7 True Scary Vacation Horror Stories

[Music] so this was kind of a long one that takes place when I was a student at UTEP that's the University of Texas at El Paso for those of you that didn't know and it happens to be one of the best places to study engineering in the entire country let alone the Southwest but what many of you will know is that El Paso is right across from the Rio Grande from its sister city Ciudad Juarez back in the early 90s there was none of the beefed up border security that exists now sure the cartels were operating in maybe I'm just remembering this through rose-tinted glasses but there just wasn't the same kind of senseless violence that affects the region today the students that lived in el truco what many Mexicans called El Paso had a lot of respect and love for Huaraz for one big reason the drinking age in a place where the drinking age was and is 21 we were like an hour's drive away from a foreign country where we could drink tequila and Corona until we passed out and no one would bat an eyelid getting over the border was a piece of cake - I can't speak for today but back then you could just park your car on the American side walk over a bridge pay the toll and boom you're in liquor heaven and now you understand why UTEP gets some of the highest application numbers in the country about the same time I was making my college applications a buddy of mine went off to join the Marine Corps we hadn't seen each other for years so when he got back from a deployment to the Gulf we organized for him to come down to El Paso for some much-needed catching up only he too had heard about the drinking age loophole and was insistent that we take advantage of it naturally I agreed so we're over in Juarez getting hammered and jamming with this mariachi band and some dive bar having the time of our lives and somehow we get separated at this time I should add that I had only ever been over to Huaraz myself like twice previously so it's not like I know my way around - well stupidly I decide to go looking for my buddy thanks to the booze I can't quite remember how but I ended up in this big square that's hosting a large gathering of people me being drunk assumes that this is just some kind of party so off I go to join in with the revelry and practice my bad drunk Spanish only it's not a party at all when although the bad vibes come a little too late boy that hit hard I remember trying to just get out of the crowd feeling super panicky when I came across a large truck policia stenciled on the side there were Mexican cops just tossing people into the back beating them with batons before bundling them inside I'll never forget the way this cop looked at me pure hatred in his eyes as he lunged toward me I'm not Latino or anything but I do have dark hair and brown eyes and exactly the most obvious gringo imaginable so the fear I felt when I realized this cop just assumed I was a Mexican rider or something Jesus Christ I'll never forget that feeling of helplessness yo soy americano but before no porfavor yo soy americano ice cream but my accent always was horrible and the cop didn't understand maybe he did but he just didn't care but his only response was to beat me with the black baton he held tight in his fist before I knew it I was stuffed into the back of a hot stuffy police wagon with the group of terrified Mexicans you have no idea how much it sucked sobering up inside an overcrowded Mexican jailhouse where I could barely understand a single thing anyone was saying from what I can remember it was just this huge concrete monstrosity on the outskirts of the city and it was not like any US County Jail I'd never heard of instead of smaller cells or whatever they basically just had these huge caged off yards that seriously had like hundreds of dudes thrown into them I mean some were like half a football field and still seemed overcrowded at first I thought it might be a muck that they discovered that I was an American tourist during the booking process and send me on my way no harm done my heart sank when I realized that there was no booking process as such that they just throw you in with hardened criminals and deal with you when they're good and ready I was screwed I was pretty sure I'd end up getting beaten up stabbed or worse that was wrong and thank God I was wrong the only dudes who bothered to pay attention to me were just curious as to how I'd ended up there otherwise the other prisoners just talked and sometimes fought amongst themselves my new amigos and my selves could barely communicate but thanks to the little bit of Spanish I took in high school I could sort of get by they offered me smokes and through a series of complex hand gestures established that they'd have my back for the presumably short time that I'd be there shout-out to Miguel Ito you're probably not reading this but I'm eternally grateful I end up being let out in the morning when they finally bring me out for booking I thought the cops might be at least a little apologetic but nope they didn't care just sort of shrugged before showing me the door so I'm a mess when they let me out of the jail I'm hungover I've not slept at all and I'm a nervous wreck from the entire experience all I can think about is getting to the border and getting home I mean I worry briefly about my marine buddy but then and remember he'd been to war and could probably look after himself I know it was selfish but like I said I was in a bad bad way only when I got to the toll bridge to get back to the States do I tap my pockets and realize at some point during my stay in the jail somebody had stolen my wallet and passport I thought it was going to empty my stomach right then and there I mean when people talk about feeling sick with fear or whatever that stuff is for real I know it wasn't the case but in those few