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Travel Stories

  
 
Baz Auckland
01:48 / 12.09.06
Inspired by the "Stranger in a Strange Land" thread in the Head Shop:

Mister Disco wrote: Is this really a Head Shop thread? If it's more about experiences, wouldn't it do better (and get a wider reception) in the Conversation?

coq: Well, my aim was to pin down some of the inner changes that this type of experience can produce. I don't want to read a list of "..and then I ate a cockroach" stories.


I couldn't find an old one, and it seems like a good idea to have a thread where we can read a list of "..and then I ate a cockroach" stories...

Let's hear them!


I don't have anything that interesting to start, but it's one of my more interesting experiences...

During the first half of 2000 I was living in Mazatlan, Mexico on university exchange. For Holy Week, there was no school, so some friends and I travelled all over the place.

From Mexico City, to Oaxaca and Queretero and back up to Mazatlan. It was a great week, except spending 60 hours sitting on buses over 8 days is a bit much, and in Oaxaca I had a bag of my things stolen in the bus station, including my student visa, my guidebook, and some random papers.

In Mexico, travelling south is easy. When you start to head back north though, you run into a LOT of army checkpoints looking for a)drugs and b)Central Americans migrating north.

About 8 hours from Mazatlan, at about 3am, we hit an army checkpoint. They searched through the luggage hold looking for people, and then grabbed anyone who looked non-Mexican and took us off the bus.

The 4 of us were standing on the shoulder of the highway while the soldier checked our papers, and of course, since I had my student visa stolen, "my papers were not in order."

So it's 3am, there's heavily armed soldiers yelling at me and threatening to deport me and arrest me, but my friend Joanne (whose Spanish was pretty decent) lost it and gave them a good 5 minute lecture about how she was going to call the embassy and refusing to let them take me away and etc...

...which brought things to the real point of all of this: "How much money do you have?" Thankfully for us, we only had about $20 on us, but seeing us empty out our pockets convinced the soldiers that it was all they were likely to get, and it was enough to secure my freedom.

I spent the next 8 hours sleeping with a blanket over my head just in case we hit any more roadblocks Ah, Mexico!
 
 
Ron Stoppable
08:10 / 12.09.06
In 1992, I was 15 and found myself snowed in at a dacha in the town of Vyborg on the Finnish border at the mercy of a huge family of cheerful but entirely terrifying, mostly monolingual Russians on New Years Eve. Was 'invited' to fly the flag for Britain in a round of competition drinking which saw me pumped full of Israeli vodka and set on fire - that's literally set on fire - while Boris Yeltsin, getting into the spirit of things, reeled around behind his desk on the TV.

It was an ill-advised, Glasnost-inspired school exchange, during which I was effectively kidnapped, taken to another country, all lines of communication severed with family, school and authority and introduced to hypothermia, alcohol poisoning and small arms.

It's not my only absurd foreign adventure but it was my first and comfortably the best thing that happened at school evar.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
12:09 / 12.09.06
In a dark bar in Switzerland I was accosted by a strange man whose only words of English seemed to be "I piss on my wife!". Assuming he was trying to tell a joke I tried to inform him in French and German that he needn't talk my language as it was his country. He shook his head solemnly and then began: "Stately plump Buck Mulligan came with the shaving bowl and the razor..."

I witnessed the football defeat of the Czech republic by Greece in a large beer tent in a warren-like suburb of Prague, with a real spit-roasted pig turning and running with grease and blood, dogs held off by baseball bat. The defeat was a major one, and, gracefully, swarms of knives were thrown at the big screen, gliding like dragonflies and ripping it into shreds. Then fingers were pointed at the English, and something was said, and we ran. Oh, we ran.

At the house of my friend's Cornish uncle, a table was set for four even though there were three of us. I asked why. It transpired that the fourth place was for Old Toby, a broomstick with a horse's skull tied to the top and wrapped in a long coat. Old Toby watched us as we ate in terrified silence.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
12:12 / 12.09.06
I should add that these aren't intended to be "oh, foreign people are teh weird, lol" stories. Stranger things have happened on this street, let alone this country...
 
 
pointless & uncalled for
12:20 / 12.09.06
Following the first course of a meal in a restaurant in Quebec City we foolishly allowed out cutlery to be cleared away with the entree plates. When the main course arrived we asked the waiter for more. He disappeared back to the kitchen and after an undue amount of time to procure a knife and fork he returns. Alas he was bearing no silverwear but in an instance of lost in translation a small white bowl filled with capers in olive oil.

