Your Worst Plane/Car/Train/Whatever Trip

[Twintix]

I just got back from a 10-day stay in Shanghai yesterday with my mom and grandma. We had a great time there; The food was great, the architecture was beautiful, the pollution during our stay was mostly not that bad (Except for one day and, well, pollution is pollution...) and the people were mostly friendly, if loud. Though I did almost get a panic attack from entering some clothes markets...[footnote]Also, Chinese drivers are terrifying. The cyclists and mopedists too. Shanghai is one of the safest cities in the world in terms of crime happening to you, but there's a risk you might get hit or run over by a vehicle.[/footnote]

But the plane trip home was an absolute nightmare.
I've started to dislike plane trips as it is; It's cramped and hot, the food is gross and you can bet the asshole in front of you will lean back his seat right in your face without checking if it's OK first. And you're stuck there for ages. If I could sleep through most of the trip, it'd be fine, but I am incapable of sleeping on airplanes.
But this time, I'd gotten some kind of stomach flu. I don't know if it was the BBQ Chicken pizza I had at Shanghai Brewery the night before[footnote]Which was delicious, by the way. Except for the coriander sauce. I hate coriander.[/footnote] or if it was something else, but my stomach was in an uproar. Hopefully, I won't have to go into details, but it got worse as soon as I ate or drank anything, and the effect was immediate. The 2-hour trip between Shanghai and Beijing was mostly fine, but the 8+ hours spent on the plane to Sweden...
Worst of my life. Most of the trip consisted of me running back and forth to the bathroom. Like I said before, I couldn't sleep. And eventually, I was so nauseous that I had to force myself to puke by rushing to the bathroom and punching myself in the gut. And when we landed, I was extremely dizzy from sleep deprivation and dehydration, which I still felt when waking up today. Or maybe that was from me refusing to eat...


Sheesh, that's a trip I hope I won't have to experience ever again. Instant sleeping pills can't be invented soon enough...

But enough of my disgusting airplane journey. Now I want you to tell me about your awful trips. What is the worst trip you've ever experienced? Why was it so bad? And as a bonus, where were you going and why? Though you don't have to answer the last question if you don't want to...

 

[madwarper]

Every September, there's an annual Open House of the Masonic Village (retirement/medical care) in Elizabethtown, PA. Arts and crafts, food, entertainment, etc. A place to see and be seen. Charlie, an elderly member of my lodge, asked my father and myself to drive him up for the day, since his MS would preclude him from making the trip in future years. So, we had to take his specialty van, which was equipped with a crane arm to lift up his wheelchair.

Though, I should give some backstory as to what happened a few days prior. Though, Charlie had decided to not drive his van on the open road, he believed that he was able to move it around the parking lot of his village as needed. He thought the van was in reverse. It was not. He thought his foot was on the break. It was not. He ended up driving over a sizable cement parking stop and a larger curb, and onto the lawn. He had his van looked at by a mechanic, who told him it was in perfect working condition. We were about to find out... It was not.

On the day of the journey, I picked my dad up at his house with my car. We drove to Charlie's, I parked my car and we loaded up into his van. And, as we were driving the van starting to jerk a bit when we were going from a stop at a light till we started to pick up speed. Charlie told mused that my father that drove like his wife, in that they both thought the van was a sports car. We get to Elizabethtown without much incident. We parked, got out, enjoyed the scene, ate (a little too much), meet others and it came time to head back home.

As we were leaving, the jerking was really acting up. So, we pulled off the road into the parking lot of an auto supply store. And, someone pulled in behind us to let us know that we were leaking fluids. So, my dad went into the store and bought a quart of transmission fluid. He opens the hood and puts in the fluid. Then, checks under the van to see a puddle of about quart of fluid. This was not a good sign. He then went back into the store and bought several more. Regardless, my dad decided to drive home.

Every few miles or so, my dad would pull off to the side of the road and sacrifice another quart on the altar of transmission. It wasn't so bad while we were moving, but as we were getting onto the highway, it was a parking lot. And the start and stop was taking much more wear on the vehicle, and it was starting to fill with smoke. It wasn't so bad for my dad or Charlie as they had the benefit of being in the front with windows that fully descended, but to be in the back seat with no windows, it was hard to breath.

We were able to pull off the highway and take the back roads, which were moving more smoothly. And, then we reached the final stretch of our journey; We just had to drive up a hill to the ridge, then down a little bit to dogleg across a major road to the parking lot of Charlie's. So, we offered up all of our remaining transmission fluid and began the trek up hill.

We thought we could. We thought we could. We thought we could. And, we made it! To the top of the hill. We had to blow through a Stop sign, but we made it... And, then, as we were heading down to the major road, we saw it. Bumper to bumper traffic. And then, the van gave up the ghost and completely died.

My dad told me to cross the street to get my car, so I could tow the van back across the street. To which I pointed out the ridiculousness of him thinking that my van could possibly tow the van. So, me and my dad got in my car, drove back to his house and switched over to his truck and returned to the van. So, my dad used rope to lashed the back of his truck to the van, while I sat in the driver seat of the van and operated the wheel and the break.