moments I thought I'd be stuck in Mexico for the foreseeable future now I do love Mexico but it is not the place to be stuck with no money and barely in a Spanish and there was no way I was going to spend a night on the streets in Juarez so with my heart and my mouth I started walking towards the toll booth hoping he might take pity on me and believe my story sometimes I think that the craziest part about the whole thing is that where does security actually did believe me they cross-checked some stuff called the UTEP to ensure that I was in fact a student there then just let me pass turns out that the whole losing your passport thing happens way more than I first thought I think I was just too exhausted and scared to show any real emotion I just trudged back to my car and drove back into El Paso promising myself that I would never ever drink tequila again [Music] back when I was a student I went on a university sponsored trip to Singapore with over five million people of varying ethnic backgrounds packed onto a small island off the coast of Malaysia Singapore is one of the world's last great city-states everything about the trip was just phenomenal appears sensory assault for a bumpkin from the Midwest like me Singapore's of foodies heaven Street food Hawker culture was practically born there and the locals take a great deal of pride in preserving traditional recipes that have been around for literally hundreds of years it's clean there's very little crime and despite having a reputation as a heaving metropolis the island has a handful of nature reserves in public park lands where the masses can detox from city life for a few hours before returning to the fray it's paradise at least it was until the last night we were there being the last night we decided to head over to Clarks key which happens to be Singapore's main attraction when it comes to nightlife it's a little more upmarket with the kind of clubs that do bottle service and VIP booths but we figured since we'd be slumming it all summer that we should go out with a bang Clark's is a bit of a walk from the rented apartment I was sharing with my other people on our course so we were stopping into little bars along the way and by the time we got there and we were smashed it was a brilliant night Singapore never ceases to be a feast for the senses but it was wild we all drank way way too much and the last thing I remember is getting into a taxi after puking up a bunch of flavored vodka I'm not entirely sure how I got into my apartment but I must have done okay because a couple of hours later I woke up fully clothed in my own bed reeking of vomit and booze it was my phone buzzing irritatingly against the bedside table kala restricted showing on the screen as I picked it up confused I answered groggily asking who was on the other end I didn't recognize the voice that certainly wasn't in one of my fellow exchange students and and fairly broken English the voice on the other end asked if I knew two people he named they were both the names of the people I shared the flat with when I answered yes people on the other end of the line began talking in Malay to each other I couldn't understand what they were saying at all so I asked again who was calling the Malay man refused to give me his name or the location of my friends all he would say was that he was with them and that they were alive for now and the words chilled my blood and with my head spinning from the hangover I assumed the worst they had been kidnapped they'd gotten blind drunk and lost in Singapore and and managed to get themselves kidnapped by the local mafia that's when I freaked out I started shouting down the phone telling them that it was going to call the police that they'd be dead men if they laid a hand on my friends that I was an American and I didn't make sure that they'd be in prison for the rest of their lives for this kidnap the guy just laughed honestly the eeriest most spine-chilling laugh that I'd ever heard in my life and what he said next made my head hurt we are the police sir if friends have been arrested so it turns out that a pair of our numbers stupidly decided in their drunken stupor to walk back to the hotel along the waterfront unbeknownst to them and they ended up wandering into some highly restricted military area around Singapore Harbor how they even got into somewhere like that is beyond me but according to the police that's just what they did they're wandering around like morons making a bunch of noise and generally being idiots when out of nowhere a bunch of Singapore Marines surrounded them with weapons drawn and take them into custody they hand them over to internal security Singapore's equivalent of the FBI where they're basically going to be charged with spying for a foreign power they were separated and interrogated one guy said guns were pulled on them in order to get them to fess up they were taken to the walls of the ports and to explain how they scaled them even asking if they had left any surveillance equipment behind the harbour one cop told one friend that the other friend had already confessed so they might as well confess to all kinds of horrific barely legal stuff was pulled on them probably just to make an example of a couple of drunk Americans when the police hung up on me I called around the rest of the foreign students to tell them what had happened it caused a full-on panic the police over in Singapore can be particularly brutal and cruel as I knew too well and there was a rush to ensure that our two arrested friends wouldn't end up like that kid in North Korea then got beat up so bad that he died I'm not comparing the two countries but I don't know we were panicking like really panicking we were calling up every police station in Singapore as well as the American Embassy asking everyone we could if they