Not the most fantastic of travelling stories but I'm impressed that a pair of road-weary and scruffy cyclists can demand obscure condiments and expect to receive them. Fantastic.

We kept the capers and they went very well with the rabbit and the salmon.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
12:21 / 12.09.06
Whoah, Legba, that Old Toby story fucking rocks.
 
 
My Mom Thinks I'm Cool
12:53 / 12.09.06
though I have never tried cockroach, I did have fried caterpillars in Zimbabwe. They were too salty and a little too greasy, but so was pretty much everything.

somehow ended up facing the local champion in a dancing contest in a club in Harare. lost miserably.

tried to pick a fight with baboons in the Drakensburgs, but the alpha male backed down (guess I'm too big.)

stayed at an awesome backpacker hostel I forgot the name of, swam with dolphins, had cows walk into my bedroom, ate magnificent shrimp dinners, and had the owner (who was an apprentice witchdoctor) offer us a gigantic box of pot at the end of the evening "free with your room".

had a surreal experience trying to leave Petermaritzberg...actually that whole fucking city was surreal. I checked into the hostel there and *no one was there*. Not just no backpackers - I never saw anyone running the place (presumably someone was inside somewhere, they buzzed me in the front door with a staticky unintelligble statement.) And then I couldn't leave. The bus schedule wasn't right. The train station had been closed down. The little taxi buses weren't running north. I tried to hitchhike and, for the first time in my experience, couldn't get picked up. After hiking for about three hours in the rain, I saw a town ahead and became cheerful, only to discover that it was...Petermaritzberg. In fact, I'm probably still there now, hallucinating that I escaped.

somewhere I've got a picture of my sleeping bag next to a termite mound just outside Gaberone...would pics be appropriate for this thread?
 
 
Disco is My Class War
13:11 / 12.09.06
I went to an industrial town in Thailand with no idea where to stay and a list of hotels. After walking round for three hours, I got a tuk-tuk to the first one that 'jumped out at me', and ended up at a drive-in love hotel on the far edge of town, miles from anywhere. The kids taking money laughed at me when I pulled up in a tuk-tuk (it was all designed for cars, for anonymity) and laughed more when I asked how much for the night -- it was all charged by the hour.

They were really nice, however, once I started laughing at the situation too, and called me a scooter taxi to go back into town. There's nothing quite like riding on the back of a scooter down the packed, traffic-jammed freeway with all your luggage hanging by your fingers.

I think that's my 'stupid farang in Thailand' story. It's not that interesting. On the other hand... When I was ten my parents drove me across the south of the US with two hippie lesbians, who I think were the first dykes I ever met. At the Grand Canyon, my parents had an enormous fight and Pa walked off into the sunset, supposedly 'heading straight back to Australia.' We found him, and they patched it up -- but the next night, in a women-only household in Yuma, my dad had to sleep in the garage because he was male, and one of our traveling companions made a pass at my mother. In San Fran, Ma had a yen to go to Sausolito, the coastal rich suburb: but she had no idea that Sausolito was full of queers, who wore latex gloves serving coffee (the terrible mid-80's, fullblown HIV epidemic) and sneering at het tourists. They were horrified. Me, I sucked it all up. So many proto-queer Kodak moments.

And they wonder why I turned out like I did.
 
 
grant
15:57 / 12.09.06
had a surreal experience trying to leave Petermaritzberg...actually that whole fucking city was surreal.

Heh -- my grandfather lived in Pietermaritzburg. He was on the city council, actually, well into his 80s (refused to retire because he didn't want the Nationals to gain a seat). It is a strange city. There's a statue to Gandhi there, because that's where he got booted off the train.

I remember something similar to Mister Disco's, only without the love hotel. Trying to save money during a mistaken visit to Sri Lanka (a shifty Indonesian travel agent said Indian visas could be gotten there in two days -- it was two weeks, and we met a nice Welshman in the consulate line who was going to try to get his little brother out of jail after buying hash from a dealer who was buddies with the local police), we bought third-class tickets on the train down the coast. I was traveling (FOOL!) with a surfboard and guitar, and I learned something valuable that day. Not only do Sri Lankans have a different standard for personal space, feeling perfectly comfortable squeezed right up against strangers, but they also will sell a third-class ticket to anyone who wants one. First-class tickets are linked to individual seats.

