What was the worst country regarding that problem?
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For major hassles (but thankfully not sexual approaches...)
I nominate China, China and China again.
Fascinating country but it always takes me a while to get
over my trips there!!
.
Otherwise, any trip on an American airline - the security
questioning is infuriating!!!!
.
But hey, don't focus on the hassles - focus on the fun and
thrills of traveling. Much better approach!
The worst un-avoidable stress/hassles are at home........
Bills, cars, family, friends, partners, weather, work
..................to name but a few.
Get me out of this place.......aaaaarrrrrrgggghhhhhhh!!!!!
I found India the worst but then I was pretty young and
green when I went there. Ohter bad places (not whole
countries): Konya in Turkey (lots of very religious, would-
be Romeos), Aleppo in Syria (great place but lots of
gropers etc), Luxor in Egypt (Can I buy you for 100
camels?) and Kuta beach in Bali, Indonesia (the latter more
of a hassle because of my own countryfolk rather than
because of the locals although they more than rise to the
occasion). Despite the occasional hassles I would still
love to be on the road! It is more hassle managing a job,
bills etc than just worrying about where you'll go today
and where you'll spend the night tonight.
Morocco (I don't like being followed for miles, being told
that I am going to be raped and killed and no one will find
my body) and Lisbon (they don't seem to like black people
too much)
I was hassled a lot in the Middle East but I think the worst
place was Italy. Beautiful country, architecture, food,
atmosphere but the men were arrogant, sleazy pigs. I was
constantly followed, couldn't sit down anywhere without at
least 3 men trying it on in half an hour. I also had men
drive up next to me on the street in cars and mopeds and ask
me if they wanted them to take me anywhere!!!!! Ciao
bella! .... F..k Off!!!
OK, I've had this discussion on TT 1000 times. I'm not saying I don't believe you, I do. But I'm italian and I go around night and day with no more problems than in every other european big town. My 15 y o. daughter does the same, in daytime. I just can't recognize my country in those descriptions. It's not being patriotic, it's just sincere wonder. All I can think of is that definitely italian men are not arrogant, sleazy pigs. But some arrogant, sleazy pigs in Italy feel atracted by tourists, because tourists don't like to react and call the police. They should.
Anyway, if you get to know the country better, you'll find italian guys just fine. I've been living abroad a lot, but I really like their special sweetness. They like to communicate with women, they're helpfull, goodlooking and great lovers. This is in general, of course. But this trade asks for stereotypes.
Morocco was REALLY BAD because the gropers speak every
language in the world it seems. I got so fed-up that I
decided to invent my own language that NOBODY ELSE COULD
SPEAK. It was really funny because they'd try every
language they knew, but I would just shake my head and
respond with some incomprehensible gibberish. Then they'd
give-up and go away!!!
Does anyone have any personal experiences with the
giggolos of Kuta Beach, Bali (Indonesia), also known as
"Kuta Cowboys"?
Italy is bad for sexual approaches - best way to avoid
hassles is not to travel alone. If you are alone, let's say
on a train at night, it's easy to hook up with other
travellers, especially if you explain that you're trying to
avoid being hassled.
For a different type of hassle, watch out for eastern
european countries where a lot of official type people, such
as train attendants, post office attendants, etc., try to
scam money out of you by demanding fees that are higher than
the real rate and then pocketing the difference.
Maybe the answer is simple: no matter where you are, hassles depend on how experienced you are.
Anyway, listen to this: two Sundays ago, I was having a drink on my own in this pub very close to my house. I started chatting with a Canadian guy. Actually, as I also teach italian to foreigners, I tend to feel friendly toward them, because I know how lonely they can feel in my country, where very few people speak english. So, after this nice chat I insisted in paying my drinks, just to make sure he wouldn't misunderstand me, but I gave him my telephone number. Well, he has been calling me 10 times at day, I'm not joking! Once he called me at 3 o'clock in the morning and then at 8 o'clock! I had to tell him I'd call the police to make him stop! (I'm still furious about this!).
Of course, I know that not all Canadians would behave like this. You meet maniacs everywhere, that's all. And if you look harmless or too naive, you'll actract them. Cheers.
Egypt. grrrr
That's all i need to say!!
First I have to say I love Italy and I don't get hassled
there anymore. But, in the beginning I did get hassled a
lot. After learning to speak Italian and spending a while
there it stopped. I guess I learned to look more stern.
What I think is that you're right about that they prey on
people looking naive, and tourist always look that way. On
the other hand this would never happen in Sweden, you dont
have to put up a busy, grudgy face to not get hasseled.
