but all I saw was Sydney and the Hunter River area. Perhaps the good beer removed bad memories, it is all a bit vague.
Detroit airport...hands down.
I have been to every country in the world except Libya
(Americans not allowed there) and I have to agree with some
previous nominations for crime--Lagos , also Abidjan in
West Africa were scary enough to keep me inside after dark,
also Jo-burg, Mexico City, Tangier Morocco where I was
mugged, Lima. For pollution, I'd say Manila, Bangkok,
Jakarta, and Cairo.
I will have to agree with some of the earlier posts about Medan, Indonesia. Spent three days there before and after my trip to other areas in Sumatra and didn't like it at all. Very hot, large, dirty industrial city with no decent guesthouses! It is a shame because the rest of Sumatra was soooo wonderful!
I find it somewhat amusing that so many of these places are third world countries. Of course they are going to be dirty - the few wealthy nations on this beautiful planet are stealing and hording the wealth from the rest of them. If they decided to share the wealth then maybe the whole world could be a little bit more just and beautiful.
Fairfax, VA. USA. A clean, upper middle class suburb of Washington D.C. No crime, graffitti, potholes, or poor people. Also, no soul, no minorities, no cheap armenian or japanese food, nobody with an open mind. Lots of republicans, in fact, the N.R.A. is headquartered here. Ollie north calls this area home as well. I grew up in this perfect-on-the-outside hell-hole, and let me say that when the local police have nothing to do but harass teenagers and everyone thinks that if you're Asian then you're automatically Chinese, it's time to move to a "horrible" place like L.A., which is exactly what I did six years ago. I've NEVER been happier.
Tepic is just a place to change buses if you're going
Mazatlan to Puerta Vallarta and weren't lucky enough to get
a direct one. It's a sugar mill town with a bus station.
Fair size town but no white people and they are not happy
to see you. I had chicken tacos at PolloPollo, a cafeteria
style restaurant with a beer and got glared at big time by
families. I have never felt so unwelcome anywhere else in
Mexico. Nothing to draw anyone here. Sad.
OSTRAVA, (Czech Rep.)near the Polish border. It's black and
filthy.
Bucharest has bad areas, I agree, but it's not all so
dirty.
Are you sure you were in Vancouver,B.C.? Save for a little
too much rain, it is the most beautiful city on Earth. You
probably brightened up the entire city just by leaving it.
give your turntable a kick I think your record's stuck.
been to the island of Truk in Micronesia. Very sad. It
probably was beautiful 50 years ago.
If Vancouver is shit than then there aren't many cities on
this earth that aren't shit. Anna, you need your head
examined.
- INDIA rules hands down! For every good experience, five
bad ones would occur (too many to list!).
- PRINCE GEORGE, BC (Canada) NEVER want to go back there!!
Grey, depressing, and a bunch of rednecks live there. Got
spat on by some little kids in the park. And some guy in the
bar was so insulting, I actually belted him one (that was a
first for me--I'm a female!)
- PS I liked Athens. And Vancouver (when it's sunny) is
really nice.
I have to say I am not an experinced traveller and am going
to Thialand at the end of this month, all this talk scares
the hell out of me !!! If this is what all these places are
like I'm starting to wonder why I'm spending all this money?
wow guys. i can not compete. i thought vancouver pleasant
enough and considered moving there. must agree detroit ,
gary, hammond are all not too pleasant. almost all of iowa
except iowa city and des moines seemto be so backwards for
the us it is difficult to believe since it is a well
educated state. i liked portugal, netherlands just fine.
personally i try to not go to hellholes. new zealand is
quite pleasant and i even applied for permanent residency
status. sorry t hear about sark. i thought maybe an island
with only one car would be delightful. the island was for
sale when i was younger and i had hoped to purchase it. any
suggestions of agreat places to live with some freedom?
athens is a heaven compared to certain places in india :
bombay, calcutta, and many more.
but im going there again in a month...
Hi everybody,
i think whether you like or dislike a place depends on lots
of circumstances like weather, own mood, health
constitution, whith whom you are, the people you meet, what
interest you have etc, etc, etc.
Just one example: Brindisi, the quite small harbour-town in
south-east Italy, where the cheap ferries leave for Greece.
I`ve been two times there. First time in August 91
(High-season) with girl-friend heading to Greece. After an
exhausting night in the corridor of a train, too much
travellers, tired, some hassles for getting the tickets
etc., i also hatet this town. We had to spend a whole day
there and Icouldn┤t find nothing special about it. But even
worse was Patras for me at that time, the harbour in Greece.
Today somebody told me, he liked Patras. For me not
comprehensible. Maybe I should return i watch with different
eyes. But back to Brindisi. I went back in September 97,
that time alone, slept well on the ferry coming from
Igoumenitsa - Greece, had a shower and I arrived early in
the morning at 6 am. I was the only backpacker. Walking
through that quiet, relaxed town was wonderful. I really
liked it. Far better than for example Bari.
And one note to some other towns mentioned: Medan is just an
average city of the world, quite impestet by too much
tourists. Where too much tourists occur the locals turn bad
and everythings not nice anymore.
First of all, there are some places like athen that relly do
suck. I got out of there as soon as possible. It's polluted,
dirty ugly and basically sucks. But that is the city. Lot's
of history and great places to see. You gotta do what you
gotta do. A lot of people here are right in their comments
here.
Then there are idiots like Marcus! Gdansk is really a great
city. Lot's of friendly people and interesting places. The
city itself if cool. Just because your wife got robbed does
not make it a horrible city, Marcus.
I have lived in New York most of my life and have gotten
robbed once. Does that make New York a horrible place? Nope!
It is one of the best cities in the world. One incident does
not dictate the atmosphere of a city.
Then there are places like Tijuana, Mexico or Detroit,
Michigan. They are simply ugly, dangerous, filthy, etc. etc.
If you go to France, avoid any suburbs with large
populations of Algerians - they've just blown the leg off a
fireman with an LPG explosion in a car at Lyon ( for a
laugh), and petrol bombed a bus full of people at Grenoble,
no injuries luckily. These are not terrorists, just local
arab youths. France is not the idyllic country you may
imagine. Sorry to be a racist but it's becoming frightening
out here.
Hi,
Wanna see the most boring place of the world? Come to visit
UjungPandang/Indonesia. I spent more than 1 year here.
Dirty, smelly, shit place, nothing to do.
I worked in Bali for 3 months, Kuta is the worst place of
the world. Hard to find words to express it.
Athen, really nice if you get there in the right time.
Anyway if I am on my way I don't mind where I am, just keep
movin'
Toledo, Ohio. Need I say more?
#1
As a fairly seasoned traveller I have to say the worst place I have ever been (and I had to live there for 5 months!!) was a city named Bradford in England. I am still traumatized by my time there! Although the surrounding countryside is ace, the city itself is like a Dickensian nightmare.
#2
Paris, France, been there twice and it is a shithole. Had to fight off a mugger and fight with the proprietor of our hotel. Plus, the novel concept of DEODORANT should be introduced to the people of this city.
#3
St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. Travelled there via car and saw a police officer beating someone at the side of the road (which should have been our cue to turn around), while we were in Minneapolis/St. Paul, the KKK were burning crosses in people's front yards! A completely depressing and hopeless city.
#4
Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The city water was brownish-yellow, but then again so is the whole city.
#5
Milan, Italy. Is there a redeeming quality aside from the fashion industry?