suicide
I was on a Virgin train coming back from London last year.
Was totally delighted we were bang on time and I was looking forward to getting home.
Just outside Birmingham (maybe 1.5 miles?) when a loud thump resounded. Something flew past the window as the brakes screetched and we ground to a halt.
Someone had thrown themselves in front of the train and we watched as the transport police arrived and white-faced 'messed about' under the carriage I was sitting in, among others of course....
We were there for quite some time.
In this time I met some very nice people, including a half Maori guy sitting opposite me.

As you can imagine we were all a bit shocked.
(Siouxfan I'm not staring at you, I am just short sighted, Thu 14 Sep 2006, 16:28, Reply)

the worst journey in the world
The National Express coach service from Brussels to Manchester.
The first part of the trip was ok and going under the channel in the tunnel was fun but Victoria Coach station in London is something i never wish to experience again....
The station was heaving with folk and really hot and stuffy and smelly,so we went to the nearest pub and ordered a meal.
The pub was run by a psychotic Basil Fawlty lookalike and obviously he had put the fear of god into his eastern european employees as they were running around with really stressed looks on their faces,while Basil occasionally berated them and seemed to enjoy them jumping and flinching at his orders,what a twit he was.
We got out of there fast and tried to get on the coach,the driver was having a humdinger of an argument with some Spanish students who were going camping in the lake district.
The driver wouldn't let them take little camping gas cylinders in the luggage hold,the students had just bought them from a nearby shop and two of the girls began to cry,the driver was adamant that the canisters either went in the bin or they found alternative transportation,he was a real hardnut no nonsense sort.I felt sorry for the students as i'd been camping and had a can of gas in my luggage ,well concealed,so i told them to stash it when the driver wasn't looking.
Finally we got on the bus and to my horror it was completely packed,i had to sit next to an african lady who was breastfeeding her baby ,but then the kid started screaming horrendously for two hours.
By this time i was Knackered and managed to get away from her and sat near the drivers as space had become free as people got off.
It was pitch black 10pm and nearly everyone still on the coach was fast asleep.
The driver and codriver were waffling away to themselves and then turned round to look at the passengers.
"eeeh terry ,look at that ,its like the night of the fu***in' flesh eating zombies..."
(the co driver then then did a very sarcastic impression of people asleep with their mouths wide open).
At last we arrived in Manchester,got off the bus and within five seconds a shifty character came upto me and said with a wry grin,"Business?".I got in the nearest taxi and was very thankful to get home.
I'm never going on a coach again.
(sniffi the cat /remembers/this was /all fields..., Thu 14 Sep 2006, 16:00, Reply)

Bristol to Paddington with Virgin trains.
About 5 years ago, was travelling Bristol to London, waiting at Bristol Temple meads for said train which had been delayed outside birmingham. Bastard thing was something like an hour late coz of rain on the track,leaves on the trees, sheep in the fields, you know the excuses - Anways, I start drinking my travel stella's, and manae to do 4 of 6 cans while waiting. run off and aquire another 6. train turns up, by which point i'm quite pissed on the wonder that is stella. marvelous stuff.
Get on the over crowded late bastard virgin train, no basterd seats. oh well, at least i have my stella. find a nice door way to occupy and shout at passing comuters from. (have to entertain myself somehow) anyway - true to fasion about 15 mins into journey, I need a piss, so off i trot looking for the loo's. 1st one - out of order... second... out of order... 3rd... yepp - its fucked too. so i go find the guard to have a moan. guard tells me the bogs on these trains automaticaly go out of service if the train's water supply is drained. well, thats fucking great isn't it ? he then informs me its been fucked since birmingham. great. a train full of people with no where to piss. here comes the fucking genius of virgin trains when train gets stuck between reading and paddington for what was a fucking eternity coz of ducks on a nearby pond or whatever. the genius's anounce free soft drinks for all and everyone due to the delay. weehay !! by now i'm thoroughly pissed, as is half the trin most probably, and due to the free drinks - those who weren't already desperate for leak very shortly would be. 2 hours later - still not moved, in agony for a piss now. so what happens ? we all decide the only thing for it is to use the front carriage as 'gent' and the rear carriage for the ladies. by the time word had gotten round - mass pissing at the front and rear of train. the whole fucking thing stank by the time it finaly pulled into paddington.
If only virgin managment and the bearded one could have been the ones to clear up the mess.
(Paisley Beard Arghh, Thu 14 Sep 2006, 15:45, Reply)