Something is strange when you can't just be relaxed and
still be treated nicely, Italy is not India where such a
misunderstanding of culture is comprehendible. None of my
friends are like that, how come they know and the others
don't? Some of the most amazing people I know are from
Italy so this continous to bother me. It also bothers me
that in so many clothingstore you actually need to be rude
to the personel to prevent them from being rude to you.
Isn't that weird? Some things are very weird in Sweden too
but here I know why. If you have any hypothesis please
write. Northern India though is the worst place I've ever
been to. There's nothing like it. Jaipur, brr...
Look, I think there's a combination of factors: a) lonely maniacs with no friends feel safe to bother a tourist, it's like being anonymous. But, I repeat, it's maniacs. B)it may happen that someone just wants to be nice and you thinks he wants to bother. A traveller must consider cultural misunderstanding.
I don't go around with a busy face and I'm OK. I put on a busy face when I'm abroad, untill I get familiar with cultural codes. I managed OK in arab countries and everywhere. But a busy face didn't protect me, sometimes, in Austria or England from people being very rude just because of my dark hair and complexion. And that's a bad kind of "hassles".
I don't know in which town in Italy you live, with such bad shopkeepers. You should see Israel or Spain, though...I'm sure that in Sweden they're all very polite. Still, men are not famous for their sex-appeal, there's some violent racism and problems about alcohol and suicides. Too much politeness is not so healthy under a psycological point of view. Anyway, every place has its big or small problems. You travel to understand the caleydoscope of the world, and I feel there's some stereotypes in this italian reputation. Here in Milan, nobody tells me "Bella" in the street, and actually I think it's a bit sad. When I go to Naples it happens, and that's not hassles, it's just cheerfulness. I smile and keep on walking, and that's all. And, if my car breaks down, people will help me 'cause I'm a woman, without expecting anything in exchange. I hope this part of italian culture not to desappear. It seems that all Europe has to be the same, politically correct and unhuman. Even the last (innocent, not maniac!) hassler some day will desappear, or we will put him in a zoo, but that day, I'm sure, many tourists will miss him!
I know that in Milano it doesn't happen but I spent two
days in Napoli and I'm never going back. That wasn't just
"bella". And I do love that the fact that italians are
always so helpful, both men and women, and it's true that
people don't expect anything in return. That's wonderful
and people in Sweden often expect something in return. But,
I find that in Sweden you don't get the kind of trouble you
get in Italy and the people are not overly polite they're
actually quite relaxed and natural. Innocent in another
way. I lived in Italy for a year though and I almost stayed
there because I loved it so much, I still miss it so don't
think that I think that Sweden is better, it's just
different and it's easier for me. There are definitely pros
and cons about everything. And I don't miss just the
weather and the food even if that's reason enough.
Never mind if you won't go back to Naples (my town!). We have plenty of tourists since 2000 years...but isn't 2 days a small time to judge?
I believe you when you say that Sweden is easier for you...it's your country! About Sweden being more relaxed than Italy: well, on today's paper they say that the disco in Gotemburg was probably burnt by naziskin. 60 inmigrants burnt alive!!!
Girl, I prefer Naples. It's easier for me. Also Milan is good. I buy stuff in IKEA, though! Ciao, bella, e torna presto. :)
The worst countries I've been hassled in are Morocco and
Mali, often by teenagers young enough to be my son. I know
there's a gigolo scene in Mali (definitely not my cup of
tea), in Morocco it's more guides, men looking for a one
night stand or to immigrate to your country. The best
thing is to totally ignore them, though it may take ages
for them to give up and go away, they have nothing better
to do. There aren't enought patrolling police to be of any
help.
I'm planning on travelling for a few months through Europe
then heading to Asia (Japan most likely) to utilize my TESL
certificate for a bit. Has anyone done something similar and
can warn me of the pitfalls/upsides or make a suggestion
about other possible destinations for teaching? Having never
been outside of North America before, Japan seems to be the
most popular destination, but is it necessarily the best
one? Also, trying to figure out the Working Visa thing: I've
been told I have to find a job before I leave so the
employer can deal with this, but I was hoping through travel
that I'd find a place I wanted to settle in for a while and
worry about employment then. All suggestions appreciated!
first; when and where are you going through europe? i plan
on being there in summer '99.
if you haven't already, check out dave's esl cafe, the
discussion centre, under "employment."
www.eslcafe.com
very helpful.
as for visa's, if you're american or canadian, there are a
lot of countries where you can just fly in with no visa.