knew the fate of our friends we had also made quite an extensive number of friends and contacts during our time there and despite what our arrested friends experienced Singaporeans can be exceptionally friendly welcoming and loyal our local friends went to work for us using their knowledge to get to the heart of the problem we think someone messed up their job at the port that day left a gate open and rather than admit fault and they would get these young students to take the fall thankfully neither of them gave up because God knows the punishment for espionage in Singapore at the time was most definitely death I suppose this story isn't as scary as some of the others ones that involve actual local crimes murders and the like maybe none of us were really in danger but the feeling of powerlessness we felt that night the pure fear of realizing just how small we really are how helpless we can be I'll never forget that so please if you go traveling or on vacation to some place far far from home be on your best behavior not everywhere is as free or as fair as the United States as terrifying as that may sound [Music] have you guys heard of Murphy's Law it's the rule that anything that can go wrong will go wrong and boy is that a real thing a couple of years back I was in Boca to Panama with a close friend of mine first night there we went out drinking with a group of people we'd met at the hostel we were staying in I met a girl we got talking and well we happen to find ourselves looking for a quiet spot to get some personal time in you see him where I'm going with this we're walking and chatting just being drunken silly as we're wandering along this dusty road when we come to a gas station and realize we're pretty lost I decide I'll go in buy some smokes then ask the attendants there how to get back to her hostel so I'm inside drunkenly fluctuating between Spanish and English with the two attendants when the girl I'm with pops inside apparently she's found as someone who will take us back to the hostel so I apologized to the attendants without getting directions and follow her outside into the forecourt only it's not a taxi that the girl is found it's just some Panamanian woman with white Chevy but I'm not one to refuse the kindness of a stranger so at first I don't make anything of it and just get into the car but when I look at the driver I start realizing that what we did was a very bad idea she looked high as a kite and I'm pretty sure I could see a little coke dust around her nostrils but by that time she had already driven off and it was sort of too late to say anything not only that but her car wreaked of alcohol I mean it seriously smelled like a distillery in there after some driving around it becomes obvious that the woman is completely nuts she actually starts doing coke while she's driving in between rants and Spanish that seemed to verge on manic episodes me and my gal pal are a little put off and asked to be let out driver pulls over and the girl who is sitting in the front jumps out I'm just about to follow suit when the driver turns to me and says in plain English I lost my kids today stay with me a little while will you this was a few years ago and I have grown up a lot since but drunk me decided that I was making a great decision by staying in the car I'm on the edge of blackout in a brand new town and so for a while I don't notice that this drunken woman is driving me way out of town she makes a phone call and then a few minutes later she pulls the car to the side of the road I'm not joking when I say the largest man I had ever seen gets into the back of the car he's Panamanian and thugged-out from head to toe he has dead eyes and coldly stares at me without saying a word my drunk white Canadian self is sitting in the front seat through the liquor haze my brain is screaming dude you're in Panama no one knows where you are you're alone with this terrifying human who hasn't spoken a word and a clearly messed up cokehead girlfriend so I pull out my phone thinking now is a good time to get a hold of my buddy back at her hostel but it's dead yep I had forgotten to lock the screen before putting it in my pocket and it had died stuff like that is why I hardly drink anymore so we are driving further and further out of town the houses are getting big and spread out we pulled into a house that has Greek columns in the entryway and I am thinking to myself that I've been kidnapped I'm absolutely terrified at this point and maybe because I was so scared but I just got out of the car and followed her inside I didn't want to do anything crazy I had no idea how she'd react if I just ran away she takes me inside of this huge house that's just dripping with drug dealer chic I mean it really did look like whoever owned the place was trying to build a replica of the Tony Montana mansion from Scarface marble columns everywhere huge garnish paintings of tigers and stuff like that we walk into one room we're sat at this huge dining table is this really twitchy looking Panamanian dude he rises to greet me like we're long-lost friends or something calling me brother and actually hugging me I knew he could tell how out of depth I was and I got the impression he was enjoying it he offered me coke weed you name it and I politely declined them all and in the very roundabout way asked why I've been brought here he cuts to the chase and tells me he's a very successful drug runner with a network of contacts from Panama City to Michoacan and that he is a favor to ask me he know the way cartoon characters do like a big gulp when they're anxious are scared not a cliche that actually happens and the Panamanian drug runner has to stifle his laughter when it happened to me he tried to calm me down and sure me it wasn't a big deal but then without breaking a sweat he explained that he