A long time ago....
I don't know how I got there, and I don't belive the stories that are told to explain it...

but I found myself naked, stuck, with the walls rumbling around me and starting to collapse, unable to get out until the fire brigade cut the roof open and hoisted me out - my bare arse was slapped someone stuck their fingers down my throat and I was rubbed vigorously between what felt like sandpaper sheets and then stuck in a metal bowl.

Then I was stuck in a room full of screaming babies and no-one who could speak my language.

That was the night I vowed to start drinking
(Catchag "You know!....For Kids!", Thu 14 Sep 2006, 14:49, Reply)

Ok, your motivation...
You're 17, it's your first time on a plane, you're alone, it's from UK to Australia.

It's also four days after 9/11.

Think machine-gun wielding Arab officers, crazy three-fingered Frenchmen trying to engage you in conversation, landings to make your nose bleed and an unspeakable stench that was the very arse of Beelzebub emanating from someplace unknown.

Yes.

More a case of sub-zero attitudes than sub-zero temperatures, but it does make you want to cry for your mum nonetheless.
(honking_octopus, Thu 14 Sep 2006, 13:07, Reply)

Calling this the worst journey in the world seems an exaggeration...
...but if you'd been there, you'd feel the pain.

On the return drive from Scotland to Wales, camping. Two people and three dogs in a small hatchback. In order to protect the fine Renault upholstery I'd lovingly tucked in a blanket for all three dogs to perch on on the back seat.

Motoring cheerfully down the main roads, past Gretna Green and onto the motorway. A sudden realisation steals over the two human occupants of the car (and probably the canine ones too, but who's to say?) that there is a nauseating smell so thick you could almost chew it. At least one of the dogs has passed wind. The kind of wind that surrounds its perpetrator in a greenish cloud. The driver and passenger exchange glances and open windows simultaneously. All is quiet for a while, until there is a kind of tearing noise and a whoopee cushion sound. There is a time lag of two seconds and then the front half of the car is enveloped in a smell so bad the driver swerves and the passenger scrabbles ineffectually at the window mechanism. One of the dogs has had an attack of explosive diarrhea.

Fucking, fucking motorways with no junctions for miles.

All three dogs are now panicking trying to crawl out of the way of both the cow pat on the seat and the wrath of their owners, and therefore spreading it over the parcel shelf and getting it into their fur.

Finally after a period of wide-eyed speeding down the fast lane we reach the Carlisle services. We screeched to a handbrake stop in the car park and jumped out of the car, followed by three guilty dogs sqeezing through the windows.

At this point I would like to apologise to Carlisle service staff.

Out comes the dribbly blanket. The offending dog is easily identifiable by the blast radius in the long butt fur. Cue twenty minutes cleaning the dog's butt hair using paper towels from the men's room and cups of water from the vending machine. Passers-by repeatedly witnessed one person holding the dog still whilst the other flung a cupful of water aimed squarely at the dog's rear end. I was torn between laughter and the urge to vomit.

We travelled the rest of the M6 in outraged silence with watering eyes.
(Mmm...minky, Thu 14 Sep 2006, 12:48, Reply)

The wierdest journey ever as the letter 'B'
A few moons ago, had had a great night out in bristol, clubbing, tsubstance abuse, the usual.
clubs close, we decide a few of us will go back to matey's house and carry on the madness. we call the night dealer and arange to meet him and pick up 3 g's of columbia's finest sniffety sniff. Job done, we get to matey's place. I proceed to pul out the 1st wrap, and chop out 3 fucking enoumous lines, and procced to hoover up the first. Shock horror - it fucking hurt like buggery. fucksocks !!! dealer had given me 2 wraps of coke , and by accident a wrap of fucking ketamine. matey & matey are fucking pissing themselves at me, and procced to snort the right stuff. well , its too fucking late for me now isn't it ? having snorted probably 6-7 times as much K as you would. This is now getting totaly wierd for me. I'm sat there for fucking hours, no amount of coke is going to change my now seriously warped and hallucinating mind. every time matey 1 spoke, which was a lot - fucking loads, I became convinced that I was the letter 'B' , litteraly, each time a word with B in it was said by him - yep - that was me. Floating out of his mouth and accross the room. quite nice being a member of the alphabet. fucking wiedest journey ever. 6 hours as the letter B. followed by me licking the fucking carpet to collect all my spent B's. I fucking hate ketamine. and carpet bits in my mouth. hmmmph. did get an appology and a bonus big wrap of coke off dealer dude though ! yay !!!
(Paisley Beard Arghh, Thu 14 Sep 2006, 12:41, Reply)

