TheBOSman

Being in the QF Business Lounge at WLG during a 6.2 magnitude earthquake. Lounge staff announced, in a very official and direct "this is not a drill" tone of voice, for everyone to step away from the windows. Never know which earthquake will be a really big one, thankfully this wasn't massive close enough to WLG and operations continued after runway and elsewhere were inspected. Not much damage in Wellington area, though enough to cause the damage seen below at WLG inside of the domestic terminal. Was watching a VA plane begin its takeoff roll as the Earth started to roll as well, makes me wonder if the pilots noticed and if "taking off during an earthquake" is in any simulators.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/a...ectid=11189343

dtalok7

Boat , river , night , tracers flying in my direction. Later I was scolded for rough language .

halls120

Cab ride from Moscow Domodedovo Airport to my hotel near Lenigradsky train station in 2003. We came inches away from colliding with a gasoline tanker truck on the ride in.

FXWizard

Wife and I were visiting a friend in Colorado Springs and we take a day trip up Pike's Peak. While at the top, I'm looking over the edge of an outcropping, not right at the edge but not all that far away, when the horn for the cog train blows.

Lizard brain says MOVE, SCARY NOISE but mammal part of brain wins by telling me DON'T MOVE, IDIOT, YOU'RE TOO CLOSE TO THE EDGE AND YOU'LL HAVE A BAD TIME.

My wife said you could see me quivering in place due to the conflicting impulses, and my friend was laughing so hard that he almost passed out.

sassysan

Me and my then girlfriend nearly got mugged in Tblisi, Georgia. Thankfully a taxi driver pulled over and started honking loudly, which scared them away before they were able to take anything.

Something that could have been scary, but wasn't was my experience with the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake in Japan. I was on a Shinkansen when suddenly there was a very, very harsh brake, followed by shaking. To be fair, I was going between Osaka and Tokyo so I was pretty far away from the real damage, but everything was handled professionally and the staff acted like they knew what they were doing, and I didn't realize it was anything serious until later.

JamesKidd

Passing through Croydon, scares the sh*t out of me everytime

stut

Thankfully, I've rarely found myself in real danger (other than the usual road traffic stuff - not helped by bicycle being my preferred mode of transport). However, there's been a few hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck moments.

I went to Pakistan in 1999, on holiday. It was an incredible trip, but I'd struggle to choose the scariest moment from it.

• There was an earthquake while I was in Lahore. To add to the atmosphere, it was the eve of Eid-ul-Adha, so there were animals tied up everywhere. I was dozing at the (basic but friendly) hotel and it was the bottle of water on the nightstand that alerted me as to what was going on. The commotion outside was barely more than the commotion before the tremor, but the animals decided to join in. There was some falling masonry, but not really very much, and most people just brushed it off. It still seems like a half-remembered fever dream.
• We went from Peshawar across to the Khyber District, accompanied by an armed guard whose first mission, on entering the FATA, was to procure himself a large bag of weed, which quickly rendered him pretty useless to us. We were greeted, more than once, by that ever friendly "vertical bullets" greeting, as was the style at the time. I'm not sure whether that was scarier than the mutton laid out at the roadside for the chapli kebab that was pretty much the only lunch option, but it certainly makes your heart leap. We also witnessed someone being dragged from their car following an accident - the driver quickly got out of there as it didn't look as if it was going to be pretty.
• Returning back into Pakistan proper, we were confronted by a man, outside the mosque, who started shouting and jumping up and down, clearly addressing us. My Pashto is as good as my Urdu (effectively non-existent) so we had no idea what was going on other than the word Allah being repeated (OK, not unusual in Pakistan), and the crowd of men gathering around us felt... Well, like a situation I'd rather not be in. Until I noticed that the crowd was smirking. A policeman approached and whispered to us what was going on. He was a well known local beggar, who was rather prone to outbursts. He was shouting that he was poor and we should give him money (gesturing towards the mosque) because of Allah. The crowd laughed.
• This last experience delayed us heading back towards the border at Wagah, so we reached it 15 minutes before closing, on the last day of our visa. We were somewhat extorted on the way across, though it's one of the cheapest bribes I've heard of ($3 - not proud of it, but the alternative looked grim), but the rather inept border guard insisted on me and my travelling companion walking across the (rather lengthy) no-mans-land separately. Fine. Off I went, and idly checked my passport as I approached the border line... It was the wrong one. I had to head back, to the guard's frantic waving, but managed to explain myself in time. We were the last to cross the border that day, just as the rather elaborate ceremony started.

Otherwise, a few other moments that stick in my mind:

• A particularly hairy bus journey on the Filipino island of Bohol, on rather wet mud roads. Particularly enjoyed an elaborate, lit up "JESUS SAVE US" sign which lit up, appropriately, whenever the driver hit the brake pedal.
• Being in a car crash in the South Downs, in England. Waiting to turn right across the traffic, another car was simply going to fast and the driver not paying attention, and went right into the back of me. The other driver was badly injured (it was a Citroen 2CV) and I suffered a minor neck injury, but one that plagues me still.
• Philippines again, this time Manila. An attempted drugs plant stitch up by a taxi driver (luckily I spotted it and called him out on it) was bad enough, but being on the receiving end of some police corruption after they did us an unsolicited "favour" made me decide to leave the city early. This was scary enough as a visitor, makes you appreciate how bad it can be for those living with it.
• Getting on the wrong marshrutka in a small town in the Russian Caucasus, getting off in a half-derelict housing scheme which seemed to be referred to by numbers and letters, and having stones thrown at us. Was very happy to find a new marshrutka to take us out of there (and heading in the right direction). Some frissons later in that trip too, as we entered the Karachai-Cherkessia republic, and had some more stone throws directed at our vehicle. I've never had so many people staring at me as I've travelled through towns and villages.

