That sounds like the place I am thinking of. Is it the place where you get the train/onward bus from when coming down from the Himalaya in Uttar Pradesh (I was coming from Almora)?
Worst Place in the World?
- Thread starter phildwyer
- Start date
That sounds like the place I am thinking of. Is it the place where you get the train/onward bus from when coming down from the Himalaya in Uttar Pradesh (I was coming from Almora)?
Barking_Mad
Non sibi sed omnibus
LA, went once and swore to never go again. I did, not by design, and it just convinced me how shite the place is.
do you mean Los Angeles?
Phil made a very good (and accurate) post about LA up there and he's not wrong at all.
You should give it another chance.
Chairman Meow
Perth, WA
Limerick. Or maybe Ballymena. Two places whose only redeeming feature is that they are quite near some really nice places, which of course only makes them look even worse by comparison.
do you mean Los Angeles?
Phil made a very good (and accurate) post about LA up there and he's not wrong at all.
You should give it another chance.
You should. Basically to enjoy LA you have to rethink your understanding of what a city is. There are no crowded streets with pedestrians shopping, no areas with loads of pubs and clubs packed closely together. But there are tons of interesting places to go if you know where they are and can drive to them. It is inhabited mostly by young, single people who have arrived from elsewhere in order to become famous in the movie industry, so people tend to be interesting, friendly and sociable. There are loads of Brits there--I'd say more than any other US city. You quite often see and even meet celebrities. And the weather is top.
pk
drink flounce rinse repeat
Lezhe, in Northern Albania.
Sat on a beach next to a pile of used nappies the size of a house, drinking a beer and being hassled by a wasp, I curse the determined insect in my native South London accent, only to be politely informed that the other men on the beach think I am referring to their wives and now have their hands on their guns.
I go for a walk, and discover a dead horse blocking the main footpath to the beach. We came by road, a road so potholed and treacherous the tyres on the little rusty Peugeot had to be deflated to cope.
Litter is everywhere, but mercifully the small children who wander barefoot selling cigarettes in the larger towns like Tirana are not here.
Past this are the deserted army barracks and the rusting cannons that were left there when Hoxha went, instruction manuals for various submachine guns can be seen blowing in the wind, the pages of which are mostly now used for toilet paper if caught short whilst looking out to sea, as many of them blowing around the deserted encampment have tell-tale dark skidmarks on them.
The former covert submarine base has a new sinister purpose - deep in the hill overlooking the beach is a favoured landing strip for US rendition flights, being outside the EU and supportive of the US campaign in Iraq, in return for a fistful of dollars the Albanians grant the US military full use of the area, which can be seen clearly on Google Earth.
Back at the beach my translator tells me he is impressed with the beach, that he might bring his wife. I laugh, looking around at the festering pile of nappies and the concrete boxes installed by the insane dictator Hoxha all over Albania, now broken open and covered with urine and graffiti.
Then I realise he is being perfectly serious, and I reflect on how lucky I am to live within a few hours drive of Cornwall or Wales.
Sat on a beach next to a pile of used nappies the size of a house, drinking a beer and being hassled by a wasp, I curse the determined insect in my native South London accent, only to be politely informed that the other men on the beach think I am referring to their wives and now have their hands on their guns.
I go for a walk, and discover a dead horse blocking the main footpath to the beach. We came by road, a road so potholed and treacherous the tyres on the little rusty Peugeot had to be deflated to cope.
Litter is everywhere, but mercifully the small children who wander barefoot selling cigarettes in the larger towns like Tirana are not here.
Past this are the deserted army barracks and the rusting cannons that were left there when Hoxha went, instruction manuals for various submachine guns can be seen blowing in the wind, the pages of which are mostly now used for toilet paper if caught short whilst looking out to sea, as many of them blowing around the deserted encampment have tell-tale dark skidmarks on them.
The former covert submarine base has a new sinister purpose - deep in the hill overlooking the beach is a favoured landing strip for US rendition flights, being outside the EU and supportive of the US campaign in Iraq, in return for a fistful of dollars the Albanians grant the US military full use of the area, which can be seen clearly on Google Earth.
Back at the beach my translator tells me he is impressed with the beach, that he might bring his wife. I laugh, looking around at the festering pile of nappies and the concrete boxes installed by the insane dictator Hoxha all over Albania, now broken open and covered with urine and graffiti.