I actually have a lot of these stories, but I'll go with the most recent one.
My family has a tradition of going on road trips with other families that have kids about my age. The last one was a trip to Random Little Town, NSW, via a place called Orange, which was so called because it's the only town in Australia whose trees are mostly not evergreens, and thus, in Autumn... turn orange. Yup. It's that exciting. During a rest stop at a playground we found a toilet door inscribed with such legends as "Best root in Orange, call [number]". Yeah, buddy. I bet Orange provides a hell of a lot of competition.

Anyway, the "worst journey" bit happened on the way there. We left a little late and got caught in a Traffic Loop Of Doom. Now "doom" is a bit of a strong word to use, and you might think I'm exxagerating. But let me tell you exactly how long we spent stuck in traffic.

My friend Stan and I went through the following diversions:
A) Discussion of zombie contingency plans
B) Discussion of cow tipping
C) Discussion of waiter tipping
D) Discussion of zombie tipping
E) Calculus.

Yes, folks, I learned calculus in a hot car midway between Middle of Nowhere and The Best Root In Orange. No more need be said.
(Lieutenant Colonel Oblivious brought to you by intravenous sugar, Thu 14 Sep 2006, 12:06, Reply)

My mum was with a tour group somewhere very remote (one of the 'stan countries I think)
The airport was so tiny it didn't have a toilet. There were only fields around it, so no bushes or trees to have a sneaky wee behind.

One of the group was so desperate for a wee, she crouched down behind the wheel of the bus. Which would have been fine, had the driver not chosen that moment to drive off.
(Pachey, Thu 14 Sep 2006, 11:31, Reply)

I once went on a world wide trip

looking for the cup of christ in search of eternal life. I thought I'd found it until recently my teeth have started falling out, my hair's turned gray, and I shit myself on a regular basis. Turns out, that Kiss Me Quick mug I bought in Blackpool isn't actually the Holy Grail :(.
(Lt Columbo, Thu 14 Sep 2006, 11:23, Reply)

I once rode my bike over a small jump i'd
Fabricated out of some wood and bricks, the only problem was my brakes didn't work and I smashed my teeth on the corner of my neighbours shiney new wall, I then spat the shattered remains of my teeth into my hand (along with a little spittle and some blood). The unfortunate part was that the teeth I broke were my first adult teeth which I'd only had around a week.
(site_history_log, Thu 14 Sep 2006, 10:26, Reply)

Drunken Travelling
Makes for interesting journeys.

Once tried to travel from the czech republic to croatia on a drunken whim.

Problems I had were that I mistook evening for morning? which led me to start the journey and then getting the wrong train, I still don't know where to.

Train stopped in a czech or slovak industrial town where I was forced to spend about 8 hours till the next train arrived.

The only shelter I had was a bowling alley where I decided to get rid of my hangover by drinking some more, got kicked out at 3 in the morning and spent the next few hours freezing my ass off and forcing myself to stay awake so as I wouldn't be robbed. I'm glad I did as I saw another passenger have his wallet stolen out of his pocket while he was asleep(in my defence I was drunk and didn't realise till too late).

6 in the morning rolls round and I get on the first train going south, many hours and several changes later I arrived in split in the south of croatia.

I think in total it took me about 24 hours most of which was either spent drunk or hungover. I only spent a day there cause it was expensive and the trees made funny noises and headed back to budapest.
(Inglorious, Thu 14 Sep 2006, 10:16, Reply)

thingymebobs...
...now that I would have stood up for. Admittedly I was a bit of a wimp back when I sat there gritting my teeth whilst the GF maintained a vicegrip on my arm but still, what happened to you wasn't just out of order, unnecesarry or even excessive - it was downright criminal. Tell me, please, TELL ME that they paid for it eventually.

