Worst Place in the World?

[nino_savatte]

No

Letchworth
Stevenage
Bedford
Hartlepool
Washington New Town
Cumbernauld
Middlesbrough
East Kilbride
Thurso

Some choice, eh?

 

[phildwyer]

Wow Phil. Impressive list. Have you really been to all those places?

No. Actually I've only been to Port-au-Prince, Phnom Penh, Calcutta, Barry and Glastonbury. I enjoyed them all (except Barry obviously) but that was partily because they were so awful iyswim.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

The only places on that list that I have been to are Barry, Glastonbury and The Moon. Barry was grim, I will admit, especially on a cold grey windy day. Glastonbury was great especially the Tor. Of course it was not festival time. The Moon is fine if you like it but you wouldn't want to go there on your own. If you go with others it can be good.

 

[sheothebudworths]

Wrong un poll!

Calcutta's ace!

 

[sheothebudworths]

A city called Gorakhpur in India. It first distinguished itself as a truly awful city with a lonely planet entry that said something along the lines of "Gorakhpur is mostly known for the amount of shit in the streets and for the flies. Even the local tourist office admits there's nothing to do here."

I'm not mad keen on Ahmedabad...and as you can probably imagine, Bhopal was a bit depressing too.

 

[Echo Base]

Basildon

 

[Brainaddict]

I'm not mad keen on Ahmedabad...and as you can probably imagine, Bhopal was a bit depressing too.

I quite enjoyed Ahmedabad but can't really justify why - I can see why it isn't very appealing to most people.


I recently got stuck in Holyhead for longer than I would have liked. That was pretty bad

 

[KeyboardJockey]

Jaywick.

Oh Jaywicks lovely. And there is a nice naturist beach just along the coast.

 

[bluestreak]

It's threads like this that make me wish I'd been born middle-class so I could have seen some of the awfulness for myself.

 

[Lea]

The Isle of Sheppey however....!!

I was born on the Isle of Sheppey and have to agree that it's a real dump but then it's got a nice seafront going for it.

 

[MightyAphrodite]

for some reason i cant believe youve never been to las vegas phil!!!

( i believe you of course, it just seems like youd have been there or something ...)

 

[Kanda]

It's threads like this that make me wish I'd been born middle-class so I could have seen some of the awfulness for myself.

Is that the criteria for travel?? Wow!!

Pretty much all my travel has been through work.

 

[Dhimmi]

Linda Smith

 

[May Kasahara]

Whats wrong with gibralter odd place full of spanish looking people proclaiming their English utterly mad but not worst by a long way.

I spent three hours there. It was filthy, it stank, the people all looked like they'd stepped off Lewisham High Street (complete with miserable slapped-arse style faces), and every time I bought something they gave me a fistful of change I couldn't use anywhere else.

In fairness, I'm not what you would call well travelled.

 

[adsr]

Termitau in Kazakstan looks proper grim

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&h...3&spn=0.051133,0.115185&t=h&z=13&iwloc=A&om=0

 

[innit]

the people all looked like they'd stepped off Lewisham High Street (complete with miserable slapped-arse style faces)

It must have been awful for you

 

[phildwyer]

LA because it promises so much, has such a tremendous mythology about it and is possibly one of the most boring places I've been to (and I got to see some WAY too exciting elements of LA while I was there). It's SFs harebrained and soulless twin.

I often visit LA, actually I was there last weekend. It is in fact a very interesting city, but you have to know people or at least places to go. It is not the sort of place you can just wander around and find good things by accident or serendipity. Although Venice Beach is a bit like that, but even so it is rather contrived compared to similar bohemian neighborhoods on the east coast. But let no-one be discouraged from visiting LA.

 

[phildwyer]

for some reason i cant believe youve never been to las vegas phil!!!

( i believe you of course, it just seems like youd have been there or something ...)

Yes, I'm a bit surprised myself. I've been to Atlantic City a few times though, and found it quite impressive, so I daresay Las Vegas's turn will come in due course.

 

[phildwyer]

Calcutta's ace!

I agree, its an astonishing place. But the undeniable poverty, dirt and chaos mean that many people absolutely hate it, so I thought it deserved a place in the poll.

 

[stowpirate]

It is not a complete list where is Ipswich? I now its located in the UK but hey I still have to travel to get there

 

[Hollis]

It's threads like this that make me wish I'd been born middle-class so I could have seen some of the awfulness for myself.

Too bad.

 

[phildwyer]

The Moon is fine if you like it but you wouldn't want to go there on your own. If you go with others it can be good.

It's easy to laugh at the moon, but at least drugs are legal there.

 

[May Kasahara]

It must have been awful for you

It was - just like being at home!

