TravelI've had guns pointed at me in many different countries, sometimes even by our own side. I've also sat on my own on a beach on a desert island, which was nice because nobody was trying to shoot me. Tell us your tales of foreign travel.
Thanks to SnowytheRabbit for the suggestion
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Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 18 Apr 2013, 17:43)
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You gotta love Indonesia...On my way home from the Netherlands after a few weeks away training on some new manufacturing machinery, the Air Garuda flight made a few unscheduled stops. Instead of Schiphol - Den Pasar - Sydney, it was the Schiphol - Singapore - Djakarta - Den Pasar - Sydney route.
At Djakarta, we had to pass through security again for some reason. Just as at Schiphol, the metal plates on the side of my hiking boots and my belt buckle made the metal detector go off. Not just go off - mind you - an alarm sounded off, continuously, that made it seem made as if I had been hiding a large firearm somewhere on my person.
A tiny official looking man in a dark grey uniform and cap, with more gold and medals than a South American dictator, breath like a rhino's arsehole and built like a 5'3" Schwarzeneggar with Santa Claus' gut came toward me, but didn't utter a word. Not that anyone could hear anything with the metal detector's alarm drowing out everything.
He grabbed my arm in a vicelike grip and threw me (5'10", 85 kg) at a glass wall, face first. As I hit the wall, the reverberating boom of my impact made everyone stop and stare. Perhaps they wondered "Who was this bloke getting all this attention? " and maybe "can I have some too?"
Two of his cronies with assault weapons raised the guns at me as shorty gave me the most thorough pat-down, frisk and grope I have ever had in my life!
Bastard!
He didn't even buy me dinner...
(, Fri 19 Apr 2013, 3:58, 3 replies)
Something about this story made me pause... I couldn't think what it was but I couldn't move on to the next story without knowing what had struck me. It was somewhere inside my brain. Maybe a word you mentioned brought back childhood memories, had I been in that same situation before? No, I've never even been... WHACK! It hit me. From nowhere, it just jumped out of my mind, it makes sense now, it all makes sense. I know why I paused, I know what got lodged someone in the back of brain, crying out to me...
"Threw me at a glass wall, face first"
I've always called them things 'windows' but glass wall seems like an equally valid way to describe them.
(, Fri 19 Apr 2013, 13:49, closed)
A window? I guess so, but being ceiling to floor and thick and laminated, overlooking a small garden in the middle of the terminal, well, it seemed more like a glass wall rather than the aperture one usually associates with windows.
(, Sat 20 Apr 2013, 0:48, closed)
Yeah, when I read glass wall I had that sort of thing in mind.I've just always thought of them as windows. I suppose it's because they're see through. But yes, glass wall does seem appropriate.
(, Sat 20 Apr 2013, 20:31, closed)
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