Random Creepiest Experiences Abroad (22 items)

• (#1) They Were Stopped In Ukraine By Russian Militants

  From Redditor /u/cancercuressmoking:

  I went to visit Ukraine with my parents because they wanted to see the small villages where their parents were born. We have no family in the area so we hired a guide to take us around since the country can be a bit corrupt.

  As we were driving around on a highway we suddenly were stopped in traffic (literally [in the] middle of nowhere). The guide gets out of the car and takes a look, then quickly jumps back into the car, does a U-turn and drives off telling my mom we can't go to her mom's village.

  We ask why and he says that was some kind of Russian militant roadblock. This was during the whole Crimea thing.
• (#2) They Met Someone In Germany Who Previously Lived In Their US Home

  From Redditor /u/BarryAllen85:

  Met a guy in Munich on the street who had lived in the same house as I did... in Cincinnati... 40 years ago.
• (#3) 'Gandalf' Protected Them On The Streets Of Algeria

  From Redditor /u/Sir_Francis_Burton:

  I was walking around in a town in Algeria. I wandered in to a neighborhood and noticed there were hardly any people out. A little farther, and there were literally no people out. I started to feel a little uneasy.

  And then I see an extremely tall man walking... straight towards me, obviously with intent. He gets closer, and I see an older gentleman with a long gray beard and wearing a gray tunic. I stop.

  He comes right up to me and says, in pretty good English, “You’re not safe here; we need to get you off the street.” I say “OK,” and he says, “Follow me.”

  We walk a few blocks and come to a door. He says, “Wait here a minute,” and goes inside. He opens the door again and invites me in. When I get inside, there are maybe a dozen men. They are all dressed in black, and they are staring absolute daggers at me.

  Gray-beard lays in to them - starts shaking his fists at them, gets really worked up. Then one of the younger guys goes in to the kitchen and brings out some tea and cookies, and offers them to me.

  So I’m drinking tea, and trying to smile, and one of the young guys asks where I’m from and I say, “the States,” and he starts talking about the CIA and stuff...

  And then I say, “You think the CIA is bad here? Let me tell you about Central America.” And then pretty soon everybody is warming up to me and we’re laughing and talking... 

  After a bit of that the older man invites me back to his apartment. He has a huge library. I [give] him a book that I had finished. And then he tells me what just happened.

  His little brother, one of the younger men, was the leader of a radical group - all the other men I had met. He had overheard them getting ready to [take off with] me. But he had shamed them for not being good hosts, and for disrespecting him because it was his house. He said I would be safe from then on.

  TLDR: Gandalf saves my life and got a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for his trouble.
• (#4) They Woke Up In A Detached Train Car In Slovenia

  From Redditor /u/ThoriumJeep:

  [I] fell asleep on a train from Croatia to Italy. I woke up to find myself locked in the train car, which had been detached from the engine and parked in a yard.

  I had missed my connection and no one must have checked the train before parking it. [I] found out I was in Slovenia after finding a way out of the train.
• (#5) A Taxi Driver Tried To Trap Them In Nicaragua

  From Redditor /u/michiganmaestra:

  I was traveling in Nicaragua several years ago when I got lost and ended up having to take a taxi at 9:30 pm back to my hostel. When the taxi pulled up to the curb, the taxi driver locked the taxi doors and told me I had misunderstood the fare.

  He claimed I owed him $100 USD, which was several times more than we had agreed upon. I tried to pry the doors open from the inside but was completely trapped. Thankfully, he let me out of the taxi after taking all the money I had on me.

  The hostel workers told me I was incredibly lucky. A few days earlier, a taxi driver had [taken] another young female...
• (#6) They Escaped A Train Bombing In Brussels

  From Redditor /u/XtremeSeb:

  In 2016 I went to Brussels on a school trip. We [visited] the train station and left to Germany, I believe. Several hours later all of our moms just start calling and texting us asking where we were and stuff.

  Turns out there was [an explosion] in the train station. It’s crazy to believe that the [devices] were probably already planted when we were there.
• (#7) A Lightning Storm On Their Plane Ride In Canada Prevented A Landing 

  From Redditor /u/ClwNza:

  My girlfriend and I were flying into Calgary from Kelowna. It's a short flight, so [we were] in a smallish plane. When we got to Calgary there was a lightning storm... preventing us from landing. On our approach, we hit some severe wind and turbulence. We were being tossed around in the sky like a leaf.

  A couple of times we'd hit [still] air and just plummet. Or we'd hit a gust of wind that would throw us to one side. People were screaming. I have flown many, many times and experienced my fair share of turbulence, but this was something else. I had to brace myself to prevent myself from exiting the seat when we inevitably hit [still] air.