i'm in korea, and a lot of people just land here, find (or
check out) a job, and then fly to japan for 2 days to have
their work visa processed. (and vice versa--i assume you
could use the same stunt in any other asian country.)
i only spent 2 days in japan, and while it was really nice,
i vote for s. korea. if you do a little research and talk
to teachers, you can get a really great job, and korea is SO
much cheaper than japan. also, most korean schools will pay
for your accomodations, while in japan most people seem to
have to pay for their own. korean universities usually
offer a better deal (and more security!) than the "hagwons"
or private schools.
the plus is that in japan, should your school treat your
contract like toilet paper, you'll probably have more legal
protection. the teachers there seem to have a tighter
association. plus, japan is usually cleaner, and during my
short stay there, i never once felt staring eyes or heard
lots of "hellos!!" (which i may have to attribute to the
6'1" guy i was travelling with!)
the only problem i've had here as a woman is that many men
seem to assume all white women are like the ones they see
in the movies; hard-drinking, sex loving, moral-free.
good luck; it's much easier than it looks.
yup, the worst was egypt, and i was very conservatively dressed, i thought i looked like a bag lady, not attractive at all
Could'nt risist this page. I've been to most 0f those
countries you are not suposed to go to. Afganistan just
before the Teleban moved in,The mountains of Saudi Arabia,
a single handed crossing of a desert in Oman by camel and
alone etc. All great.
The worst and only pathological country I have ever been
to is Libya, I was there in the Gulf war.DONT GO THERE.
ps: it used to be great.
While it probably is by no means the worst, the notorious "piropos" from some of the Argentines are none too fun. Generally it's just a lot of cat calls and whistling (sort of like passing a construction site in the USA). Most of the time if you ignore them they stop, but I was followed several times and had my ass (arse for you Brits!) grabbed, slapped, pinched, etc. even in the better parts of town. (And mine isn't exactly a buff Demi Moore ass either!)
Unlike Italy, if you call on the BA police they most likely join in or laugh! If you go in the S. American summer don't wear shorts in the city no matter how hot it gets. I found out the hard way that this is an open invite for gropings on public transport.
My top three pesty places:
*
3. GREECE. All those men on the "Kamakie" going pssst pssst "ellah" baby. I'm not a bloody cat! And no, just because I'm a foreigner, it does not mean I should want to sleep with you!
*
2. KUTA BEACH. The vendors will drive you batty. One
woman called me a fucking bitch when I repeatedly and nicely told her I didn't want anything. On the beach, the muslim men from other provinces, feel it's their god given right to sit RIGHT beside you and stare at you and touch you. When you move, they follow. Grrr. Oh, yeah, musn't forget the gigolos too.
*
3. INDIA!!! Absolute worst of the lot! Dressed in saris or sackcloth, they'd poke, prod, grope, or offer you $.
I was offered three dollars to sleep with some guy. And
the moron couldn't figure out why I was mad! (But, hey,
before I left, offers went as high as $18.00!)
*
I even had somebody grab my crotch in the middle of
the street in Calcutta, while travelling with a male!
*
Some of my friends and other travellers I met had even
worse experiences and they were travelling with husbands! It seems that the Indian mentality is that
Western women are up for grabs--literally.
*
I finally figured out to counter act it. I carried a small
umbrella and held it out in front of me to create more
space around me. If some one got through and groped, I'd turn around and belt him one--if I got the wrong guy, I didn't worry, he was probably thinking about it anyway!
*
In spite of the hassles, I'd go back to Greece and Kuta, BUT NEVER AGAIN TO INDIA! --Yechk, everytime I experienced something positive, several negatives would happen to out weight it.
*
(By the way, I was in Venice and never got hassled once.)
I just returned from India and it is true you can get
harrassed. In Bombay (Mumbai) when you venture into those
busy bazars it seems like every man tries to grab you, even
when I was with my boyfriend and very conservately dressed.
But when we got out of the big cities men seemed to be very
scary to insult me and treated me very polite, especially in
rural areas like in Tamil Nadu. People told me the north of
India is much worse than the south, and we only visited the
south. But in spite of all the grabbing India was a great
experience and the country is very well worth visiting, in
fact it is the most beautiful and colorful country I've
seen 'till now!
Hi, Fulvia, I'm sorry Italy is getting a pretty bad writing
up on this page but I must disagree with your comment that
"hassles depend on how experienced you are" and that if you
look "harmless or naieve" you will be hassled. When I went
to Italy I had already travelled for 5 months in Mexico and
Central America, 1 year in India, 5 months in California
(inc.LA), 2 months in Japan and 6 months in England and
France. All of this I did on my own, so I don't think that
when I arrived in Italy I was inexperienced or naieve.