wanted me to smuggle a kilo into the states for him I think I just totally zoned out when he was explaining how I'd do it imagining myself in an orange jumpsuit my parents quietly crying as my sentences read out there was no way I could go through with something like that but I didn't think that was what my host wanted to hear I pretended I was into the idea asking how much money I'd make from the run whereabouts in the vehicle you could hide so much then I told him I'd be back in touch with in a couple of days to confirm the departure date he seemed delighted gave me a burner cell phone he'd call me on then told the cokehead woman to drive me back into town the very next day I told the guy I was staying with that I was leaving and I didn't even bother to get in touch with the girl that I'd hooked up with the night before she was drop-dead gorgeous and I go stung her harder than a gay Casper I was too scared to keep the phone but too scared to throw it away I had gotten it into my head that the runner could use it to track me I only toss the thing when I was back over the border in the u.s. maybe I've watched too much Breaking Bad but I have zero regrets I can imagine how much money that guy has and I know some of the messed up things people will do for money besides he could have employed the weird logic and say I stole from him by not returning the phone I don't know I just didn't want to take any chances I have never been back to Panama since sometimes I stop and think of the smallest little actions and how they have huge consequences meeting the wrong girl and getting into the wrong car all can have the most disastrously unimaginable consequences and I guess next year I'll just try Canada today's episode is sponsored by dashlane in today's world everything requires a password even worse each one of these has their own set of very specific requirements one special character one number one capital letter it's really a mess I definitely feel this when accessing every form of little social media app login related to running the YouTube channel and podcast how awesome would it be if you could throw all of these into just one app that's where dashlane comes in - Lane is a multi-platform and multi functions secured password and digital identity manager that takes the stress out of your everyday log in struggle gone are the days of remembering an endless list of login credentials credit card info and clicking that dreaded forgot password button to reset yours for the 50th time as this one service can remember them all for you all it takes is one master password to access your virtual and secure vault that you can add not only logins but also secure notes online check out information personal ID cards and contacts even better with dashlane premium you get access to their VPN dark web monitoring secure password generation and complete seamless info synchronization across all of your devices a password security is important to you online I highly recommend trying them out I've been using it for about a month or so now and it's by far the best password manager that I've used to date check out the link in the description WWL in comm slash Reid that's w WM / re ad - try it out for free on your first device for life a few years back my dad passed pretty suddenly heading back to her home town for the funeral my two younger sisters and IRA reunited for the first time in years it felt amazing feeling Petty's sibling rivalries just fall away once we realized what was truly important being family we get chatting on the night of the wake reminiscing and stuff when we make the joint decision to go on a family vacation together a few months down the line and we've somehow managed to get the three of us to agree on a location somewhere our dad has always talked about with great affection a place called Varadero and cuba he'd taken our late mom there on a belated honeymoon a year or so after they married and the place was filled with happy memories for them maybe just maybe we could visit their Darrell and feel a connection with her parents past so myself and my two sisters rose and Jackie boarded a flight at Toronto Pearson that was headed directly to Havana Cuba seeking to escape another damp squib Canadian summer for the sun-soaked beaches of the Caribbean we were excited beyond words it was the first real vacation any of us had taken in years and we really had gone all out for it but it took about an hour before we wanted to leave we landed in Havana and the weather is looking like it's about to turn it was very hot and the Sun was sweltering but on the horizon was the biggest most intimidating collection of storm clouds I'd ever laid eyes on I mean they were huge the kind of thing you'd expect to see in a Hollywood disaster movie when we met her driver outside the airport he explained in pretty good English the storm wasn't expected to hit Cuba too hard and that it should be cleared up by morning and he was wrong over the course of the two-hour drive - Varadero the storm began to encroach so that by the time we reached the actual resort heavy winds had been battering the buildings to the point that the roof tiles were scattered all over the place we were getting pretty concerned by this point but the resort bar is still open and doing good business thanks to the weather so we decided to grab a few drinks to pass the time mijitos daiquiris Koo Benitez we sampled pretty much everything the menu had to offer us big mistake by the time we leave to go back to our rooms were pretty smashed spirits are high despite the rain so were laughing and joking singing songs and our bad Spanish when all of a sudden rosy slips on a piece of roofing tile and goes down hard well she doesn't exactly slip according to her an initial slip on her flip flop on a damp loose piece of tiling causes her