Then I realise he is being perfectly serious, and I reflect on how lucky I am to live within a few hours drive of Cornwall or Wales.
spanglechick
High Empress of Dressing Up
Erith definately, but Balham's rather lovely.
yup - definately a contender.
But hang on - where the hell is Thamesmead???????
Chairman Meow
Perth, WA
spanglechick you have clearly been in South London for too long. I'd tell you to flee now while you still can, but I think its too late. :C
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
Limerick. Or maybe Ballymena. Two places whose only redeeming feature is that they are quite near some really nice places, which of course only makes them look even worse by comparison.
Limerick...or Stab City as it's known locally.
Sweaty Betty
Hemo rising!
Its gone grey now and the water is green
Remember the old wooden roller-coaster? They had to close it down after someone went over the edge.
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
Yes, that's the one. The taps in my hotel room dispensed water the colour of rust, the beds were damp, and there was a smell like something had died there. Thing didn't improve when I left the hotel...
And I agree with you on the general theme of small towns in China. I was shocked by the never-ending succession of horrendously built small towns I passed through, full of cheap concrete (often white-tiled) architecture and despair. If you want to know what towns will look like after the apocalypse, you could get a good approximation by visiting lots of small Chinese towns. And there are lots of them. And the people who live in them seem miserable. People in the countryside seemed friendly. People in big cities were lively and positive. People in small towns still seemed to view foreign interlopers with suspicion and in general looked like they had lost all hope of a better life and all faith in human nature. Hell is a small Chinese town
do you mean Los Angeles?
Phil made a very good (and accurate) post about LA up there and he's not wrong at all.
You should give it another chance.
I've given LA multiple chances and it is pretty dull. No fucking booze after 2 am and the clubs are, er, rather sober.
Biggest shithole? Stuck in a Bosnian craphole called Prijedor 'cos of flooding. Previously home of rape camps and torture centres, every second home razed to the ground, stones from 15th century mosques that were dynamited by Serb paramilitaries being ground up and used for paving. Cuntiest revolting cunthole on this cunty earth. Might have changed over the last 9 years, though, but never likely to be a mecca for tourists.
Yetman
Cheesecar Fucksquad #1
Morecambe is shit. I stood on the beach there once, sharp remains of unfortunate cockle pickers cutting my feet, sharp wind cutting my ears and sharp teeth of the liquid eyed freaks that habit the place cutting at my neck, in their minds….
We went to find something to eat, there was a burger king, an old wimpy that had shut down and been taken over by some sort of furry stuff, and a number of decrepid chip shops in the abandoned arcade area. We found a hotel which was open and on entering were greeted with the sound of someone running across the hotel shouting ‘CUSTOMERS!! MAURICE WAKE UP THERES REAL PEOPLE HERE QUICK GET UP MAURICE!!’ and then were treated to a full silver service steak, cooked absolutely perfectly with new potatoes (served individually, from a trolley) and fresh vegetables (again, served from the trolley) with various sauces and complimentary wine, it cost about £25 for the lot – the poor bastards had obviously never had any customers in years and therefore treated the first ones they had like they were kings.
So it’s a shit place to go, unless you want to be waited on like royalty
We went to find something to eat, there was a burger king, an old wimpy that had shut down and been taken over by some sort of furry stuff, and a number of decrepid chip shops in the abandoned arcade area. We found a hotel which was open and on entering were greeted with the sound of someone running across the hotel shouting ‘CUSTOMERS!! MAURICE WAKE UP THERES REAL PEOPLE HERE QUICK GET UP MAURICE!!’ and then were treated to a full silver service steak, cooked absolutely perfectly with new potatoes (served individually, from a trolley) and fresh vegetables (again, served from the trolley) with various sauces and complimentary wine, it cost about £25 for the lot – the poor bastards had obviously never had any customers in years and therefore treated the first ones they had like they were kings.