So, there I am with my sister and her boyfriend (NOT FOOLS!), wearing a backpack and carrying a surfboard and a guitar, in the throng of unencumbered local folks who aren't paying any attention to me because the train doors have just opened and they know what I do not -- that it's very important to get inside the train as quickly as possible. I manage to pass the guitar and surfboard over a few heads to my sister, but am not myself so lucky. I'm just holding a handrail on the outside when the train starts moving. I'm not alone out there -- I can't remember if there was actually a small guy between my arms at first, but we were up that close to one another, and I was on the outermost layer of people, and I do remember that my pack was actually brushing the eaves of the shacks built up against the edges of the train tracks at around 60 mph. Well, it felt that fast, anyway.

A couple stops later, I managed to get inside.
 
 
Axolotl
16:51 / 12.09.06
I went to Russia when I was younger with a bunch of my friends on a allegedly educational trip. I foolishly was the only one who had learnt any Russian, but not actually enough to be fluent, this led to me being pressganged into the role of translator. Sometimes this worked, like the time we found this amazing Georgian restaurant and ate delicious kebabs flame-grilled in front of us, while less adventurous types ended up with some kind of sub-McDonalds style fast food.
Other times it didn't: There's nothing quite like the feeling you get when speeding through a birch forest on a sleeper train trying to explain to the guard that your friend needs a bucket as he is very sick. This was from eating the out of date meat that everyone else quite rightly left well alone.
 
 
My Mom Thinks I'm Cool
17:35 / 12.09.06
had a surreal experience trying to leave Petermaritzberg...actually that whole fucking city was surreal.

Heh -- my grandfather lived in Pietermaritzburg

Damn! I knew I was going to spell it wrong. Should have looked it up instead of being a lazy asshole. Oh well, wouldn't want to give the wrong impression.

Why are all my cool stories from Africa? Surely something story-worthy has happened to me in Europe or Canada or for that matter wandering around the US...

Actually, I did have a pretty good time driving from SF to SD on Highway 1 - everyone told me I was nuts because it takes twice as long but I wanted the scenic route. They have signs warning you that your car may be hit by waves, that's how close you are to the ocean. The road is winding and the views are great and the traffic is all people in motor homes going ten miles an hour. And the little towns with the elevation and population in double digits. Finally arrived in San Diego at midnight and my host - a woman I had never met who was the sister of a friend - instead of putting me to bed after 12 hours of driving took me out to the beach and we watched fog rolling around and listened to waves crashing in a cave and sea lion/walrus things making goofy noises for an hour without saying anything. Then she turned to me and said ISN'T THE OCEAN JUST LIKE MUSIC?? I later learned she writes pieces professionally and has them played by the national symphony of Taiwan, or something...
 
 
Slate
19:13 / 12.09.06
hehe great stories all! I don't feel so lonely anymore!
I am in India right now, lucky to be alive after playing chicken on the roads with a few of these fuckers in the last 2 days...



I have had to wipe my ass with my hand a few times because I was staying in a town called Jorhat in Assam, India, with no loo paper and suffering from Delhi belly. I could not wait, and I didn't want to use a shirt. I reckon the local Indian guys were just having a laugh at my expense because they kept snickering when I finanly explained through mime(they didn't know English and my Hindi is no good) what I wanted. I did get used it strangely, though not comfortable. We had to leave that town abruptly as there was a "code red" for foreigners being kidnapped so we got the next flight out. We did return to finish the job in the end.