The growing chav population (and it's growing at pace - stupid people breed faster) better hope that I never end up ruling the world - I'd see them all in unmarked mass-graves inside of 12 months. I can't stress enough how appalling a waste of flesh those people are - everything about them disgusts me :/
(thatblokeoverthere not quite as much an arsehole as I thought, Thu 14 Sep 2006, 9:07, Reply)

we had to get a new map
One summer when I was about 10 or so, we were embarked on a mighty family summer road trip to "Drive the Oregon Trail." About halfway through Idaho, I realize that I suddenly have to pee. Bad. With no rest stops in sight, and me being at that awkward age where peeing by the side of the road with no bushes to hide behind a traumatic experience, my parents suggest that I find a container in the back seat and relieve myself while we are driving. After some digging under the seat, the best I can come up with is a Dr. Pepper can. Gratefully (yet gingerly), i unzip my pants and wedge the tip of my tiny member into the opening of the can and let loose. To my horror, the sudden increase in pressure prompts my penis to jerk free of the opening of the can, sending a brilliant golden arc across the car...........and onto my mother sitting in the front seat, completely covering her and the map that she is consulting as I vainly attempt to stop the stream.
(powerpants, Thu 14 Sep 2006, 8:06, Reply)

it's

ape - love - rage.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Thu 14 Sep 2006, 6:14, Reply)

I had a chuckle =)
Last year me and a mate flew to Australia for a bit of travelling. 23 hours on a plane and like another 14 hours in stopover time is harsh enough. Broken into 3 stages - Heathrow to Paris, Paris to Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur to Sydney.
On the 2nd leg of the journey as i was walking up the aisle looking for our seat i clapped eyes on this guy that was sitting in our row, this grotesque, fat, sweating, egyptian looking bastard who took up 1 and a half fucking seats was already munching his way through probably his second packet of complimentary nuts.
Hastily checking my seat number i realised i would've been the unlucky passenger who would be made to sit next to the monstrosity. I thought fuck it im not sitting next to him (as you do).
Turning around with a smile i looked at my mate who was blisfully unaware of the forthcoming situation. Not a second after i had turned back i heard "You fucking dare, that window seat is mine!" hahahaha.
My mate was utterly tamping. It gets worse. while my mate was sleeping food was being served, i pulled the little table thing down and ordered his food for him.
He slept while i ate and when i finished my main i fell asleep.
About half an hour later i woke up because i was being pinched i looked over at my mate who was glaring at me...i kept looking and i realised that this guy had just finished swapping his empty tray for my mates full one!
Un-fucking-believable
We agreed after that flight we would sit in our assigned seats.
Unluckily on the last leg i would have the displeasure of sitting next to some stranger.
This however wasnt so bad when that stranger turned out to be a very fit aussie bird who put us up in her apartment near Sydney and showed us around some of the sights.
Every Cloud........
(Lt_Mof0, Thu 14 Sep 2006, 2:15, Reply)

Ow
Oh yeah, and my own worst journey:

About a month ago, my wife and I decided to do the C2C (cycle route from the Lake District to Newcastle). Great fun. I've been doing these Sustrans cycle routes for a few years now, once blazed the length of Wales (Cardiff to Holyhead) in four days, feel fairly confident etc. etc. and am just hoping my lovely wife can cope with all the hills.

Wife insists I get my bike serviced. Frankly I think brakes are a bit over-rated but acquiesce anyway. Bike is duly serviced.

About 15 miles after the start (we dipped our wheels in the sea, took photos, and everything), we catch up with a party of sponsored riders doing the route for Macmillan or something. Their pace is a little, er, steady. As my usual riding style is to zoom up to the top of any given hill then stop to recuperate, I'm finding it a bit frustrating.

Eventually I manage to get past all but the leader of their group. It's kind of bendy, so I'm stuck behind him, until a nice, fast, straight downhill hoves into view. Wahey, I can get past here.