Noppasit

(As a 10-year-old child) I was travelling in a group tour in Switzerland. The tour bus stopped at Hotel Allegro in Bern to pick another part of the group which have arrived before my group and stay there a night before. I went into the hotel to mess around with the glass elevator. The elevator uses hotel card to operate which I got that from the tour operator from another group. I went up to the highest floor, and then when I try to go down, the elevator won’t work, even I use a card. With or without the card, it won’t work! Then I tried to use the service lift which also requires a card, but it won’t work. I started to freak out until I found a stair, thank god I finally can go back to ground floor, the tour did the head count and nearly forget me, I was just right in time. This is very terrifying for a child.

aroundtheworld76

There's a fairly high level of serious trauma in some of the situations that you all have found yourself in. It would be completely understandable if one was to simply say "I'm done", hang up the passport and spend the weekends with the garden club.

It's kinda my job to go where bad things are happening and many of my really bad stories come from those places. That's not really travel related though so I will stick to anecdotes from my leisure wanderings:

Ran with the bulls in Pamplona. Didn't run fast enough. Three broken ribs and a cracked skull.

Was on an overnight bus from Delhi to Dharamsala that violently lost a tire and skidded to a stop with the corner of the bus hanging over a cliff of substantial height. Leaving through the proper door would have meant a step into space, so we had to go out one of the large windows at the rear of the bus onto terra firma.

Saw a man get stabbed in Izmir over a backgammon game. Two old men at the next table to us, they were playing rapid fire BG and one committed some grievous offense and both stood up. There was shouting and then there was stabbing, followed predictably by bleeding.

CMK10

A friend of mine and I got lost on top of Camelback Mountain in Phoenix. It pales in comparison to a lot of the above stories but it was terrifying. We hiked up too late in the afternoon and took our sweet time getting to the top. Once there it was sunset so we took pictures and hung out and then began to make our way back. We had no flashlights and this was before phones with lights on them. We ended up on the south face off the trail. Eventually we realized we couldn't get back up so our only hope was to go down. Half of that time we were sliding on our butts as it was too dangerous to try and walk. Later I put my foot down and we heard a rattling sound. My friend said "are you making that noise?" I said "no, that's a snake, RUN" and run we did.

We eventually stumbled into one of the neighborhoods built onto the side of the mountain about a quarter of the way up. We found a lit house, knocked, and said "hi, where are we?". The old couple inside was skeptical at first but after seeing our cut and bleeding legs and hands they let us in, gave us vodka and of all things stuffed peppers then drove us a few miles back to our car which was parked at the trail head.

Loren Pechtel

There's a reason lights are considered basic safety equipment for hiking.

oreocookies

I was on a metro train in France and some muscle-y shirtless guy was screaming at people in my car and pounding on the glass. Apparently he made some anti-Semitic comments that I couldn't understand because I don't speak French. I decided to play it safe and got off at the next step, and hopped on the train behind. While on my new train, we sat at one stop for a long time, and they said over the announcement system that they were dealing with an incident on the train in front of us and we had to wait for it be taken care of before we could continue.

I'm glad I left plenty of time to get where I was going that I didn't decide to stay in that car, which most people did. Moral of the story: give yourself enough time for mishaps!

CMK10

Indeed. But there's also a reason that 19 year olds make mistakes.

OccasionalFlyerPerson

Not sure what the scariest one for me was, but this one happened to me today. I was ushered into the front of a taxi while a couple were being ushered into the back. I sat down and realised that there was something hard on the seat. So, I reached under my posterior and pulled it out. It was a handgun. I just about dropped it in shock, but the driver just laughed and put it away.

bwiadca

In the late 90s during my first of many visits to NYC. Myself and 2 of my buddies got robbed at gun point by Jesus.
Long story short, we didn't know exactly how the subway works and we've ended up in the Bronx (Saturday night).
We didn't know if we were in the right area so we were walking away from the subway looking for some club.
In one of the dark alleys, some guy jumped out, introduced himself as Jesus, showed us his gun and requested cash.

Few months later, on the way back from NYC to DC. Sunday night, walk from DC Greyhound station to Union Station.
I was approached by individual with a knife, requesting money. I think I gave him $5 as that's what I had in my back pocket.
He walked with me almost all the way to the Union Station entrance, hiding a knife under his jacket.
That was the very last time that I have ever taken Greyhound.

Other than that it's mostly walk in the park. Working in the mine fields, being held at (machine)gun pint by Syrian army soldier, another time Jordanian army soldiers and my last scary thing was being chased by mama camel. I was walking in the semi-desert location in northern Jordan, when I stumbled upon mama camel, papa camel and their offspring. I was trying to walk 'around' them but mama camel didn't like unannounced guests. She showed me who's the boss and chased me away

And forgot to mention rocket attacks in the last few years while staying in Riyadh. Yemeni forces would send the missles and most of them would be intercepted by Saudi's Patriot defense systems. However, some of them would still hit the city. The closest one that I have witnessed landed 7 block away from my hotel.