Footwear to become stuck this kinda whipped her leg back causing her to land on it with all her weight we hear the bones snap as clear as day it was horrific but not as horrific as Rosie's screams it took about 30 minutes of screams tears and panicking resort staff before the Cuban ambulance finally showed up some people make a big deal about the quality of Cuban health care but I can assure you the reality is quite different the ambulance was literally just a can with the wheelchair in the back no stretcher no monitors for vital signs nothing like we were used to back in Canada what's worse the driver was a doctor himself the hospital was short-staffed that their own doctors were forced to drive the emergency vehicles themselves speaking of the hospital we were horrified to find out that the closest clinic was over 45 minutes away in a place called Motown's us and when we get there it's worse than we could have imagined the whole place has flooded thanks to the rain storm and we certainly weren't the only ones to suffer an accident because of it the place was heaving with wounded and injured people there were bloody palm prints on the walls smears of blood on the floors where people had been dragged inside the hospital staff were working so hard but if there just wasn't enough of them every single one was rushed off their feet looking like they were about to snap under the pressure Rose is still groaning in pain as we will her down flooded corridors the doctors driving the ambulance were very kind and his English was almost perfect but he just didn't have the medicine to properly doll roses pain what's worse we were doing all of this in our bikini tops nothing but wraparound towels to cover up our lower halves all these Cubans kept looking at us like crazy gringos or whatever wondering why we were dressed for a party in what was obviously a crisis the whole thing was stressful and embarrassing we hadn't even converted our money yet when a staff wheel rose into the x-ray room my jaw drops at how terrible condition and machinist it looks like it was made in the 50s or something it's ginormous rusted and looked like it might come crashing down on whoever was unfortunate enough to be under it at the wrong time another doctor arrives they complete the x-ray then the doctor tells us they're going to try to set Rosa's broken leg without any anesthetic I honestly thought I'd hurt him wrong none of us could quite believe what he just said but it is similarly near-perfect English he explained that the hospital was short on anesthesia and were saving it for high-priority patients what could be worse than a broken leg we weren't sure but the doctor was insistent that Rose would not be receiving any anesthesia I cannot begin to describe the screams I heard Jackie and I became so upset that a hospital security guard forced us to wait outside the room the only seat available was next to an unconscious Cuban man he was barely breathing his head lolling back into his chair I was pretty sure he was dying finally after they said her leg the doctor administers propofol just knock Rosie they then explained they don't have the tools to perform any complex surgery required to properly set Rosie's leg and we needed to get home and fast the next flight back wasn't until 8:00 p.m. the next night add the fact that the only wheelchair on the resort was too small to barely function our dream vacation had literally turned into a waking nightmare of pain sleeplessness and soul-crushing panic we made it back in one piece but Rose now has a permanent steel rod in her thigh and has been strongly advised to have gastric bypass surgery in order to reduce to await her weak leg can support please be very very careful when you're on vacation many areas of the world are not nearly as fortunate as we are and can be quite a shock when you're face to face with that sort of deprivation I would hate to think that anyone would have to suffer like my sister did ever again [Music] I was 19 when I first landed in Ho Chi Minh City barely a grown man before that I never even left the UK and Vietnam seemed like the most exotic place in the world to me feeling like Neil Armstrong landing on an alien planet the humidity that hit me in the face as I stepped off the airplane was unbelievable how could people live in that heat I couldn't even imagine but live they did in tiny arterial streets and wide Sun flower lined avenues millions upon millions of Vietnamese made their way around the city on little mopeds and scooters my cigarette smoking taxi driver filled the car with thick billowing fumes beeping the horn so regularly that it could have been Morse code I recoiled when he began bellowing viciously out of the window and Vietnamese it's any two-wheelers that came in too close it was a sensory overload alien sights and unfamiliar noises exotic scents both putrid and pleasurable it was almost a relief to arrive at the small dingy hostel I be staying at for at least a couple of nights I quickly developed a taste for Vietnamese food loud vibrant flavors and some strangely familiar forms Vietnamese beer was pretty good too yet it was the night that brought Saigon to life neon signs and blaring speakers from shrines and temples Vietnamese go-go dancers gyrating the lyrics they couldn't understand fried meats and incense filling the air with sweet delicious smells street vendors sold fruits that look like props from a science-fiction movie it was incredible but maybe I got a little too confidence in my new home away from home so Vietnamese weed is cheap like really bloody chiva not as strong as some of the stuff you can find in the UK in the States but for the price it's fantastic it's also readily available you can rock up to some little Vietnamese dye bar and pay the bartender to nip out and grab your bag it's really that