In Ankara, Turkey I wandered through the city center one weekend and each time I looked up ahead I saw more and more Police. I passed a group of about 50 police all standing in formation on the road for reasons unknown. I had a look around, and couldn’t see anything so I kept on going. I heard some loudspeakers off in the distance along with more police. Maybe this was a protest against the USA for the desecration of the Koran, it was at the Koran toilet flushing time in Gitmo, or some other nationalist procession. I continued my way towards the loud speakers, I could hear singing this time so my thoughts were leaning towards maybe a concert. This was quickly changed when I passed some HUGE water cannon tanks and about 300 Police all decked out in the standard riot gear. Helmet, plastic shields and batons with auto assult rifles. The tanks are bloody menacing looking, basically Armoured Personnel Carriers without tracks but large 1.7 meter tyres with a huge water cannon, the type you see on a Tug Boat, mounted on the top with servo’s so it can be aimed remotely from inside the tank. Hmmm, definitely a protest. The Police presence continued for 2 blocks, along with another 3 water cannon tanks, and by this stage the Police had changed. The riot gear became more and more full on, complete body armour type, along with full automatic weapons. I wanted to press ahead along the main street but it was barricaded off, I had to walk around a corner and got herded into a large crowd. The crowd were lined up waiting to go through Police check-points, so I waited in line and bopped away to some reggae to try to calm the nerves a little, yo know wot I meen mon. I got to the check-point and was patted down, the policeman asked what was in my pockets so I produced the iPod and my wallet, and he motioned me forward. I was through, into a main area, in a huge cross-roads that had been blocked off. I saw many flags of different types being waved and lots of balloons. The Public Address system I could hear was mounted on top of a bus, with battered speakers pointing in every which direction. I wanted to stop to ask what was going on, but thought I better just keep walking in case it was an anti Western type thing and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. I got a few stares anyway so it probably didn’t matter, and thankfully most people think I am German here, which is good. The thing I did notice was that the balloons all had woman’s scarves wrapped around them. I kept going after stopping for about 5 minutes to try to get the point of it all. I didn’t see any English placards that the crowd were waving, and I didn’t want to ask so I continued along the main road. I walked for another hour or so before I rounded a few blocks and headed back towards home. I covered about 5 kilometres I think, basically I walked at a brisk pace for 4 hours, 2 hours in one direction and 2 hours back again, but I came home a different route, passed Kocatepe Mosque which I stopped and had a look through the gates at, got hassled by a few beggar students wanting cash so I kept going. I strode passed a few embassies and saw a lot of guns.
It wasn’t until the next day when I read the paper did the whole thing fall into place. It was indeed a protest I had walked through, and it was against the government. The reason being was this, women are facing a headscarf ban in Turkey. Being a secular country where the State and Religion are separated, the government seems to think that banning woman’s headscarves will make them seem a less Muslim country? Or so I assume, as I don’t know the full story as it has been going for many years. From what I can gather the Turkish government is literally being forced to jump through hoops imposed on them by the EU council. I did pay attention to the media and had a few assumptions from what I saw. Turkey is not a part of the EU as yet and it wants to be. It seems to gain entry they have to conform to a few ideals laid down by the EU Council. Now I have no idea what the original members had to do when applying, but from my stay in Turkey, the goalposts for entry seem to be shifting weekly. I was staying in a swish hotel and one night got on the turps with a work colleague and was getting pertty sloshed and all of a sudden the bar was filled with guys with machine guns, lots of them. A media crew came in and set up a few meters away and in waltzes the Iraq President Ibrahim al-Jaafari himself and a few Iraq ministers who just walked past us and sat down about 8 meters away for a bit of a press conference. About halfway through the conference during a "pregnant pause" in the conversation, this huge burp escaped from my guts and everyone looked at me... Exit stage left & bedtime for me.

I got a few more but I have to get now.
 
 
Mistoffelees
19:52 / 12.09.06
Haha, you kept the best for last, SR! "So the president of Iraq walks into a bar...".

But the moment, I would have noticed such police presence, I would have 180°ed tout de suite.
 
 
Slate
07:44 / 14.09.06
Here’s a few more stories from my time in India.

My first curry when I got to Mumbai 2004, I ordered the Squid Masala, and in a word, exquisite! Just the right amount of spice to balance the seafood flavour. I was having a culinary fiesta, with butter roti’s, chutney and a liberal splashing of Kingfisher, and suddenly I had a crowd of waiters around me??? My bright pink sweaty forehead, sweat beads streaming down my brow and over my eyes, really upset the wait staff for some reason? I thought they were going to call a doctor the way they all crowded around my table to ask if everything was alright, everything OK? “Yeah yeah, everything’s great!” I kept repeating while trying to politely shovel as much of this gorgeous food into my mouth as possible, and those of you who have seen me eat when I am hungry, IT AIN’T POLITE! After hinting I was slightly embarrassed by slurping a gulp of my water and feigning water down the windpipe gag, coughing and spluttering, they left me to my own devices, confident I would survive the meal. It was a tasty feast!


