Cute dog until he went all Old Yeller on my ass.

Wanderbust!

Jordan Ing
Aug 23, 2017 · 5 min read

I can’t pretend that I have the craziest stories to tell, especially when it comes to badass, dangerous travel moments. I’ve never had anything stolen from me and the only time I’ve lost my wallet was when it slipped out of my back pocket in a taxi. But, I have a couple of awkward and annoying tales that you should at least get a laugh out of. At the very least, it’ll be a lighthearted reminder that not all of the beautifully curated Instagram content you see comes without its fair share of setbacks and irritation. Everyone can use a proverbially “kick in the nuts” from time to time. Here are 5 of most memorable travel catastrophes:

  1. Don’t Shoot! — I’ve only had a gun pointed at me once in my life and it’s probably not the most exciting recollection you’ll ever hear. Lucky for me, I suppose. I was walking along a dead-empty street in Manama, Bahrain (which should have been my first clue that something was wrong), when I spotted a member of the Royal Guard up ahead, armed with an M4 assault rifle (which I recognized from my many nights as a teenager playing Counterstrike). He waved at me, which I naively mistook as a greeting, and I waved back and kept on walking. Then, about 50 feet away, he shouted in Arabic and aimed his gun at me. I froze and put my hands in the air, before panicking and running for cover into the hotel beside me. The owner explained that the street was closed down for the King’s convoy, who were on their way back to the palace. Naturally, I decided to lay low for awhile before venturing back out into public.
  2. Bug Bites and Machu Picchu — This one wasn’t that bad but it sure was fucking annoying! A buddy and I were spending the night at a hostel in Aguas Calientes, in Peru, the night before trekking up Machu Picchu. After a beer and short chess match on the rooftop, we noticed that we were getting bitten badly by insects. Fast forward to the next morning, we woke up with our legs covered in itchy, pestering (what we think were) mosquito bites. It looked like chicken pox but viler. At one point during the hike, we crossed another traveler who couldn’t help but cry out “Oh shit!”. Fortunately, the red markings healed up over the next few days. Though my friend ended up contracting some sort of plague and I found him one night, in Cusco, curled up in the fetal position, wearing full pants and sweat-shirt, shivering uncontrollably (bet he doesn’t brag about that night, Audrey!).
  3. Beware of Dog — While walking along the beach in Essaouira, Morocco, myself and pair of new friends encountered what appeared to be a stray dog. At first, it seemed fairly friendly and happily jogged along the sand with us. However, about a half-hour later, when we started to make our way back towards town, something in the pup flipped and it began growling and acting extremely aggressively. As luck would have it, the dog decided to target me. Having never been in a situation like this before, it was very unnerving for me. Then, the dog leaped and attacked me but I managed to push its head away, mid-bite, so that it was only able to gnaw at left arm (thankfully I was wearing a hoodie). Instead of fight-or-flight kicking in, I called upon a memory of a random dude scaring away a bear, and made myself try to look big (which is difficult for a guy like me) and roared loudly at the dog. Surprisingly, it worked and I didn’t get rabies that day.
  4. It Ain’t Peachy When it’s Leechy — Tack another one onto the scoreboard for insects, but this story has sentimental value to me. While strolling along a dirt road near Cenang Beach, in Langkawi, Malaysia, a local boy on a motor scooter drove by. Trying to be funny, he pretended to lose control and swerve close to the girl I was walking with, which prompted her to jump to the side and lose a sandal in the adjacent swamp. Because I’m an absolute gentleman, and she seemed genuinely saddened by the prospect of losing her Havaianas, I jumped in and spent 5 minutes knee-deep in dark sludge trying to locate her lost sandal. Unsuccessful, I climbed out, only to find a big, black leech on my left foot. In a fit of hysteria, I hopped around in circles on one foot before finally biting the bullet and ripping it off with my hand (not the most well-thought out leech removal method). Blood leaked everywhere but it wasn’t painful. A year later, I found myself walking through the streets of London barefoot, after breaking a sandal near the Globe Theatre. Long story short, I tripped off the curb while checking out a cute girl. Though I was skeptical about buying a flimsy-looking sandal like the Havaianas, I couldn’t help but remember how much that girl really loved them. Those sandals ended up lasting me 5 years and 20 countries before biting the dust, due to no fault of their own (or an attractive woman again!).
  5. WTF! — This last one is a mix of weird, disturbing, and kind of shocking. During my first three nights in Palermo, Sicily, I ended up going out for drinks with a chubby, Tunisian man who was staying at my hostel. On night one, he revealed to me that he made a living from buying, smuggling, and selling cars to Libya. That should have been my first red flag. The second was the fact that this portly man frequently went to the bathroom at every bar we went to, and always came back physically riled up and hyper-alert. He would also sleep in late after every escapade, well past the acceptable length of a normal hangover, to point that he missed two consecutive morning flights. I don’t like making it a habit of hanging out with sketchy people, but he seemed like a nice enough guy, kept his drug habits secretive, and never involved me in his shenanigans. Well, on night three, we’re having beers on a patio when he drops the bomb that his brother is in ISIS! He claimed that he no longer kept in contact with him but spat some serious hate at America. When I saw his Facebook Friend Request the next day, I couldn’t press “Ignore” fast enough.

Hope you enjoyed my modestly wild and wacky travel moments. An honorable mention goes out to the middle-aged man who two-hand shoved me into my aisle, while I was hungover and barely alive, on an airplane in China. That was pretty awful too!

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Jordan Ing

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Just another lost soul swimming in this fishbowl.

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