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Its been an unbelievable 4 years since I have been on holiday... (actually I dont find that unbelievable but if I mention it to anyone they look at me like I have two heads or something)
Am I a freak? Do you holiday on a regular basis?
Also...whats the best holiday you've ever been on?
Would you recommend any destinations to someone like myself who can count their holidays abroad on 1 hand? Have you had any unusual holidays you could tell Team-o about?
C'mon lets bring some summer sun to the forum...
*apologies for this thread but I am bored and seeking inspiration...
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I haven't had one for about 3 years I think. I haven't even had any time off work this year, unless you count unemployment. Anyway, best holiday.. Probably going to Eurocamp in France when I was childe. Playing Outrun and Operation Wolf in the cafe on the campsite, and then spraining my wrist by rolling off a bunk bed and having all the women coo over me.
Any holidays since then have always been tainted with a low level sense of dread and hatred.
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obvioulsy i've been away a lot. but i think my best holiday was the first one i took as an adult. it was a month in israel and egypt back in the summer of 1997. i was young and dumb and had an awesome time. it was a great learning experience too and prolly affected me more than i realise.
off to berlin next weekend to visit a dear friend, plus see the holocaust museum and check out cool shit. in january i think, it's venice (£27 retuirn on ryanair including taxes). and i'm planning on a week or so in jerusalem for easter, mostly cuz i wanna take photos of jesus.
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All of the kind suggestions from the board for my holiday in November have been put on hold, due to the emptiness of my "holiday" bank account. The "holiday" ££££s were spent on 6 weeks rent for deposit, plus 1 months rent in advance (ie well over a grand) and next year's OU fees.
I will instead spend two weeks doing cultural things in London, and staying in bed reading a lot. I might go to Canada in January. It will be proper cold.
I watched chick-flick bonding movie The Descent last night, and it made me realise I've never been on holiday with a bunch of girls. I reckon I'd find it pretty annoying after a day or so.
My best holiday was probably the year my parents became Middle Class and we went to Center Parcs in Sherwood Forest: horse riding, cycling, roller skating, amazing swimming adventures, squirrels.
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I actually really like the sound of that centre parks holiday VP. especially the horse riding...
Something tells me I should be doing something exotic though but as I have been abroad only a few times (america, amsterdam and france) I'm just spoilt for choice.
I have always fancied Thailand and Mexico though.
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quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: I've never been on holiday with a bunch of girls. I reckon I'd find it pretty annoying after a day or so.
Been away with a friend or some girl a few times, but I've never been on a group hol. I think it could be fun, but needs to be to the right place. Skiing obviously, Ibiza, Prague, that kind of thing.
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quote:Originally posted by Kira: I have always fancied Thailand and Mexico though.
If you've never been to Asia before, Thailand is a good start. It's hot and sweaty, but there's Tescos and Boots and 7-eleven and Starbucks too. Bangkok is an ace city and the beaches are lovely of course.
Never been to Mexico. Or anywhere Latin American. Have lost the travelbug, but would love one day to visit: Reykjavik, Moscow, Beirut, Seoul, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, that bit of SE Brazil Giselle is from, Havana, and travel overland from Gibraltar to Cape Town via Ethiopia.
*shrugs* It's pretty much like you'd expect it to be. Hot weather, fairly bland tasting food. Poverty. Backpacking ****s who want to talk just because you're British. More poverty. Police. Cheap fags though. And Aztec ruins, if that kind of thing floats your boat.
quote:Originally posted by vikram: ....a group hol. I think it could be fun, but needs to be to the right place. Skiing obviously, Ibiza, Prague, that kind of thing.
That all sounds like my idea of hell.
Oh, of course I went on a group holiday to a Cotswolds cottage over last New Year, and that was ace. Some of us procured leaflets of "local walks" from the Tourist Info, and went "walking", whilst others slumped in front of the log fire troughing leftover chocolates and playing board games. Everyone was happy.
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quote:Originally posted by vikram: If you've never been to Asia before, Thailand is a good start. It's hot and sweaty, but there's Tescos and Boots and 7-eleven and Starbucks too.