Unfortunately the route takes a 90-degree turn down a side-road at the bottom of the hill, indicated by a little blue Sustrans sign half concealed by foliage. Just as I've passed Mr Macmillan Group Leader at approx. 30mph I notice this. Ok, apply brakes and prepare to turn.

Holy crap, my brakes work for the first time in five years. Actually they work really, really well. So well my back wheel stops turning entirely and I am now skidding down a hill at 30mph. Ok, so how do I get round this corner?

The rest of my holiday was spent in Carlisle Infirmary. Since then I have been going back to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford every week to get my jaw moved back into place. Half my front teeth are missing and my entire mouth is held together by elastic bands. I can't eat anything but soup and am completely fscking fed up with the stuff.

Oh yes, and at one point while I was in the Carlisle Infirmary, the news came on the TV. Apparently some cabinet minister was encouraging people to take up exercise, like cycling, to reduce the burden on the NHS. I would have screamed abuse at the kuffwit were it not for the fact I could only open my mouth about 3mm.
(ChaRleyTroniC is invincible with his chips and cheese, Wed 13 Sep 2006, 22:55, Reply)

Hole in the floor
A few years ago, my lovely friend Clare (who lives in Derbyshire) went down to head office in North London for some Important Meeting or other. She's driving back up the M40, not really that awake, dawdling in the slow lane and following a lorry.

All of a sudden she sees a pair of legs dangling out of the bottom of the lorry, then disappearing again.

Aagh, she thinks, clearly I'm way too tired and am imagining things. Perhaps I should pull over at the next services. In the meantime she rubs her eyes, thinks "pull yourself together" and keeps going.

Two minutes later it happens again. Legs dangled out the bottom of the lorry, flap around for a few seconds, then disappear.

This is getting a bit silly, she thinks, I am definitely not imagining this.

A few minutes later it happens again. At this point she is sufficiently spooked that she calls the police. Police sound a bit sceptical but say, ok, well keep following the lorry, and let us know where it's going.

Over the next 20 miles it keeps on happening. Eventually the lorry pulls into the services. Clare follows and tells the police where she is. Five minutes later a squadron of panda cars turn up, lights blazing, and surround the lorry.

Turns out it was a people-trafficking lorry. One of the 'cargo' had died. The other 'passengers' were frantically trying to get rid of the evidence, not having twigged that a dead body in the middle of the M40 is likely to arouse suspicions. Except it wouldn't fit through the hole.
(ChaRleyTroniC is invincible with his chips and cheese, Wed 13 Sep 2006, 22:43, Reply)

Travelling back from a holiday in Jersey
on one of those super-fast Condor catamaran ferries, when I was about 10 or so, I fell asleep. The seas were pretty choppy that day and, needless to say, I woke up feeling pretty queasy.
Realising I was going to throw up, I jumped out my seat and ran for the side platform to empty my heaving stomach into the sea.
I reach the deck, which was a corner shape with railings facing to the side and to the stern, and just the one entrance - and it's packed full. There's people all along the back and side railings. I try to force my way into the back but they're all enjoying the view of the huge spouts of water that come up from the propellers behind us, and they're not giving. Realising this, I spot a gap in the people at the side railing and head for it. I lean out and hurl over the side of the railing. Straight into the high speed airstream coming down the side of the ship from my left. Naturally, the vomit is caught up in this, and proceeds to hurtle backwards, efficiently covering the 6 people immediately astern of me in the less-than-appetising contents of my stomach. Embarrassed, I run back inside to my mum, who takes me to the ladies loo to clean me up. So, as we're standing at the basin, what should I hear from a few basins down but "he threw up all over me, mum!". At that point I just went back to my seat and tried to look inconspicuous.
And to top all that off, I left my favourite jumper on the ferry. Bah.
(asdfasdfasdf, Wed 13 Sep 2006, 22:39, Reply)

The 'not even wrong trousers' might be an urban myth...
...but this one isn't. 100% fact and happened about 18 months ago.

I know this bloke. Sensitive, intelligent, managerial type (1 out of 3 anyway). Like many blokes, strangely fascinated with the workings of his own bottom, and quite happy to regale people with far too much information down the pub.