 

[kyser_soze]

It's threads like this that make me wish I'd been born middle-class so I could have seen some of the awfulness for myself.

Do what I did then, work and save. Nothing to do with being born m/c and everything to do with knowing that travel=money=need to work

I often visit LA, actually I was there last weekend. It is in fact a very interesting city, but you have to know people or at least places to go. It is not the sort of place you can just wander around and find good things by accident or serendipity. Although Venice Beach is a bit like that, but even so it is rather contrived compared to similar bohemian neighborhoods on the east coast. But let no-one be discouraged from visiting LA.

Bear in mind that I was talking about downtown LA, not LA County as well...Oh no, I'd say to people go and form your own opinions, and I had a LOT of fun while I was there, but the gap between myth and reality was too great to me - part of what makes a great city, for me, is being able to find good things by luck and serendipity! It took hanging out with a bunch of BHers and some heavy rock dudes from off sunset before I found *my* LA. And it was a diiirty underbelly LA too

 

[Hollis]

Ahamadabad..



Oh maann.

 

[mauvais]

I reckon the Moon would be alright. There's no fucking Waitrose is there but there is an Lidl or so I hear selling all sorts of weird shit there's no fucking use for on the Moon like scuba diving kit and conference pears. Of course you could bag a bargain but you'd have to have a whole underwater orchard thing going on back home before you got back the fuel bill. All in all the Moon is OK cos you don't get stuck on the ring road at the weekend trying to get to DFS like on Saturn, but really there's not much going on. The clubbing is OK but I'm not really into that because I'm big into the whole jazz scene and Moon jazz ain't got NO jazz no Louis Armstrong or John Paul Larkin aka Scatman John not since the smoking ban. Alright place to live but shit if you like your jazz and I do like mine.

 

[mozzy]

Yay! No one has mentioned Hull!

Worst places in England I have been to, and have lived at a few, are Luton, Milton Keynes, Bedford, Corby, Kings Lynn, March, Great Yarmouth (except for Tiffanies and the Ocean Rooms) and Canvey Island.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Ulaan Baatur shouldn't be there. It's somewhere I've always wanted to go. It's also a gateway to some of the most pristine scenery in Asia.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

I'm going to answer this question seriously. I'm not very well travelled, but my family have a knack of living in or near atrocious places. Milton Keynes, Southwark sink estates (before inner London was a good place to live), Romford, etc etc. I've also stayed and explored some truly horrid places in the UK, Toxteth in the early 90s was a bit grim, as was Newcastle at around the same time. I've been lost in Northampton, beaten up in Ilford, lived in squats with no toilet facilities or roof and with incontinent feral cats roaming around the place, been attacked with knives by drunk ulstermen in tottenham, breathed the tyre factory air in edmonton, and slept on railway benches in peterborough. However, in all my life I haven't ever had as miserable time as the thirty six hours I spent in Birmingham following Crufts dog show in 1998. Each and every person I met appeared to be on a personal mission from god to make my life and that of my girlfriend an absolute misery. I have never been back to that rude, arrogant, abusive, violent shithole, and come the revolution I'm going to have it raized to the ground and all mention of its existence purged from history.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

I have been to some right shitholes... A place in Henan whose entire horizon consisted of about 20 smokestacks - luvverly. A place in India where I had to change from the bus to another bus after coming down from the Himalayas onto the plains (the clearest example of sublime to ridiculous you've ever seen) where there was nowhere to go but the bus stop, which ponged to high heaven and was full of flies. Dagenham. Urgh. Nuff said. Even when the weather is glorious sunshine in the rest of London, it's still horrendous and grey in Dagenham. A town just outside Dalian called Jinzhou - somewhere I hope never to go again. Actually a lot of small town China just looks like the same old identikit drab greyness. It's sort of the opposite of the UK; big cities can look impressive in a flashy shiny futuristic kind of way, small towns can look drab and horrid.

But my nomination - considering the praise it gets - is Paris.

I know the centre is nice and it looks all pretty and that, but Prague and Barcelona are much more interesting places if you want history. IMO. And Paris itself is like a beautifully painted egg which is rotten inside.

People talk about London being rough - well it can be, but I lived in Hackney all my life, and apart from another kid 'mugging' me when I was 10 (for 2p), I've never been victim of a crime, certainly not as an adult despite going out to some dodgy places.

In Paris, in the space of a year, while I was lucky, my mate got mugged once, beaten up once, and pickpocketed in the middle of the street once.

Paris suffers on both counts - the 'posh' Parisians are the biggest bunch of stuckup wankers ever - and the sleazy underbelly is so nasty and grimy and hateful it makes anything in London look like child's play.



The food isn't as good as London either - not for variety at any rate. Try getting a decent curry in Paris.