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I've never done the big travel, though I am trying to save the money for a long distance trip to Australia and China to see friends, include Japan which is the one place on earth I really want to go more than anywhere and maybe a chill out in Goa on the way home.
I also want to go to Rekjavik and Iceland.
I am going to Riga next year mind which is supposed to be very nice.
As for Holidays taken, I did have my first proper holiday in 9 years this year when a group of us went to Turkey which was nice. I also managed a weekend in Copenhagen which is beautiful as well.
and i like the poverty man. nothing like sitting on the balcony of some restaurant eyeing the streetkids as you feast on their pain.
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quote:Originally posted by vikram: If you've never been to Asia before, Thailand is a good start. It's hot and sweaty, but there's Tescos and Boots and 7-eleven and Starbucks too.
LOL!
I know, but actually it's really nice. i guess i like thailand because it is so convenient. been there quite a few times now and am not after the 'exotic'. bangkok is a modern world city - why shouldn't it have all the global brands?
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I didn't score any cocaine in Mexico. I had some kind of trippy shamanic drink, but it was a bit of a let down. I also ate Veal. And a man pointed a shotgun at my head. Honestly, Kira, you're best avoiding the fucking place.
quote:Originally posted by Kira: Something tells me I should be doing something exotic
I'm not really sure that such a thing exists now does it? I used to think that something like cycling across Africa, or driving a camper van to China, would be fabulously exotic and filled with thrills and adventure, but any dull-witted flick through the freeview channels on a dull Sunday afternoon throws up hour after hour of people doing that sort of thing and it just appears so bland and commonplace now. I mean, it probably isn't, but it does seem like that.
My wife's cousin is touring the Far East and Australia with her husband and kids at the moment and they keep sending newsletters back and they might as well be telling us about their adventures in Birmingham and Slough, it's that uninteresting.
A few years ago I did a website for Peter Duncan out of Blue Peter when he took his family round the world and filmed it all (you may have seen the resulting programme on a freeview channel on a dull Sunday afternoon). He used to send back updates and pictures as they went around the world and nothing happened. I think there was a scare when his lad got suspected hypothermia at one point in the Himalayas, but a cup of tea and a hot water bottle sorted him out.
I'm sure it's breathtaking to actually be there in these majestic places, but the thought of meeting loads of other Berghaus-attired, GPS carrying people there is terribly off-putting. The ironic result of all this is that the erstwhile exotic places are now commonplace and you have to go to somewhere like Scotland or the Isle of Man or Germany if you want to avoid English speaking people. Actually, they speak quite good English in Germany.
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quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: That all sounds like my idea of hell
Me too. Though a friend's cousin has a house in Reykjavik which we are trying to borrow. Maybe next summer I'll go on a lads holiday. Woohoo. Heheh, it'll be funny, everyone so fey and gey.
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quote: I am going to Riga next year mind which is supposed to be very nice.
My mum has been to Riga, and also reckons it is very nice. Apparently when people want to cross the road they just wave at the cars and they stop. And the locals carry bunches of flowers around on sunny days because they are happy.
Or my mum was on drugs.
I’m puzzled by VP's anti-skiing stance. It is outside fun in amazing scenery, going fast down hills, bracing fresh air, followed by booze and log fires. The hoards of cnuts can be easily avoided by not going into any bars described as 'lively après-ski destinations'.
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I hadn't been on a foreign holiday for a long time when I went to Mexico a couple of years back. I had a great two weeks there, in Oaxaca state, in land for a week in Oaxaca City and a week on the west coast, and I'd go back like a shot to see more of the country. It were lovely. Although you may want to consider hurricanes.
I want to explore more of Central and South America, and I'm just about over my late-teenage/early-twenties distaste for people who'd been to India/Thailand travelling (no you were holiday) sufficently to get curious about them, although I'd way prefer to go to Japan first.
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quote:Originally posted by Abby: [QUOTE] I’m puzzled by VP's anti-skiing stance. It is outside fun in amazing scenery, going fast down hills, bracing fresh air, followed by booze and log fires. The hoards of cnuts can be easily avoided by not going into any bars described as 'lively après-ski destinations'.