easy only this one night my usual connection isn't in work I try to ask the owner where the bartender is and crappy Vietnamese but he doesn't understand so I give up and decide to find myself a new person to pick up from something you should know about Ho Chi Minh it's not uncommon for someone on a moped or a scooter to just cruise up next to you on the pavement and offer you a lift somewhere they'll be like hey man you want beers ladies Swede ecstasy most people just laugh and decline politely with the Viet hustlers just taking it on the chin and shouting bye-bye as they drive off but when the students up and gives me the same routine I nod and ask him if we can drive me somewhere to buy some smoke as I expect he smiles nods and tells me to hop on after we're driving for about 15 minutes and notice that we're actually heading out of the city centre not just that but we seem to be heading way way out into the suburbs which in Vietnam is basically just jungle with houses interspersed between thick patches of foliage I didn't mind the journey really as long as he didn't try and gouge me for it to find much more quality stuff if you go out into the country where there's not as much demand my driver says we're headed to a bar he knows but when we pull into the driveway of this bar it's anything but it's literally just someone's house a two-story building with like a porch out front he tells me we've arrived and I should wait on the porch for him to get my gear for me me being me I just sort of assumed I either misheard the guy or there's been some other kind of miscommunication probably on my part so I do as he says sitting in a white plastic chair on this houses porch while the owner comes out and starts talking to the driver but when he sees me he's absolutely effing fuming he starts growling stuff at the driver pointing at me and then at the driver I didn't need to speak Vietnamese to know that I'm definitely not welcome here but to my confusion the two just go inside and leave me be I'm getting pretty impatient after about 20 minutes goes by and I'm still just sat there waiting on these two guys to come out with my smoke worried I'm being ripped off I get up out of the seat and start wandering towards the doorway of the house trying to get a look inside but there's noise at the entranceway to the driveway for youngish vietnamese guys are staggering up the path obviously pretty drunk when they see me they make the older owners reaction look tame they're not happy to see me drunkenly jabbering in Vietnamese and making some pretty aggressive hand gestures I'm backing off up the porch hand raised before me like this no threat to anyone kind of way but they just sense the weakness and ramp it up one is pushing me the other is actually trying to stick his hand in my pockets to rob me all the while the other two are like half goading them on and half trying to throw punches and kicks at me through the melee I'm convinced I'm about to be robbed and battered by a gang of angry vietze and that I'll have to walk hours back into Ho Chi Minh without a penny to my name and that's when I hear it there was this loud echoing crack that caused the viet lads to scatter away from me I look up and the older owner of the house has stood there holding a bloody smoking gun in the air he then proceeds to aiming at the gang of Vietnamese lads screaming stuff and Viet at them as they back off up the driveway absolutely breaking it I honestly thought he was about to shoot one of them right in front of me and as much as I'm kind of ashamed to admit it I sort of wanted him to actually found myself wanting this fellow to just smoke one of those absolute rat bags trying to pick on some lonely lost Westerner I hate bullies I always have these fellows just lagged it up the drive though tails between their legs I'm still shaking as the owner starts talking to me in Vietnamese I have no idea what he's saying but it's some kind of sort of explanation for what just happened to this day I don't know exactly what happened but I'm guessing they were just some neighborhood thugs come to pick up some smoke as I add who decided that they didn't like what they saw simple as that with trembling hands I take this huge bag from the owner who then refuses to take my money off me he's batting it away and pushing my hand back towards me then this really / gesture of keep this you probably need it right now and I did you have no idea how scary it is when something like that happens in a foreign country the feeling of utter confusion helplessness and fear are amplified because you stick out like a sore thumb the one thing worse than some horrible misfortune is horrible misfortune you're not able to ask for help with from a 18th birthday my mum and dad organised a trip to Ireland for me and two friends my dad's family had emigrated to Canada after the Second World War and my mum also had some Irish blood so it was always a dream of mine to visit the old country to gain a greater connection with our cultural past my dad actually still has relatives in Belfast in the far north of Ireland wishes technically still part of the UK and still keeps in touch with them so a big part of the trip was connecting with these relatives having them show us around treating us to some traditional Irish delicacies like Guinness and more Guinness so after about a week or so of touring Dublin Limerick and Cork we headed up north via train to stay with my distant cousins in Belfast the meetup wasn't scheduled until the early evening and it was still quite early in the morning when our train arrived so me and my two girlfriends ended up having some time to kill turns out Belfast is pretty cool with a lot of stuff to see and do so we had no worries about keeping occupied until the evening so we're out doing a little shopping and seeing some