We eventually got both vehicles to the Stop sign to turn onto the major road. Waited for an opening, pulled out onto the road. However, some slack had built up on the rope. And, instead of my dad easing on the gas to pull the van onto the turn lane, he gunned it. Which, of course, cause the rope to snap. So, we had to stop the already standstill traffic, while my dad reattached his truck to the van. And, we finally got the van into the parking lot.

And, after a trip that lasted 6 hours longer than it should have, both my father and myself returned to his home. And, as we were about to enter his house, he shat himself. He thought the fart was going to be dry. It was not.

 

[Kae]

I don't think I can think of one, I grew up travelling across the country so I enjoy travelling a lot, just going in the highway gives me a nostalgic feeling and I like to stop to investigate abandoned buildings and other environments...

Oh wait, there was one trip where I thought my brothers died, that was pretty awful, we were travelling caravan style along a mountain road that is infamous because of it's traffic accidents and on a turn we noticed that there was nobody behind us, my father got down to investigate and left me alone in the car and went back to investigate after he asked something that I didn't hear to a passing truck driver, after a while of being there waiting just thinking about all the awful possibilities I decided to take the keys, lock the car and go investigate and I found the car on fire and my younger brother was crying, I asked if he was OK and they said he was, I lost pretty much all of my stuff that day, all my comics, my PS3, my TV my PC, my music CDs and almost everything I owned was on that car and I didn't give a single shit because for half an hour I thought my brothers were dead and I was to relieved that they weren't to care, everyone was super mad at me though because I didn't care though, I think my family is too stupid to understand what I thought I had lost that moment and how hard I was thinking about how help my parents deal with it, I was unsure what I could possibly do to help them get over something like that or something.

Anyway, I guess that was my worst trip ever.

 

[DefunctTheory]

I got a few.

On my way into Iraq, we flew in a C-130. I actually like riding in military aircraft - the shaking and noise always rock me to sleep. I woke up during the flight though, and looked towards the back. The rear was cracked open, and one of the crew members was firing a 50 caliber machine gun at the ground. I saw the aircraft deploy flares. It was terrifying.

I later found out we had been flying low, and some Iraqi jackass had fired a dumb RPG round at us. It didn't come close, and didn't have the range necessary to actually get high enough to hit us, but they fired off flare to be safe anyway, and it seems the machine gun fire was just a bit of fun, as we weren't low enough for it to be effective anyway.

When I got out of Basic Training, I got to go home for two weeks before advanced training. I decided to do this on a bus. This was a mistake. I spent 12 hours in complete terror - Every bus stop was in some shit hole in a major city, surrounded by drug users and drunks. At one stop, some guy asked if I wanted to buy 'booze.' I said no, and went back to smoking... 30 seconds later, I turned around, and found the guy fighting with a police officer.

I have yet to use a bus since.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Toss up between two:

Spoiler: Car Ride

This one happened about 5-6 years ago on a trip between Rhode Island and Ohio. It started off well enough. My family made the trip all the time, so we had gotten used to how it went. The problem arose about halfway there when I got incredibly nauseated and felt the worst pain in my life in my lower-right back. I threw up (thankfully there was a bag there), almost did so again when I walked into McDonald's to clean up, and then had to suffer through the pain for three more hours until we got to our hotel because of a major traffic jam. I had to walk up stairs in the midst of that incredible pain, couldn't sleep, and threw up two more times. Overall, not a very pleasant night.

And for those wondering, it turns out that the pain was caused by a massive kidney stone. When I eventually got to a hospital to have it checked and have surgery, it took two surgeries to completely remove it.

Spoiler: Airplane

The trip wasn't so bad. It was everything around it.

For starters, the plane that I was supposed to get had to be grounded two states away to undergo maintenance. This made me nervous since I had a connecting flight, but I wasn't really pushing. Anyways, long story short, it took hours for that plane to finally take off, which put me right up against when I could reasonably make my connection. However, it got delayed again because President Obama had a speech to give in the city I was in, and his plane was landing at the airport around the time mine should have. This caused another long delay. By that point, I just got a new flight and changed the connection, which would have taken me to a city two hours away from my destination rather than the thirty minutes I would have been otherwise.

Everything else went find, but then at the end, it turns out that they sent my baggage to the wrong city, and it took two days longer than it should have for it to get back to me.

Edit: I guess in retrospect, the first one is much worse. I now can really laugh at the plane incident, but it sure was annoying in the moment.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I have a couple, most of them have to do with missed flights.

There was one time that I was flying from Manchester to Mumbai with a friend, to meet up with another friend who was already in India. Our flight was something like 13 hours, and we had one stop midway in Instanbul. There was only an hour between the flights, and our first flight got delayed by about an hour. We arrived at Instanbul within 15 minutes of our next flight leaving, and couldn't make it on. We had to stay in the airport hotel for a night to wait for the next flight, but that wasn't the worst part.

