Anyone with a funny and unforgettable travel experience?

My funny experience, like yours, involved the newly learned language of my host country - Brazil.

Although I had taken formal classes, invested endless hours in self-learning and immersed myself in the Portuguese and Brazilian communities not only in Vancouver, Canada; but also in Seattle, Washington USA and reached fluency found that this was much different from living with the language 24/7 with natives who spoke it so rapidly that I could hardly keep up.

Shortly following my arrival I was strolling through an open-air street market with one of my new found friends in São Paulo. As we walked about the conversation naturally was mostly devoted to cultural differences and our own backgrounds.

I was telling my friend that in my youth I had for a period of time been an ambulance (ambulância)  attendant and so the conversation went...

He made some comment a while later and not clearly understanding him I said, "Sim, toda ambulância tem botijão de oxigênio." (Yes, every ambulance has an oxygen bottle.) To my great chagrin my companion burst into raucous fits of laughter. When I indignantly inquired just what he thought so funny about my statement he replied. "Nunca tinha visto uma melancia com botijão de oxigênio." (I've never seen a watermelon with an oxygen bottle).

Watermelon, I shouted... what freakin' watermelon, man - I'm talking about ambulances. To this he only laughed harder still and asked if I hadn't noticed that the conversation had shifted to the big juicy watermelon in the stall in front of us quite some time before.

From that point on, whenever we were together and would see a watermelon he'd shout in glee like a child. "Olha James MELANCIA!!! mee-mah-mee-mah-mee-mah!!!"

  Cheers, 
  William James Woodward, Brazil & Canada Expert - Expat-blog Team

haha nice :p

Mandarin is probably the easiest language in the world to make a major mistake in.
There I am, talking to a man about his daughter, saying she's like my God daughter but, as I picked the wrong "voice"or tone, it came out as shagging his daughter.
His face looked surprised at this.

Good one!I guess the positive outcome from all of this is the fact that we learn the dictinct intonation or word for life!Thanks for sharing your ambulance/watermelon story!

I got on the wrong bus and ended up in the wrong country, but my luggage managed to make it to the correct bus and was picked up by a friend at the correct stop. I eventually got there 24 hours later.

When I was living in Saigon, I ordered a steak and  a fried egg at the restaurant(in English language). In Vietnamese language "EGG" means FROG...SO I  was given a steak with a frog on top of it!

Here's one of my unforgettable experiences, as reported in a blogpost of mine back in July last year. (I've been reminiscig about my youthful travels many years ago. When you're old, you're allowed to reminisce, I believe.) The rest of the post includes a report on what my travelling companion and I remember as The Bridal Suite. Also memorably bad!

'We had reached the street when the landlady called us back. “Oh, all right”, she said. “I’ll give you fresh sheets, you cheeky young buggers.” “For the same price?” “Yes, yes, of course for the same price!” So we went inside again and watched while she re-made the bed with freshly washed sheets and pillow-cases. Not particularly clean, but un-slept-on since they had last been bashed on rocks in the local stream. No black hairs from last night’s occupant, for instance.

'She had been indignant at our indignation. “But these sheets are fresh! They’ve only been on the bed for ten days, for goodness sake.” She held out her hands for me to count her fingers. The conversation was all in fluent Arabic, at least on her side. We had long ago learnt the words for “clean sheets”, and I figured out what the ten fingers meant and signified. She made a mistake mentioning the ten days, though actually it was the greasy black hairs on the pillow that lost her the argument.'
http://barlowscayman.blogspot.com/2012/ … -t-10.html

Once in Bangkok, we used to come out of our hotel to eat from a small casual restaurant nearby. Restaurant was run by the chef, wife and their old mother. They didn't speak English, but he tried to manage just for orders. One day I wanted to order a kind of new soup made with meat while my friend ordered fried-rice with a pork dish.   First the old lady brought me my soup and supplied me a spoon. It was not very thick or good-looking but with a lot of lime and basil leaves. Anyway,  As I was hungry my friend wanted me to start my soup.   It was too spicy but hardly managed to take few swallows.   My friend was laughing at me for ordering new and not-known things. Then we saw the chef was coming running. He  with his both hands asked me to stop the soup. Then his wife came running with a good-smelling tasty soup for me. But by then, I had almost finished my friend's spicy pork dish.

hahahahaha    it was really funny as well as terrible exp right?

Zung Tran wrote:

hahahahaha    it was really funny as well as terrible exp right?

Yes zung Tran... but I still can laugh to bits when am remembering it..

For me a flight from tunis to tunis with an emergency take off, horrible experience, I thought that i get to die, Now I avoid the Tunisair company

HaileyinHongKong wrote:

How long does it take to fly from Tunis to Tunis?

Almost as long as it took you to write this post.......

When I think at 'Anyone with a funny and unforgettable travel experience?', I refer only to funny situations while in an airplane, train or long-distance bus.

I was flying to the Black Sea litoral and my 5-yr. niece asks me: why is the plane gliding and not winging its wings like the birds do? 

Also, the tax-exile French actor Gerard Depardieu who had to use the washroom quickly while the plane was still on the tarmac.  The door was locked and the stewardess stopped him from forcing it open.
He just peed in front of the door on the carpet ... Some passengers were amused, some were not, and he made news headlines again.  Actors always find ways to be in the news ... 

My daily drive to work is always a funny and unforgettable experience.   

I joined the "mile high club" on a Malaysia airlines flight from Manchester to KL.

May 2005. Malaysia airlines from Manchester to KL. I think it was the 6th but it may have been the 5th.
The year before they stopped flying out of Manchester.
Night flight and most were asleep. I had been talking to this Malay Chinese lass for a couple of hours or so near the rear door, port side.
I was chatting her up the best I could in Mandarin. We were both bored. Had to do something and we both decided to do each other. Malaysian 747/400s have 4 rear toilets. We went port side but, if you fancy a go, use the back one. The side one is way too small even when you are that close together. Hellishly hard to close those folding doors with 2 people in there.

I should add that was before I was married and when I used to be a bad boy.
My wife would bloody kill be if I did anything like that now,
suami-suami takut istri you know.

mas fred wrote:

I joined the "mile high club" on a Malaysia airlines flight from Manchester to KL.

...

I should add that was before I was married and when I used to be a bad boy.

Not sure if you were a bad boy, but certainly an adventurous one. I never tried that before, and probably a tad too old now. I will probably sleep and let the adventurous youngsters have a go.