sights when this young looking guy walks up to us out of nowhere and strikes up a conversation being young girls so cute Irish guy talking to us turned us into blushing itty 'its he's telling us how he's not from Belfast that he's only in town to do a music video shoot for his band this now turns the fawning factor up to 11 and were practically drooling over this tattooed lothario as he regales us with tales of tour bus antics and wild rock shows eventually to our absolute delight and amazement he tells us we're all gorgeous and that were perfect to star in their music video with them he explains it'll be like a group thing with a band playing in the abandoned warehouse space while their fans party around them so when he asks us if we have an hour or two to spare to come and be part of the shoot we jump at the chance he asks us to follow him and without so much as a second thought we do but here's the thing I have always been a good judge of character and something didn't quite feel right to me I don't know what it was at the time but something just didn't add up I also know a little bit about guitars having played for a few years in high school I'm not amazing or anything but I do know my way around a fretboard so when the guy says he plays guitar in his band I asked him which model and brand he prefers he hesitates and gives us some wishy-washy answer about having too many favorites to really choose from okay I think White's so suspicious about that the guy must have had a whole bunch of guitars on hand but I pressed the issue I asked him if he'd ever played a genuine Les Paul and me honestly looks at me like I'm speaking Greek my BS detector is going off the scales at that everyone who plays guitar has some dream setup in mind some God Tyr piece of gear that they've long to have placed on a pedestal this guy had nothing in fact I was starting to think he knew nothing about guitars at all I think he actually began to notice my suspicion and this caused him to drop a little of that happy-go-lucky disposition of his the guy actually started walking much faster through the crowds turning around every so often to tell us to hurry up or we'll be late for the shoot I turned to the girls around this time to tell them that I really didn't like where this was going while they understood my concerns they just thought I was being overly paranoid but it should relax and see where the adventure would take us but when he eventually leads us all the way to his rundown lookin warehouse building that did not look at all safe they started getting similar vibes there's garbage everywhere gnarly looking graffiti all over the walls the place looked like it was a junkies paradise remember this is in the middle of the day and there's a ton of people around well now we're way out of sight from the general public with this shady stranger who I'm convinced is up to no good at these big iron entrance doors he stops waits and then tells us to go ahead of him and the other two girls are giggling way excited at the prospect of starring in some foreign band's music video and just obey Him like a pair of idiots girls were not going in there we're leaving the word seemed to leave my mouth before I'd even realize I'd spoken them at this point the guy freaks out and stands in between me and my friends trying to block their exit from the warehouse you can see the fury in his eyes whatever nefarious plan he'd had for us I'd obviously just thrown a spanner in the works he is so overcome with anger that he's hissing at me not to ruin this for him like flecks of spittle are flying from his lips and landing on me it was disgusting so gross in fact that I actually leaned into a push sent him flying off balance before I scream at my friends to get out of there it takes him acting like a complete idiot for my friends to realize just what a scumbag this guy was and at that we were running away from his warehouse like it's on fire the guy is yelling after us shouting stuff about us not ruining this for him this just makes us think he's giving chase so we run faster and faster until we're back among the throngs of people relative safety I couldn't believe how dumb we were and I told the girls as much we swore we wouldn't tell any of the family what we had done I have no clue what surprise was waiting for us inside that filthy warehouse space I realized in that moment how naive I was and to listen to my intuition which has protected me many many times throughout my life what a bunch of idiots we were [Music] after our university graduation a few close friends and I decided to go traveling to Western Australia we had planned the trip for years putting away savings for our part-time jobs until the day we finally donned our mortarboard caps and ventured out into the world as adults we arrived in country spent a week or so just lazing around the beaches and soaking up the Sun then decided we'd have ourselves a little road trip and for that we'd need wheels so we wandered into this little Aussie town and find ourselves the cheapest noisiest camper van and rent the thing for basically pennies we drove this battered old camper van around a few towns often sleeping in the van itself when we were unable to find any hostels or hotels anyone familiar with the northwestern corner of Australia knows that town is a pretty generous term for most of these places and there's a lot of the absolutely nothing in between them just barren outback desert one night after driving for hours and hours in almost pitch darkness we decided it would be better to just pull over and get some sleep instead of risking getting lost in the outback so we stopped drive off the road a little into this little dry patch of nowhere with no one around for miles and miles we're tired but we're happy we're stocked up on food cold beer and now we've got