Nonetheless, in 1 year in India I was touched up twice. In
Italy (Siena), within 3 months I was touched up twice and in
Bologna I was repeatedly hassled, and by that I don't mean
"ciao bella" but I mean having my path blocked by groups of
men, having my jacket grabbed violently, trying to sit in a
park and enjoy a book (in Italian!) and having men insist on
trying to pick me up, and not giving up regardless of
whether I ignored them or told them in Italian I wasn't at
all interested in even talking to them. I don't want to
make you feel you have to defend Italian men; after living
and working there for 2 years I know that there are many
wonderful men there, and that most guys are not like this
at all. I just feel that there is a sizeable minority of
men there that really don't respect women, and make it
known in a way that I haven't experienced in any other
country as frequently.
I guess you could call me an experienced traveller, and so
heading into Egypt i was prepared for hassles and gropes to
be part of the norm ... but was still shocked when my taxi
driver drove me into the middle of the desert (instead of to
my hotel) to try and rape me ... fortunately i got away
safely ....However, most of the locals were so embarrassed
about what had happened to me that they didn't really want
to help me, and going to the police was pointless unless i
had an interpreter ....fortunately, i was doing a scuba
diving course and one of the Egyptian scuba instructors was
more than will to be my interpreter when he overheard what
had happened to me. As it turned out, we caught the taxi
driver 24 hours after my assault (he was waiting at the same
bus station where he had picked me up the evening before)
.... and to cut a long story short, the creep is most likely
to be in jail for a minimum of seven years ... I was lucky
the police had decided to take my side... they are so
paranoid about the fall in tourism at the moment, but it
would have been impossible to report my attack to the police
if i hadn't had an Egyptian (the scuba instructor) on my
side. I was in Egypt for another 3 weeks after my assault,
and ended up losing count of how many times i was groped
(despite being dressed in long skirts etc.)...some of the
girls i met along the way and myself kept a running tally on
"who got groped most that day"...we laughed about it, but it
really was disgusting ... shop keepers, little boys, you
name it, they would constantly grab our boobs and even try
and stick their hands right up our skirts or pants.
I spoke to a Westernized Egyptian man and he agreed with my
theory that unless an Egyptian man has been overseas to
Europe/the States etc, the only thing he has to go on to
give him an idea of what Western women are like and what we
want, is what he sees on TV, and let's face, there isn't a
single show on TV where the girl doesn't end up in bed with
some guy at some stage during the show!...So basically, from
my own experience and many other women's experiences,
Egytpian men treat Western women the way they do because
they think we're easy and we want it!...and then of course
in the eyes of their religion, this would pretty much make
us out to whores ...thus we get treated that way!!
Ironically, despite all that happened to me in Egypt, i had
a fantastic time ...totally loved the place, and would love
to return someday, although never as a single female!!
By the way, although i haven't been there yet, from what
i've heard, Morocco's men are on equal par with Egyptian
men!
doesn't seem to matter where you go - in 2 weeks
interrailing round europe my friend and i between us were
wanked at by at least 10 men. italy was the worst. who are
these freaks?
ps spain and france were close contenders but switzerland
was great!
Was probably the worst, although it was my first big trip,
so that might have had something to do with it. And
Yugoslavia was bad (yes it was still Yugoslavia then), in
fact the only time I have ever felt in serious danger in 16
years of travelling was in Skopje.
Strange that you should have had probs in Yugoslavia:I've
been there several times, both before and after the
bread-up, and never had a problem as far as groping/hassle
was concerned. I suppose it all depends on personla luck.
Absolutuely beautiful men too!
I remember a friend an I went inter-railing about ten years
ago, when we were both nineteen. We thought we were pretty
well clued-up but in fact we were incredibly green:once we
were visiting some ancient site in Greece and this almost
equally ancient geezer cameup and claimed to be the chief
archaeologist. Nowadays, of course, I'd tell him where to
go but as I say, we were rather naive then. Anyway, he did
seem pretty well-informed and started taking us round the
site, pointing out things - then, what I now recognise to be
the inevitable happenned: he started touching up my friend
and even planting kisses on her chest! And this in broad
daylight and she wasn't even on her own! What folls we
were. Apart from that I didn't have any real harrasment
probs in Greece but I have a friend who worked in Athens and
she said you couldn't get on a bus without having some perv
sticking his fingers up your bum.
I'm reall very interested in visiting Spain and cannoy seem
to find any reliable information regarding racial tensions.
I would be very appreciative if someone could shed some
light on this topic for me. Cheers!