Said bloke (let's call him Dave) goes home on the train from Waterloo to visit his parents. Some way into the journey he realises he needs a visit to the little boy's room. Urgently. Minces up the aisle, just makes it to the tiny wee-splashed cubicle in time, trousers and pants down, on loo, releases earth-spattering rear end expulsions.

Reaches out for loo roll.

There isn't any.

He's in a state which doesn't allow for non-wiping of bottom, so he has a little think.

Dave takes off his trousers and pants.

Uses his pants to wipe off the oozy stuff from his back end. Washes his hands. I'm assuming he rinsed his pants a bit though to be honest he never said as much to me. Puts pooey pants in his bag...

...and hands them to his mum at the other end of the trip, so she can make them all clean again.

And tells me (and probably several other people) all about it later on. Not really a bad journey for me, but listening to him at that point was a trip I really didn't want to be on.

I don't really talk to Dave any more.
(cisco, Wed 13 Sep 2006, 21:22, Reply)

More 10a stories
Back in the good old days before Arriva ran the show, there was the grand and glorious Merseybus and its double deckers!
Sunday afternoon, Summer 1995 and i'm travelling home from work on the top deck, minding my own business, reading my book and listening to my Walkman.
The two scally knobjockeys behind me start screaming everywhere, throwing stuff and that. Next thing i feel something hot on the back of my head and turn round to see one of them with a lighter setting my fucking hair alight.
These were like 19-20 year old lads and i'm a 16 year old girl at the time. I scream at them to fuck off and leave me alone to no avail. Out comes the stanley knife....right across my back!
Not one person came upstairs to see what was happening either!
After finally escaping down the stairs with blood pouring out of my back, I asked the driver for help to which he replied "Well what do you want me to do?"
I want you to turn down the next road, go to Eaton Road police station and have the cunts who have just shredded me sorted out!
Driver refused to do fuck all so i had to sit downstairs the rest of the way. Arrived home a sobbing mess. My dad flipped, charged to the bus stop and waited for the bus to come back again and gave the driver a piece of his mind (and fist apparently!)
Sixteen stitches i had. Lovely!

This is why i won't just sit there minding my own business if some scally shitstain starts wellying some poor fucker on the bus. Its not nice when nobody will stand up and help you
(thingymebobs, Wed 13 Sep 2006, 20:27, Reply)

Emo's
Took a trip in my friend car from my school to my town (about a 5 minute drive). Bad thing is he also had an emo friend who insited putting his emo crap on. So the 5 minutes was the most depressing, sad and worst journey ever. Especially with lyrics oike 'I want to bleed on you' and 'I'm sorry i shot you' or something along those lines..
(RobbJ, Wed 13 Sep 2006, 20:26, Reply)

shittylink
my best friend nickie was six hours late meeting me in Glasgow, having been thrown off the Dundee bus halfway for disturbing the other passengers. At this news, I was unsurprised as she can be a bit lippy... then she let me in on the whole story...
The driver, keen to keep the trip as short as possible, had refused to let one guy off the bus when he was "bursting for a piss."
In the mind of a chav, the easy solution to this problem was to piss into a carrier bag and push it out of the bus through the sunroof. Only it's difficult to manage on a speeding bus when you've been knocking back the finest drink that monks can brew. When Nickie sprung to the aid of the urine soaked woman opposite, she was told to sit down then was eventually left at the nearest service station for letting the driver know what she thought of him.
Sitting beside a teenage mum and her screaming offspring, on the next bus that came along which had a spare seat, she heard a nasal braying from several seats behind her, bellowing into his mobile that "ahm comin intae glesga, and ye ken whit that means... break oot the buckie!!!"
Last bus she ever took.
(DippyFi, Wed 13 Sep 2006, 20:13, Reply)

just the usual
after bottles of red wine, vodka, champagne and baileys at a work do I spent the journey back from liverpool street vomiting in the loo. I fell asleep in there incapable of answering my mobile (my husband frantically calling me to see how I was) and woke up in Rayleigh past my stop.
Thankfully my neighbour had done a similar thing and his girlfriend helped us both get home.
That was when I discovered I was unable to drink as much after having children as I did at uni.
( moogy boobles, Wed 13 Sep 2006, 20:05, Reply)

Tinypod!
I think that must have that story traced back to the roots now, or do we have any advances on 20 years ago by Spike?
(luckymcdanger, Wed 13 Sep 2006, 18:51, Reply)

Sort of best AND worst
I had just had a head operation (involving putting a lot of titanium in various parts of my head and face) and was on the train back from Birmingham to Middlesbrough.