ourselves a place to sleep we've got it made so after an hour is so around a warm fire drinking and reminiscing about uni we find ourselves staring up at the sky it's an incredible Vista lack of light pollution in that area of Australia means that the Starlight canopy is a truly mesmerizing sight but the place were settled into is ringed by trees so at some point someone has the bright idea to go for a little wonder so we can get a better view of the Stars it wasn't hard to find a good spot the only trees around were nestled between the hills hiding from the Sun and sucking up any water that flowed their way managed to drag yourself up one of the slopes and you can see for miles and miles I mean Australia's so flattened places that it's like you're looking out to the ends of the earth so with all of us a little buzzed we start shuffling off towards one of these hills it was glorious the Milky Way was so bright and deep it felt like you were falling into it the road in our campsite were hidden by darkness and trees erasing pretty much all signs of civilization we felt so alone so far from home it really was a special moment we sat and drank in the galaxy and told whatever stories came to mind just real hippie stuff we were tiny specks in an immense universe and everything was perfect and then it was time to go we all stand up in as one the four dudes I'm with start walking in the wrong direction it's not hard to understand why every hill look like the same from up on top of our glorious mound of rocks and dirt every little valley was choked with brush the road was obscured from view and it curved gently away from us in both directions anyway there were no landmarks and we were all high as kites so there I am confused at first as to why my mates are heading off in pretty much the opposite way we came I doubt myself for a moment wondering if it's me that in fact has the messed-up sense of direction the guy spoke up a bit of fun saying I'm too drunk to find my way back to the van but I know at this point that we're definitely not going the right way I started insisting raising my voice trying to convince the lads that they're about to get themselves dangerously lost in a place where getting lost can be fatal and they were so certain that they were going the right way that my objections were often met with laughter and mockery but as time went on I became increasingly panicked I could see this whole disastrous event unfolding before my eyes so in a moment of clarity I just turned around and headed back in the direction I knew was correct now it was their turn to be insistent the lads practically begged and pleaded with me not to go back in the wrong direction drunkenly arguing that I was going to get us all in lot of trouble that infuriated me the only one with any idea of where we were and I was being treated like a eventually they decided to humor me following my leads so that they could continue to mock me when I finally did get us all lost every step of the way they pointed out how unfamiliar everything was how it couldn't possibly be the way we came one of the lads even started babbling about how we were going south when we really wanted to be going north he didn't even have a compass on him in fact I'm pretty sure that even if he did he still wouldn't be able to tell his mouth from a hole in the ground they left broken twigs in a trail behind us so we could find her way back an idea that would have served us a whole lot better an hour to beforehand the one dude tried to physically drag me back to the hill and into the wilderness they laughed at me right up until we stepped out of a ditch and into the clearing where our campervan was set up they weren't laughing then I can tell you that much the lad who was insistent that he had some kind of magnetic compass in his head was the worst off he seemed flabbergasted like the only explanation was that the camp had moved not that we'd nearly gotten ourselves lost I looked up this rest area later on Google Earth had we gone in any direction other than directly back to the road it would have been over a hundred and twenty miles before we hit any signs of civilization if we were very very lucky a hundred and twenty miles of Australian outback with no food water or tools we'd have died surely and it only takes a few days without water before the body just packs in and we were so dehydrated from the alcohol and smokes that I don't think that we'd have lasted a day alone in the outback and that's the story of why I don't hike with drunks anymore hey friends thanks for listening be sure to subscribe and click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations if you got a story be sure to submit them to my subreddit our let's read official and give and receive feedback from the community and maybe even hear your story feature on the next video and join my discord to interact with me and other listeners directly and if you want to support me even more grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on patreon and maybe even pick up some let's read merch on Spreadshirt all links in the Bayeux thanks so much friends and remember anthony is the captain now and don't be narcissistic

Channel: Lets Read!

Views: 186,285

Rating: 4.843821 out of 5

Keywords: vacation stories, vacation horror stories, true vacation horror stories, scary vacation stories, true scary stories, scary stories, scary true stories, true horror stories, horror stories, true stories, stories from reddit, asmr reading, lets not meet, true creepy stories, scary horror stories, reddit, true scary stories from reddit, true horror stories from reddit, subscriber submissions, reddit scary true stories, lets read, asmr sleep, ASMR, creepy stories

Id: WyKYR8YmLho

Length: 51min 39sec (3099 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 01 2019