My first nightclub was a place called Poly Esther and I raised a few concerns with the locals who frequent the establishment on a regular basis. It seems that there is a custom that I was completely unaware of that was rudely brought to my attention. That is the fact that single guys are NOT allowed on the dance floor. To dance you have to have a partner to accompany you to the dance floor and this partner has to be the person you arrived with, meaning you can’t even ask a pretty lady for a dance either. If a “dude” wants to dance anywhere in the club, it has to be fairly self contained and be done next to the dance floor, “discreetly”. We were not alerted about this the week before but then there were not the 2 TV Camera crews from different TV stations roaming around the club taking happy snaps. There was a huge Mumbai Marathon on that week with runners from all over the world descending on this city for the event and I think the Saturday night TV crew were out and about doing a Mumbai special. We must have been caught up in the politically correct policing of the club, or they remembered my windmill style dancing from the week before. The bouncer came over and motioned me off the dance floor a few times and I got the shits so and I grabbed him in a traditional Waltz hold and started to twirl him around the floor. Not impressed at all by my dancing skills he muscled me off the floor and towards the exit. Once we were told we weren’t allowed to boogie we all left in disgust, tried to get a refund on the 1000 rupees each, without success, so we hightailed it to the Taj in Colaba again.

On the way home we slowly made our way through the traffic at 3AM and I saw an auto rickshaw that was propped up on 2 wheels and one of the back tyre’s removed, the axle taken out and parts spread out in a clinical manner on the footpath. The mechanic was doing some running repairs by the side of the road and was working away feverishly trying to get the machine back on the road earning rupees again. As I crawled past I was amazed to see that the “mechanic” was in fact a boy about the age of 12!! He can’t have been over 15 at the most! And to top it off it looked as though he has an even younger “apprentice” giving him a hand and learning the ropes!!

When it comes to beggars, no longer do I do the touristy gawk at everything that is radically different; the slum dwellers that shit in plain view on the side of the road on the way to work doesn’t even raise an eyebrow now, nor does the madness of the traffic I sit through for 3 hours a day. As long as the window is up in the car, the smells here do continue to amaze me though, as do the levels of pollution that I encounter on a daily basis. The haze gives me a sore throat most Sundays on my day off, which even after a few Kingfishers is hard to shake. I could even get a smile out of the beggars who knock on the car window and motion to their mouths for something to eat. I whip out an apple and give to them, but no they don’t want an apple, so I pull a banana out, nope no good either. It’s only when you pull out the shiny coins, that taste shit house, and then you see their eyes light up. Now I know there is going to be people out there who like to give to the poor and needy, but some beggars really give me the shits so I have decided not to give a thing and just ignore them from now on. Oh what a cold heartless bastard I hear you say...

It all started when I gave this one particular poor decrepit beggar woman about 7 rupees in coins, which were all the Indian coins I had left on me. There was 60 seconds counting down on the red light, as over here there are no pressure pads in the road to register a vehicle, every red light is on a timer. She continued standing there asking for more, so I reached into my bag and found a few Australian coins rolling around the bottom, a 50 cent piece and two 20c coins. So I handed over the 90 cents thinking how bloody generous am I, doing the conversions it was about 28 rupees or so. She grabbed the coins, took one look at them and threw them over her shoulder and started to yell at me? I looked at my driver Sanjay, he looked back at me with this “don’t look at me, I’m just the driver?” expression on his face. 29 seconds and counting. So after 2 pieces of fruit, 7 rupees and 90 cents in Australian she still wasn’t a happy beggar. So I hit the window up button and thought ‘oh well, maybe the next one will appreciate things a little better’. The yelling continued and as the window got to the top she put her finger through the slowly closing window which yes, you guessed it, trapped her finger. The yelling then raised a pitch and several decibels and you could have thought she had lost an arm from the noise coming from her mouth. 12 seconds and counting. So I hit the down button on the window so she could get her finger out but no, she left it pressed to the top of the now vacantly open window and continued screaming. Now when the counter gets to 5 or so it may as well be a green light, and by this stage I had attracted a bit of an audience. Here’s me in the front seat, trying to sink down to the floor and this beggar woman screaming at the top of her lungs with her finger still inside the car. Sanjay didn’t know quite what to do, horns were blaring behind us and I was trying to become one with the car seat upholstery. I reached into my pocket, grabbed a 10 rupee note and showed the woman, and bingo, the screaming stopped straight away. I rolled the note into a ball and threw it out the window and presto, she went for the bait. So off we go to work with all the cars and bikes around us giving me the evil eye and thinking what a bastard am I. So no more Mr. nice guy even if there are cute kids trying to be cutesy and wipe the car down for whatever I want to give them… I do give tips for good service, I’m not a total prick.
 