I had a stonking headache, and felt like shit. All I could hear was a LOT of noise. There was a lot of very drunk VERY big men singing along with funny accents.
I was really narked off, and my mother was too polite to say anything, so I told them to shut up myself. This went down with laughter.

These guys turned out to be players of Bridgend RFC, a Welsh Team. Sat on their knees and played cards with them.
( Methylene Blue - electrohead, Wed 13 Sep 2006, 18:38, Reply)

461 miles in 5 weeks........... (plus flights)
I wouldn't say it was the worst journey, but my god it was long!
Started out flying from Manchester to Vancouver. Easy enough. This was followed by a 2 day drive through Canada to a place called Prince Rupert - from there catching a ferry up the Inside Passage of Alaska. It was freezing sleeping on deck, but once we got to Skagway we got a bus to Whitehorse.
And this is where the real journey began.

A bunch of us from Yorkshire Schools Exploring Society were doing "Yukon '91", a canoe trip down the Yukon River.
This was 461 miles and involved camping out in the open with bears and stuff. Toilet? Pah, dig a hole in the ground with a trowel! Capsize on the river, lose all belongings. One night camping, one guy puked all over the girls tent and in my kit bag.
And, due to the fact that we had to use river water to cook with, we all got horrendous diaorrhea for 3 days. Then there was the night we had to pack up rapidly in the middel of the night and set off as there was a weird guy who we all thought was going to murder us.
Oh, and then there were the rapids that had to be navigated, with everyone capsizing.

Bloody great expedition to be honest, but it was the kind of journey that only the crazy and the young should do.
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Wed 13 Sep 2006, 18:34, Reply)

Amtrak
One day my boyfriend and I made the mistake of using Amtrak in an attempt to save 80 bucks on a trip from upstate New York to New York city. The advertised ride was 5 hours which we figured wasn't too bad for the savings compared to flying. Unfortunately for us the train was coming from Canada and the Republican convention was going on in NYC = extreme terrorist paranoia as it is too tempting to blow up all those republicans in one hit even for those peace loving canadians. So the train meanders into Syracuse a mere 2 1/2 hours late we jump on with all our baggage and have to walk through the entire train while trying not to knock out people with our bags trying to find seats in the jammed packed full train, finally finding some right in front of the loos. Our ETA in NYC then gets progressively later with not one but two stops for armed police types and salivating bomb squad dogs to search the train. This would have been painful enough as it was if it weren't for the revolting stench emanating from the loos for the entire journey. When we finally arrived in the city well after midnight we had to walk for 3 blocks with all our stuff to find a taxi to take us to our hostel as they had blocked off the whole area for the convention. Our ordeal was not over as once we got to the hostel they told us they had given our rooms away since it was after midnight (as per their policy despite the fact we had rung several times and assured it would be fine) but we would be able to get a room in another hostel another short taxi ride away. Cheers mate! I was so tired after that I was even able to sleep in the hot airless cupboard of a room in a bed that made a bed of nails seem comfy in comparison.
(toffee pop, Wed 13 Sep 2006, 18:03, Reply)

All hail the X5 Bus
The X5 bus from Cambridge to Bedford is usually a relatively luxurious coach. Unless you, say, choose to use it to get home on the night of Strawberry Fair (a large free festival in Cambridge) at which point it spookily metamorphoses into a creaky old double-decker. Buses home after Strawberry Fair are also completely packed, and everyone on board has been freely partaking of their drug of choice all day. Up on the top deck behind us it's party time, with bongos, spliffs a-plenty and lager for all. Now, the last bus takes hours, stops absolutely everywhere, and this night it has no toilet on board.
Ladies and gentlemen, do you know what happens when a troupe of desperate merrymakers all piss in the corner at the back of a bus? Absolutely nothing, that's what. Until the bus starts going downhill.
(gnimmel, Wed 13 Sep 2006, 17:14, Reply)