Do you know that feeling when you feel like the moment you're living is too weird to be true? As if it was a dream? Yes? Well, so do I and this is a story of such moments on my trips around the world.
As most of the events have been somewhat unfortunate, I don't have pictures of them, so I will post happy pictures of same trips instead, hope that doesn't disappoint you too much.
Although I'm a hospitality professional and many of you expect me to only write about hotels and hospitality, I feel that there is a wider audience out there if I write also about my experiences on my journeys, not just happy trips to wonderful hotels - not that I complain, there is nothing more relaxing than just kick your shoes off, find a proper sun lounge, get a good book and a cool drink and relax while an excellent guest service takes care of all your needs in a luxury hotel.
No worries my friends, I will introduce you wonderful hotels in October & November while on my Asia tour. Be patient, the luxury section is coming!
Yes, I understand that reading about luxury lifestyle may not be interesting to everyone, but that is part of my livelihood and I do like it, so bare with me - besides, of course I feel privileged and honored to stay at the amazing luxury hotel and write about it so no, I'm not complaining - far from it, please understand my point of you and don't complain either! Support me and I'll support you! Reciprocity, you know..?
Anyway... back to today's topic; sometimes things just happen - and some might say more to me than others.
Well, if I only stayed at home and do nothing, most likely nothing would happen. But due to eternal wanderlust I have the urge of leaving, going, seeing... need for living, not just for existing. And that's when things start to happen.
This post is not about just one trip. I will tell you about separate incidents I was involved with, one way or the other during my trips. Ok, I know some of my followers even feel sorry for me since for some those unexpected things ruin their trips, but hey, no need to be sorry, I happen to think that those are the moments you remember and laugh at afterwards... and, in my case, I get to share with others, too.
Besides, behind almost every unlucky event there is a lesson to be learnt - whether I learnt them or not, well, that's another question, remains to be seen!
Since there are so many stories to tell, I decided to spare you and not post them all at once but in 3 parts.
Part I is here below.
Part II will be published in one week,
Part III will be published in 2 weeks.
Get your soda and pop corn ready and feel free to entertain yourselves on my expense.
Feel free to have fun!
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PART I
When Africa almost had it
I can't believe I'm saying this but it's true, this happened already over 20 yrs ago - yes, we are going that far, almost ancient history.
I was at Helsinki airport, I had to wait for my flight for almost 6 hours. I was trying to figure out something to do as back in the days internet was no option. I had couple of books with me, however, unfortunately, I had taken part II instead of part II of this series I was reading to my carry on back and the part I was in my (checked-in) suitcase. So, I went back to the check-in desk and asked if it was still possible to get my luggage back since it was still quite many hours until my flight to Singapore (and then to Sydney and from Sydney to Coolangatta airport). Lady behind the counter told me she'd try. Quite soon I heard my name from the speakers and went back to the counter, to find that lady looking confused, I could tell that immediately. So I asked her if something was wrong.
So she carefully asks: Where exactly were you heading again? At this stages I must have looked confused, which I was. Of course she must know my destination, she has my ticket! I replied: To Australia, Coolangatta airport.
She says: Not according to you luggage tag.
It turned out that according to this tag, my bag was on its way to a small village in Africa!
Seriously?
So it turned out that it was actually an excellent thing that I ended up asking to get my luggage back for a moment, had I not done that, I might have ended up to Australia for 6 months without any of my belongings as I strongly doubt that my suitcase had ever found its way back to me.
After that I have very carefully checked out my luggage tags, or at least asked the airport/check-in officer to make sure that the code there is correct. In my case it was just one letter that made all the difference, letter G that was supposed to be C. That was a close call!
Scooter drive in Cyprus
Many years ago I was on holidays in Cyprus. We rented a scooter and were driving around, just having fun.
Well, it was fun until a bee decided that it wants to bump its head half way into my side! Yes, you read right! I guess we had so much speed that when the poor bee accidentally hit me, it literally lost its body and only the head got stuck to my side, right below my ribs. Did it hurt? Heck yeah!! And as if that wasn't enough, I burnt my foot with scooter's exhaust pipe, which made my skin literally smell like burning, fried stake. Oh man, that hurt!! The weather was really hot, almost +40 and I couldn't even go to the pool until 8 days later.. what a trip!Just to clarify things, please know that I have, indeed, experienced many wonderful successful trips, these incidents are just small parts of my travels - not all of them are disasters!
Road trip in Florida
There was this one time I was on a road trip in Florida with my son, who was back then about 10 yrs. He has always been quite fluent in English so he was fun and easy travel companion.