  Our first attempt at landing was called off because of how [brutal] the wind was. I remember thinking of how fragile life is. How insignificant we were to the power of nature. That we could so easily be thrown around during landing that we'd probably crash.

  The pilots eventually approached from a different direction and we landed successfully. Everyone applauded.

  It was the first time that I had ever truly felt that we were in danger while flying. It's usually so "just a normal day."
• (#8) A Man Kept Staring At Them In A Barcelona Hostel

  From Redditor /u/trs2848:

  I was staying in a weird hostel by myself in Barcelona [when I] woke up to a man staring at me while I slept. He was looking over one of those wood dividing screens the shared room had.

  I pretended to still be asleep because I was afraid of what he would do if I moved or confronted him, and I didn't know if there was anyone else in the room. He stared for like two hours until finally my alarm rang because I had to take an early train, so I put all my stuff in my bag and left the room.

  As I left I told the owner, but I was really in a hurry and didn't ask what he was going to do with the guy.
• (#9) Wild Dogs Chased Them In Kosovo

  From Redditor /u/Phil567:

  I had a pack of wild dogs chase me from my bus stop to my hotel at 3 am in Kosovo.

  I also had an old woman yell at me in Russian about not making my bed right on the train... then watched over my shoulder until it was to her satisfaction when I was on my way back to Bucharest from Moldova.
• (#10) A Cow Startled Them In Peru

  From Redditor /u/turnover13:

  Hiking in Huaraz, Peru, [we had] been told to watch our gear [because] locals (and apparently foxes) might make off with items left around the campsite. So we made sure to clean the campsite extra well, packing all our gear in the tent and inside the fly.

  [After] a long day hiking, off to bed. [In the] middle of the night our tent started shaking like crazy; I woke up freaking out thinking we were getting robbed. I started yelling and screaming. Part of the tent pushed in real far.

  I managed to get outside to start swinging and came face to face with the cow that had wandered into the tent ropes and got startled. [We're] pretty lucky that it didn’t step down into the tent and hit us.
• (#11) They Endured An Intense Bus Ride In India

  From Redditor /u/Anal_Mouse:

  In India our bus rounded a corner in the mountains and another bus was on the other side of the curve. Both buses skid to a stop about 1 foot from one another.

  Both drivers started laughing and poking fun at each other. We saw a bus from the '80s that fell down the mountain about 15 minutes later.
• (#12) They Ran Into A Transportation Strike In Pakistan

  From Redditor /u/DCSimian81:

  [We were] in Pakistan, driving from Islamabad to Murree. I was 15 at the time and we had my mom, three aunts, the husband of my youngest aunt, and 10 of us cousins, from 5 to 17. Plus two drivers of the passenger van we were all riding in.

  On the way north, we had heard of a transportation strike. We ran right into a blockade of men on strike, carrying torches, pitchforks... etc. They stopped us, and our uncle and the drivers convinced the strikers he was a principal of a school with teachers and students on a trip. They let us pass.

  Same trip, heading north on a narrow mountain road, the car in front of us hit a side barrier, knocked it over the side of the mountain, and fell over the side as well, straight into the fog. We heard a crunch but never saw the car.

  On the way back down the mountain we came by that same spot on a clearer day... the car fell into a tree and was stuck there... no one inside.

  We saw some sh*t on that trip.
• (#13) Their Dog Escaped A Minefield In Croatia

  From Redditor /u/mephistosoos:

  We went on a family trip to Croatia and on our way to the beach we pulled over to the side of a road for a pee break. So we opened the car door and like always our dog jumped out first. He ran into the field right next to the street.

  Then suddenly my mother started screaming the name of our dog, because 10 meters away from our car was sign that said: "Stay away, old minefield." Thankfully nothing happened.
• (#14) They Escaped Guerrillas In The Philippines

  From Redditor /u/MitchCMan:

  I was traveling by van through the mountains in the Philippines with a friend [who] is a really big guy. We came up on a checkpoint with soldiers searching cars. The guys were all wearing mismatched clothes and did not have any insignias on their uniforms or trucks.

  They searched all of our bags and were asking questions of the driver in Tagalog, which we did not speak. We heard them say "American," and we we’re the only two Americans on the bus. They talked for a little while and finally waved us through.

  Later we told the story to another American and he said we had gone through a guerrilla-controlled area where Americans had been [taken] for ransom lately. They all agreed they did not take us because of the size of my friend. I think we got really lucky that day.
• (#15) A Driving Shortcut Called 'The Trap' Terrified Them In Guatemala

  From Redditor /u/intensive-porpoise:

  I was in Guatemala and traveling from Antigua to Guatemala City. Apparently there is a shortcut called "The Trap" that we took. It was absolutely insane. We plowed over rivers at about 45 miles per hour because bridges were out and were flung to the side of 1,000-meter-high cliffs... made out of sandstone.