 
matthew.
15:10 / 14.09.06
When I was in Montreal I had real fondue in a restaurant made out of a fucking ship. The main mast (mizzen?) held the roof over our heads.

The strongest memory I have of traveling is whenever I see cobblestone streets, where each piece has been handset. I don't see that very often in my city. Actually, not at all. So I always remark upon the handmade streets.
 
 
Triplets
22:34 / 14.09.06
I reached into my pocket, grabbed a 10 rupee note

Lightweight.
 
 
Slate
03:45 / 15.09.06
I reached into my pocket, grabbed a 10 rupee note

Lightweight.

Yeah well, It was that or 500 rupee note...

To digress a little, there are beggers in Mumbai who are proffesionals. They break limbs and reset them on weird angles intentionally to gain pity and thus more cash. I have seen some really horrid versions of human beings, lepers, amputee's and generally "broken" people. It makes me wonder how "Charity" organisations can change a mindset like this here where the rupee is literally a "God". Also the government builds free housing for the slum dwelling beggars, moves them into the free accomodation and bulldozers the slums. The beggar will then live in the free accomodation for about 3 months, then in turn sell the apartment for a price and then move back onto the streets again. I have heard stories of beggars owning propety like hotels and restaurants and still continue to beg for small change.
 
 
Baz Auckland
06:17 / 15.09.06
Right now I'm living pretty close to Japan (3 hours by ferry). Since it's so close, I've been over there a few times (but so far only to Fukuoka, which is where the ferry goes from here...), so I don't know if this is true for the whole country, or it's just Fukuoka, but:

Japan is exactly like you think it is. (Or exactly like I thought it was). I've never been to another place that's been exactly that. Just wandering the streets, there's men and women in kimonos and wooden sandals, the streets are spotless, there's crazy video arcades everywhere, shrines and temples on every corner, and best of all: ROBOT STORES.

We were taking an elevator down from the Asian Art Gallery through a schmancy mall when we noticed the sign directing us to the basement. This store was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Robot Dogs and Robot Baby Seals that respond to your touch and recognise colours, Robot Companions (for the elderly and shut-ins; can carry on a conversation, translate Japanese and English, and recognise up to 10 people and call them by name), and of course, Robot Hello Kitty (also talks to you with a few thousand word vocabulary and calls you by name. Only $4,000US).

They had even cooler ultra-models in the window of things like a Robot German Shepherd-Size Dog (which looked like a crazy Robot Attack Dog) and those life-size people bots that they're just developing now that can't do much but walk...

The Point: Robots are cool, and Fukuoka is an amazing place to see.
 
 
Totem Polish
10:27 / 15.09.06
I have heard stories of beggars owning propety like hotels and restaurants and still continue to beg for small change.

That's not quite as good as the story of the guy who begged outside the Ritz and had his Porsche parked around the corner...though that's not my story so I won't threadrot further.
 
 
Elettaria
01:06 / 17.09.06
Last summer, I managed not to notice that my passport was two years out of date until trying to get onto a flight to Israel, miss said flight but send on my luggage, go through various shenanigans getting a passport done by the next morning despite the fact that it was meant to take a week and all my bills and such were 400 miles away, and then send this text to what was meant to be the friend I'd been wailing down the phone to the previous night, but was in fact a random stranger who was not slow to respond:

My passport is being processed and I'm flying tonight! Thanks for cheering me up last night, dried my knickers on the hot water bottle. Huge hugs, E xxxxx

If I learnt nothing else from the experience, it's not to assume that your passport is valid just because Easyjet are waving you through on domestic flights, to keep undies in your hand luggage, especially in stinking hot weather, and to keep the numbers stored on your mobile up to date. The full Knicker Story is at my livejournal if anyone wants the gory details, it's a bit too long to post here.
 
  
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