I will always remember his reaction when I asked him one day at home if he wanted to go to Disney world sometimes. (As if any about 10 yr old would say No!!). He calmly said, yeah, why not. So I asked if next week would be ok? "Yeah, mom, right, good one." was pretty much his comment. I was silent for a moment and then said: No, I mean really, how about if we leave next Monday?
Then it started to get through to him that we might be going for real. It was as if the sun had shone all over his face (mid January, darkest time of the year in Finland, not a chance!) Of course he wanted to go, so we did, we went for a spontaneous road trip to Florida within 4 days warning. Fun!On that trip I learnt that sometimes best things really happen when you get lost.
We rented this fun little yellow sports car and went to Fort Lauderdale for 2 days and then headed to Orlando. Naturally, as it was winter in Finland, one of the main reasons we chose Florida was its amazing weather, which it was in Fort Lauderdale, about +25 C and sunny.
On our 3rd day we made it to Orlando, Boardwalk hotel to be more exact.
It turned out that it was the coldest weather in like a hundred years, it was basically nearly below zero, even the roads were frosty and all the flora were freezing hotel's gardeners were covering them up, there were warning signs on TV, basically on every channel, indicating that there may be ice on the roads and that people should stay home. For someone like me who has lived in Lapland and experiences over -40 C this shouldn't be a bid deal. However, it was as we only had summer clothing with us. But the lesson learnt of that part of the trip was: Always bring your jacket.
So, the first thing next morning we drove to the nearest mall to buy jackets and other warm clothes - c'mon, we're in Florida for Pete's sake!!
Thank God it only lasted for another day and then it was back to +25 C. All good, happy days!
Get lost...
...and we did (multiple times)!At one time ended up seeing this weird looking house. It was all crooked and, at first we were wondering if it's us, but no, it was the house. It happened to be Ripley's
Believe it or Not museum. Amaziiing!! We didn't even know that there was one but we had seen the show on TV and loved it, so, since we were lost and couldn't find the water park we wanted, we ended up to the museum and we had so much fun!
After the museum we ended up to this grill restaurant, wherein we played cards while waiting for our food and we wanted to take funny photos so I was making these weird, funny facial expressions and my son was laughing literally tears in his eyes and eventually I started to question my comedian skills as I didn't think my face was that funny...
Well, guess what, it wasn't. The funny thing was, there was a waiter right next to me looking at me as if I was a total idiot... making such faces - grown a** woman!! And no, my son did not tell me he was there! How embarrassing.. Good heavens, he must have thought that I'm some loony toony woman... thanks son, no need to tell me that someone's watching! Haha, ok, I admit, now it is funny, but boy was it embarrassing back then! Me and my foolery... there is time and the place for it, but obviously, not whilst waiting for the food.
Lesson learnt: don't make funny faces or if you do, make sure that no one's watching!
Even more important lesson learnt was: Get lost and you shall find!
My first trip to Thailand
My first trip to Thailand was supposed to take place when the tsunami hit it. Because of the tsunami I had to cancel the trip as the entire village were our hotel located, was swept away by the tsunami wave.Couple of years later we decided that it's now time to go to Thailand. However, we did book the trip from the eastern part of the country, just to be on the safe side.
Safely sunbathing
One day we were sunbathing by the pool in a very nice, 4 star hotel, palm trees hanging above us, providing us with a little bit of shade under the hot sun. We were reading books when all of a sudden my partner exclaimed: "Whoa!!! Did you see that???" I'm keeping my cool: No I didn't, what do you mean?
I can see that he is somewhat astonished but didn't know what was going on. He starts to explain: You see all those palm leaves on the ground? I was just reading my book and I thought just another palm leaf fell on my chest and when I looked at it, it was actually a snake!! Real, alive snake! We kept staring at each other, probably both being scared to death and wondering which one of us reacts first... I quickly swiped it away, into those bushes!"
Yea, right, I said. He keeps claiming that it was a snake and gets up to see if it's still there, and OMG, it was!! It was a green snake with alarmingly bright yellow pattern on its back. We actually even got a photo of it, unfortunately I can't find it now. But imagine that, what are the odds that a snake is trying to basically "jump" from one palm tree to another (I actually have no idea what it tried to do, and why it fell, but it really was crazy!) and fails and falls on you - ok, not on me, but nearly! Only on Mia's trips, some might say...
Guess if I have ever sunbathe under a palm tree after that?