  My buddy passed out due to the trauma. I asked after all of that why... we were going so fast, and the driver replied akin to, "It's a trap after the sun goes down." I didn't fully understand... was it vampires or something?

  He later stated while driving a bit drunk near sundown at 100 miles per hour: "No, no monsters in the trap... Only chicken bus. No lights. We would need to pull over and camp until daylight."

  Apparently on this stretch of road chicken buses run people off the roads at night without care. I was hesitant to believe it but saw the carcasses of several SUVs like ours along the river the road followed.
• (#16) They Could Have Fallen On Their First Trip To London Bridge

  From Redditor /u/din7:

  The first time I ever visited the London Bridge was the day the [attack] happened where they drove a van through the crowd.
• (#17) Someone Left A Scary Object In An Athens Bar

  From Redditor /u/tnbadboy1965:

  I was in a bar in Athens in 1985 when someone left an explosive device there. Of the 50-plus people injured, I was luckily not one of them.

  My ears rang for a couple days and I spilled my beer, but that was it.
• (#18) They Were On The Subway During An Earthquake In Japan

  From Redditor /u/mlollipop:

  [My] husband had a monthlong job in Japan. We joined him for the last week of his gig. My daughter and I had made reservations about two months ahead of the trip to go to the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka (an hour by train outside of Tokyo)...

  We left earlier than planned because [my husband] had to get back... We would continue on up to Harajuku after his subway stop. Two stops before we would have parted ways, the train came to an immediate stop and frantic Japanese came over the speaker. Shortly after that, the car started rocking. And kept rocking... For about 10 minutes.

  Hubs said he realized it was bad when he saw people taking out their phones and start texting (something you never saw on the subway). After half an hour, the car slowly crawled to the next station. A friendly English-speaking woman informed us there had been a bad earthquake, and the trains were shutting down.

  We walked the two miles back to the hotel... and had to stay in the lobby for eight hours while maintenance checked the building for damages before we could go up to our rooms. The aftershocks continued for the next five days before we flew back home.

  We were in the Tokyo subway for the Tohoku earthquake on March 11, 2011. I can honestly say I didn't start getting nervous until they started talking about needing to take iodine tablets because of the power plant emissions.

  And it wasn't until we were back home and watching all the news specials about the quake and tsunami that I realized how truly dangerous the situation had been. Midwestern ignorance on earthquakes saved our trip, I guess.
• (#19) A Woman On A Bus In Greece Played With Their Hair

  From Redditor /u/_Z_y_x_w:

  I fell asleep on a long-distance bus in Greece and woke to a toothless old woman running her fingers through my hair. She kept repeating something in Greek over and over. Other riders found it hilarious but wouldn't tell me what she was saying.

  Unfortunately I couldn't get off the bus, so I had to make her get away from me, then sat there [angry] and embarrassed for the remaining 90 minutes of the trip.
• (#20) They Endured An Earthquake And A Gas Incident In Tokyo

  From Redditor /u/pure2500:

  [I went to Japan] with my family when I was a kid. We were at one of the Tokyo Metro stations and there was a sudden evacuation. People were all panicking and running. Now when I think back, it's... like those zombie apocalypse movies.

  We got out all right and later we found out it was the sarin gas attack orchestrated by the Aum Shinrikyo [a Japanese cult].

  Many years later, I was working in Japan, in Fukushima. And guess what? I was there when the Tohoku earthquake hit...

  [I] guess Japan and I don't sit too well.
• (#21) They Had A Creepy Reptilian Visitor In Mexico

  From Redditor /u/PUnitThugLife:

  We were in Tulum, [Mexico], in one of those fancy palapas [open shelters with roofs of palm leaves or branches] right on the beach. Unfortunately, it rained the entire time we were there, but I figured I would hang out on our little private patio, which included a hammock.

  I lay down in the hammock and looked up at the palapa roof only to see that a 4-foot monitor lizard had decided to hide from the rain under the patio roof.

  I totally froze and we locked eyes. His face was only about 6 feet away from my face and all I could focus on was the huge claws on its feet. He probably could have just eaten me and I would have... been paralyzed with fear.

  After our initial staredown he decided he should leave and slowly made his way down from the roof and casually strolled away down the beach.
• (#22) A Horse In The UK Liked Their Pasta Pot

  From Redditor /u/hogger85:

  [We were] camping in the New Forest in the UK and woke up to the pans in our tent front area rattling. [We] opened the inner tent door and a horse's head had pushed under the front flap. [The horse] was licking out the pasta pot from the night before.

  Its eye was just looking to mine at head level and it pretty much filled the front area of the tent. It just nonchalantly removed its head and stood 6 feet from our camp staring at us for the rest of the morning.

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