I went to the police station to get it checked out. They gave it a cursory glance and told me to change it out at the metro station. Well, I did, and it wasn’t accepted. Eventually I got the police to switch it out for me.

Venice was no better. When I first arrived, all the ferries were on strike. I was nearly pickpocketed - the pickpocket was caught when she tried to steal from a Russian woman, whose husband later held the pickpocket back. I dialed the police and told them of the situation, then hung up. As I left, the pickpocket tripped me (intentionally), so I gave her a good taste of my fist.

The restaurant scam was pulled again in Venice. The whole of Venice was generally over-rated. Not recommended!

Jamaica

I went with a friend to an all inclusive resort. It was fine as long as we stayed on the resort. As soon as we stepped off the grounds the scamming started.

“Hey, mon! You want some ganja?”

“No”

“Cocaine?”

“No.”

“Mushrooms?”

“No.”

“You want a woman, mon?”

“No.”

“You want a good Jamaican meal? I bring you home and my mother cook for you.”

“No - I just want to be left alone.”

“Hey, mon, Respect!”

🤣

“Hey, mon! I get you a taxi. He's my good friend.” The “good friend” charges me $15 for a $10 ride , then asks me for a tip.

Jamaica

Garbage pick up was once per month so people burned the excessive waste accumulated daily. The stench was unbearable at times. There were only dirt roads outside of the main 2 lane roads that wen through the cane fields. Police would block those main road every 20km or so to collect bribes from passing motorists.

Buses which appeared to be from the 60s or 70s each carried a guard in uniform equipped with a rifle for everyday transit. Even the one KFC had 2 guards with rifles placed at each corner of the long line up.

I didn’t feel comfortable being around the locals so I didn’t speak because I didn’t want to reveal my origins as Canadian. That didn’t work. They could tell I was. I would get approached constantly and asked for money. Sometimes clothes or food.

Young school girls would be harassed daily by older men right at the school yard. Some would be raped. That was a normal thing happening.

Israel

As soon as I landed at Tel-Aviv airport, I was treated very suspiciously by the people at passport control and they kept questioning my itinerary and why I was alone.

Russia

 I’ve been there four times, once for a scientific conference, and three times for discussion of arms control, and I find the Russian culture and art and people wonderful. Under the communist regime I always felt personally safe. Because of my security clearances, I sensed that the KGB kept me under surveillance (indeed, one time my wife was approached in an attempt to find out more about me). As a result, I felt secure; nobody could accost me without me getting off immediate defense from my KGB followers.

But I’ve had a close friend, Dan Ford, who interacted with the Putin government, and was threatened with murder if he didn’t comply with their illegal demands. “We’ve learned that it would be cheaper to have you killed than to buy your shares” he was told. 😅

When Dan reported this to the FBI, they told him that such behavior had become common under the Putin regime, and that there was nothing they could do. They suggested that he give up ownership of the Russian company he had cofounded. He did, losing all of his substantial investment, but saving his own life.

His story is very similar to that of Bill Browder, but in Browder’s case, his close colleagues actually were murdered.

“This is Russia after all, where buisness is mafia,goverment is mafia and mafia is mafia”

India

The 3 first days there were still quite schocking, The first taxi I got in from the airport tried to rip me off all my money, so many beggars and crippled everywhere, many places were destroyed like they just got out of a civil war. After these three days I was starting to deal with the reality of the country.

Taking a night bus was so dangerous, the roads were completly destroyed and there was a freaking amount of trucks on the roads and the bus driver had to constantly make very dangerous manoeuver to get the bus to destination on time. On the side of the road were the leftovers of quite a few bus crashes.

The food was amazingly tasty and it’s truly among the best foods in the world, but I was also contlantly sick for three weeks because of poor hygene conditions from eating there. I had to take antibiotics to stop the diarea. 😅

I was traveling with a European looking girl she keept being harrased by perverts and gropped, we once got surrounded by a crowd of male and they were on the verge of tearing off her clothes and rape her if it wasn’t for the help of a guard/police officer that did beat the hell out of a few of the wannabe rapists.

France

Paris is beautiful, has great places to see and also has fantastic architecture. However, the locals are usually quite rude and it is always so full of tourists, it doesn't seem to have any cultural originality left.

Jamaica

Over-priced restaurants. Drug dealers on every corner. But worst of all, locals like the cabbies will try and screw you over shamelessly at every chance they get. Not to mention that it is one of the leading nations when it comes to crime and especially murder rates.

But I really really don’t like a vacation where I have to constantly haggle knowing that the locals are trying to screw over tourists 24/7.

Australia

“Australia is not a place for the faint-hearted.” The fact is that this continent is inhabited by the most dangerous animals in the world. Water and land on the Green Continent are simply teeming with the diversity of its far from harmless occupants. Most Australians are accustomed to living next door to venomous snakes, spiders, crocodiles and other deadly creatures. 

Syria, Libya, Iraq, or Somalia. - vukojebine

USA

I have worked all over the world, and spent months at a time in the USA in a variety of roles. I always felt uncomfortable. There was a background feeling of intense fear, mixed with intense rage. The whole place felt unhinged. Many of the people I met were kind, polite, and good company. But let conversation drift, and the oddest ideas would surface.

I recall the night there was a murder in the motel I was in. Someone stabbed a chap who had taken the last bucket of ice from the machine. It was a few doors from my room, and I heard the arguement, a bit. The police came, and took lots of statements from people in the rooms, including me. The officer who took my statement would only do so if I lay face down on the floor with my hands behind my back while he pointed a revolver at me.