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| There is the lovely "flying snake pool" :) |
Trip to Koh Tao
On that same trip we ended up into a huge storm in the middle of the ocean on our way from Koh Tao back to Koh Samui. I have lived in Australia and been to Hawaii, Los Angeles, various islands in Asia and Europe, Caribbean etc. but I've never, ever in my life seen waves like that. The ferry/boat was basically on the bottom of the wave in one minute and meters and meters higher, on top of the wave the next. People were screaming and vomiting, holding on to their dear lives as they kept falling down, their belongings kept rolling away from them as the deck of the ferry (it was the type of ferry that can have passengers inside lower and upper floor and there was also lower and upper deck outside, and we were on the upper deck) was in 45 degree angle at times. Every single person was more or less scared and also sea sick. My partner was quite calm, lucky me!
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| View from our villa at Koh Tao |
I counted minutes in hopes of seeing some land somewhere and finally we did.
Because of that experience I still haven't gone back to Koh Tao, and I loved it there, it was so incredibly beautiful!
My trip to Athens to attend to ILHA summit
Last May I was in Athens, wherein I attended ILHA Summit in Ledra hotel. In most cases in try to fly with Finnair in order to collect frequent flyer points but unfortunately Finnair didn't have any direct flights to Athens by that time so I booked flights via KLM.
On my last day I get a text message from KLM indicating that my flight Athens-Amsterdam will be delayed at least by two hours. At first I was all cool, no worries, more time for me to sunbathe.
Wait, hold on!
What about my connecting flight? So I had to call to KLM's customer service and the guy tells me that there is no way I will make it to my connecting flight, i.e. Amsterdam-Helsinki as it was only 2 hr stopover. He starts to browse other flights and comes up with Air France flight from Athens to Paris and then with Finnair from Paris to Helsinki. Ok, that sounds good, let's do that.
Then he tells me that the flight departures 15.15. (that's 3.15 pm), and I confirm, that's fine. Then I ask the receptionist to call me a cab as I only have 1 h and 50 minutes to make the flight and the driving time to airport is about 45 min. So the hotel staff kindly explained the driver already on the phone that I'm in a hurry, which was very kind of them. I make it into the cab and it turns out that the driver can actually speak pretty good English. While we're chatting she asks me what time does my flight departure. I tell her that 3.15 (pm) and just then I realized, my watch is not moving, its battery is dead - whoa, wait a minute - WHAT TIME IS IT?
Turns out that I only have 50 minutes to make it to my flight!! That lady, she drove like there's no tomorrow!! Our own Finnish Formula 1 chamption Kimi Räikkönen would have admired that driving!
Pedestrians didn't dare to cross the streets when they saw her coming, she just kept honking and sh took all the small road routes to avoid traffic and, finally, drove to the airport only in about 25-30 min which should be basically impossible!
I got to the airport and was last one to check in and this lady, some airport officer kindly escorted me quickly to security check point, and at that point I hear an announcement, they are already calling me on the gate, which - of course - happened to be the last gate of that wing, boy did I run with my carry on bag! OMG! I made it! I was last one to enter the plane, had I arrived 1 minute later, they would have left without me.
Yet another lesson learnt: Make sure you check the time when making changes, always double check!
When Krabi put me on my knees
There was this time we were wandering around Krabi. It was our second day and like I said earlier, I'm known as a person who is quite active and when you do things, as a consequence, not so pleasant things may happen as well.
My partner wanted to go cycling in the morning. I told him that for me it may not be a good idea, too much traffic, with my luck some car knocks me over to the nearest ditch. He was a bit hesitant to leave me there (in the hotel area!) and I said, c'mon, I travel around the world by myself, I think I can manage to sunbathe an hour - two alone. So, off he went. I walked to the bar to get a diet coke, took some towels for sun lounge and then decided that I want to go to the further pool, to get some privacy. So no danger there.
I was, once again, wrong.
There was this concrete paved area there, just one step to get there.
(In the photo below, right behind the upper deck.)
I scraped my belongings along with my dignity of the ground and kept walking until I got behind the corner. Me knee was all wounded and bleeding. Yeah, right, what could happen?
I took a photo of my knee and sent it to my partner:
Nothing new here, how about there?
End of Part I
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Come back next weekend for more stories of unexpected stories of real life.
Trust me, it's worth it!
,,,yes, unexpected events have become familiar, but also happy events, and you'll get to read those stories too, once this 3-part blog post is done, so stay with me.
Little tip on what's to come: bugs and bad weather...
Happy times with good laughs are yet to come!
xoxo!