The worst part was that our friend currently in Mumbai, was waiting for us in a hotel and didn't have a cell phone. We sent her emails and facebook messages, but she didn't have a reliable way of getting internet. We didn't get any response from her and hoped to hell that she was still at the hotel. When we arrived in Mumbai the next evening, we tried to take a cab to her hotel, but the cab driver couldn't find the location (Apparently there are a lot of hotels with Taj Mahal in the name). We finally found her around 1 in the morning, more than a day after we were supposed to meet with her. Needless to say, it was a really stressful situation.

The other occasion was when we were going to Mexico on a family vacation. We were waiting for our flight in the airport, and we were informed it would be an hour late. No problem, that's pretty typical. The hour passed. No plane, and no information on when it would come. We checked with the stewardesses, and they just evaded the question. More hours pass, people are getting antsy, just hoping for a time, or any sort of information as to what happened. After about 15 hours of waiting in the airport with no information they finally tell us that the flight is going to be rescheduled for the next day. I swear, some of the passengers had to be restrained from screaming at the employees. There was no compensation whatsoever (No airport hotel, meal vouchers, etc...)

EDIT: Forgot to mention, our flight the next day was also 2 hours late. Never fly Can-Air!

*snip*

Okay, you got shot at with an rpg during your trip. I think you win

 

[Scarim Coral]

Let see-

Plane- I guess that would be when I went to Hong Kong. That was when I first experience the ear popping and being a little kid, it scared the hell out of me!

Car- A couple of years ago, I got dragged with my parent to see their friend new chip shop aka takeaway despite they originally told me I can not joined them if I didn't wanted to. It was a boring 30 minutes drive, an hour of boring talks between them and an half an hour boring drive back.

Train- Sometime last year, on the way back, I HAD to picked a seat when a stupid parent who couldn't keep their screaming child behind me. The couple who was in front of them make the right choice of moving to a different seat during the trip and for some idiotic reason I choose to remain there despite I feel like my eardrum were doing to burst!

Bus- Many years ago there was a train strike (still common these days) when we were going to the city so we took the bus instead. What should of been a 30 minutes by train turn into an hour of an half by bus! The bus make all the stops meaning it was alot of moving and stopping and by the time we arrived in the city, I pretty much had travel sickness from the stop and go which I rarely expereinced that during my travel.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Flight to Canada, Transat airlines. On the outward journey all passengers were freezing to death in the plane, this was mid summer, so no one had a lot of warm clothes packed or with them. Adding to this, when we had all almost frozen over, they began selling simple fleece blankets for some kind of outrageous price.

On the homeward journey everyone who had been on the original flight had supplied themselves with warm sweaters and long jeans. This was in vain however, as temperatures in that plane were the complete opposite: blisteringly hot. To make matters worse, I was seated near the toilet and the smells coming from it in the damp atmosphere were circulating near my nostrils for the entire 9 hours the flight took. Their sales of on-board drinks did seem to boom though.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

What would be an otherwise unmemorable plane trip from Seattle to Gulfport for a new semester turned horrible when I started blowing chunks for the last half of my five hour connecting flight. Happened around the beginning of this year. The worst part is knowing it's going to come for a full hour before but just waiting for the inevitable moment shit starts flying everywhere and getting all gross. Felt pretty embarrassed especially since I was alone and I hate being by myself...anywhere, really.

...Don't eat a bunch of meat sticks and Fruit by the Foot in the hours before your flights, kids.

My memory is terrible so that's the only real example I can think of, but it's probably close to my worst travel experience anyways. I rarely, if ever, get sick on car trips and I can always enjoy those with just a bit of music, so those never really come close to my worst.

 

[Twintix]

snip

...

...Dude. You got an RPG shot at you. You could've died.

I am never complaining about any plane trips ever again.

 

[Joshroom]

Coming back from America (a 10 hour flight) after a full day of being awake; then me and my partner (who discovered she was afraid of flying during the flight, not a fun time) being kept awake by two chatting German woman in front of us; then having to keep ourselves awake for a further 4 hours at London before finally getting the Megabus back home. Oh, and getting home to find the window had been left open and one of my partners dresses had been ruined by rain.

All in all, really made me debate the whole "weekend holiday" idea again.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

My return trip after chaptering out of boot camp. Flight from Oklahoma City to Dallas/Fort Worth was fine. Flight from DFT to LAX, excepting the rather lengthy layover, was fine. LAX to my home city's airport...cancelled due to fog. Alternate flight to an airport about 40 minutes away...cancelled due to fog.

In the end, myself and the others on that flight had to be shuttled to the alternate airport. Ended up spending an extra 3 or so hours at LAX. Fun.

 

[Strelok]

Central Russia by bus from Samara to Izehvsk in January. So cold you couldn't keep your legs down had to pull them up on the seat. Luckily there were maybe 15 on the bus. Ice began to build up on the inside of the bus, got really thick as we approached the destination, sides of the bus so cold you couldn't lean on them anyway. Wind was howling and screaming outside, land is very flat with sparse trees. Looked like the surface of Hoth out there, couldn't even see the road outside, and the bus driver, driving like a bat outta Hell. Have no idea how he kept in on the road or even knew where the road was. The bus trip is 12 hours or more.