Yeah - i had a fantastic time ski-ing in Finland - one of the best weeks of my life. And there were hardly any people there at all, let alone hoards of cnuts. Finland's totally my kind of place in the winter. Bitterly cold, dark most of the time and with the world's highest percentage of alcoholics and depressives. I'd like to go there on a lad's holiday with Benway somtime.
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quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: Don't slag off Thailand - it me be a sweaty armpit of a place, but at least it's got the same shops as Bracknell high street.
You are, of course, a wanker so I shan't bother with this further.
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I went to visit my mum in the states one year and she had to work two weeks of the time we were there. I think she was dreaming if she didn't think that we could get up to mischief. All we had for entertainment was a video player and a dozen poorly pirated films that mostly starred Stallone. After wrestling each other on the porch to the theme tune of Tango and Cash, we tried to go out to entertain ourselves but we were on a dirt road in Kansas, so I passed out from heat stroke in before we could reach civilisation. If prepared (water bottle, sun cap, motorised fan with batteries) we could make it to the gayass stayshun where they had video games.
My brother finally cracked and raided the guy-who-lives-upstairs kids piggy bank. Then he bought my silence by pumping credit after credit into WWF's Wrestlefest. Finally when he caned off the rest of the quarters, he bought my silence by pumping his fists near my face. It was too late for his threats of a good whupping though. Two days before the end of the holidays, he was rumbled and for once in his frickin life, he took all the blame.
I've actually started to enjoy my memories of my childhood on reflection, especially the parts where my brother seems to always end with a hiding, like Dennis the Menace or something
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: Don't slag off Thailand - it me be a sweaty armpit of a place, but at least it's got the same shops as Bracknell high street.
You are, of course, a wanker so I shan't bother with this further.
As I'm sure you're aware, vikram, Thailand has been one of the more famous victims of 'hot money' or whatever it's called, that comes as a result of economic globalisation. A fairly robust economy was ruined as a result of American protectionist global economic policy. It 'helped' Thailand by forcing it to open its currency and investment markets to foreign money, so that when there was a downturn on the other side of the world to Thailand, everybody withdrew the money that they'd invested, and the place collapsed - Thanks America! So, surely it's just really sad and anger-inducing that there's a starbucks, rather than a welcome convenience?
[ 08.11.2005, 11:10: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
quote:Originally posted by dang65: [He used to send back updates and pictures as they went around the world and nothing happened.
I think the point here is that other people's holidays are always pretty dull, unless something genuinely out of the ordinary happens, like they're mistaken for the president of Cambodia or they get caught up in a fight between a shark and a crocodile or something. I got back from my two years in Forren (working) before one of my closest friends did, and she kept telling me to go round her mum's and look at the photos she'd sent back. It got a bit awkward, because I couldn't think of a way of saying that I really wasn't interested.
I also agree that there's shitloads of interesting things to see in our own country. In my forthcoming holiday I shall make an effort to see the Crystal Palace dinosaurs, Darwin's house in Kent, and maybe some beaches on the East coast. None of these are exotic or have Lonely Planet guides, and consequently I will probably have them all to myself.
Re skiing. Perhaps my hatred of something I've never done is irrational, but I just know I'd hate it. I know I'd suck at it, for a start. I hate the clothes you have to wear. I'd hate the "Beginners Slope" and the horrible chair lift thing. I hate the way people talk about it; I know it's not the exclusive reserve of toffs anymore, but still, something really grates on me when people discuss skiing holidays.
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I did a two week trip to USA last month. Spent a week of it in Provincetown, Mass. It was a real unwind of a holiday. Cars are not encouraged, due to narrow roads, so most ride bikes, really cool Schwinn Cruiser7's. It was not like America at all. A heavy Portugese influence on the food from the fishing community. also VERY gay. Think Brighton, but gay, gay GAY!!!! Drag queens zooming up and down the street on motorised scooters, feaky laydee in velour jump suit "hola-hooping for jesus" according to her board. lots of same sex hand holding.... Lovely sandy beaches, kyaking, whale watching just.....sitting on the beach watching the sun go down, and cheering if it is a good sun set, and you are drunk enough. I liked it.
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