So it’s a shit place to go, unless you want to be waited on like royalty
And I agree with you on the general theme of small towns in China. I was shocked by the never-ending succession of horrendously built small towns I passed through, full of cheap concrete (often white-tiled) architecture and despair. If you want to know what towns will look like after the apocalypse, you could get a good approximation by visiting lots of small Chinese towns. And there are lots of them. And the people who live in them seem miserable. People in the countryside seemed friendly. People in big cities were lively and positive. People in small towns still seemed to view foreign interlopers with suspicion and in general looked like they had lost all hope of a better life and all faith in human nature. Hell is a small Chinese town
Yeah my wife's hometown encapsulates this perfectly. One half of the main street is reasonable, with lots of new shops and stuff. The other half is one of the grimmest things I've ever seen, all factories belching out smoke and crumbling old stalinist blocks of flats.
Then you head down an alleyway which leads out to the edge of the town. Suddenly you're walking through ou (lotus root) fields, people are smiling, dogs are running around, kids are fishing for crayfish in the ponds, people are sitting about playing cards or chinese chess, drinking tea or beer....
Orang Utan
Maybe I like the misery
bump
it's either coimbatore, chennai or mettupalayam
it's either coimbatore, chennai or mettupalayam
I always look for the best and I generally manage to find something nice to say about everywhere.
You're crazy! Supernice people, good vibe, excellent food, not bad public transport, interesting cultures, not very expensive, local media in English. OK, it can be a bit dirty in places and the climate can be a bit oppressive, but to say it has zero redeeming qualities is too far.
I worked with a guy who had spent a couple of years in one of the pipeline towns in Kazakhstan. He would never talk about it. Almaty, on the other hand, is actually a pretty nice place.
Sumgait in Azerbaijan is a pretty unlovable place: an industrial town on a heavily polluted sea, site of a (relatively) recent pogrom, not very nice atmosphere.
Umtata in South Africa is a place that I would never go back to. We ended up there because we were running late. Looking for a place to stay, as we crossed the city limits, we read that it was famed for its high crime rate (in South Africa!). It had a nice little Mandela museum (he was born there iirc) but it's not worth going out of your way for. Had brekkie at a Wimpy bc we couldn't see anywhere else half-nice.
I wouldn't race to go back to Jakarta or Stirling.
You're crazy! Supernice people, good vibe, excellent food, not bad public transport, interesting cultures, not very expensive, local media in English. OK, it can be a bit dirty in places and the climate can be a bit oppressive, but to say it has zero redeeming qualities is too far.
I worked with a guy who had spent a couple of years in one of the pipeline towns in Kazakhstan. He would never talk about it. Almaty, on the other hand, is actually a pretty nice place.
Sumgait in Azerbaijan is a pretty unlovable place: an industrial town on a heavily polluted sea, site of a (relatively) recent pogrom, not very nice atmosphere.
Umtata in South Africa is a place that I would never go back to. We ended up there because we were running late. Looking for a place to stay, as we crossed the city limits, we read that it was famed for its high crime rate (in South Africa!). It had a nice little Mandela museum (he was born there iirc) but it's not worth going out of your way for. Had brekkie at a Wimpy bc we couldn't see anywhere else half-nice.
I wouldn't race to go back to Jakarta or Stirling.
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
I"m going there this weekend, funnily enough.
Sad and also nice to read MA here again.
You should have stopped off for a curry. It might have changed your mind.
flypanam
Sausage to fortune
Limerick...or Stab City as it's known locally.
Hey! Rimmlick is alright, some good pubs and close to some pretty mean scenery! I've had nothing but bad experiences in Amsterdam, where i have been mugged, swindled and punched. Made my drunken overnight stay/stranded in South Auckland's Otara seem like a 7 night cruise.
roryer
道可道非常道，名可名非常名
I don't know about the poll, of the places on I have been to;
It is surely hard not to have a good time in Vegas, more than just gambling, kind-a wild clubs and the Big Shot is the best thrill ride I've ever been on.
The festival in Glastonbury is, or at least used to be, awesome, and I find the town itself a really pleasant place.
Phnom Penn meanwhile is one of my favourite cities, lakeside rocks for chilling, the people are full of smiles, cyclos still ply their trade making transport a pleasure, the bars and clubs are fun and combined with indulgence in the veritable cornucopia of pharmaceuticals easily and cheaply available, what's not to like?
Places I have been which suck... already mentioned;
Corby - an awful lorry park of a town
Los Angeles - only if you love driving on busy Freeways for hours to get anywhere could you dig it.
Small Industrial towns in China - yep, a small town 100km outside of Jinan in Shandong in heart of the aluminium smelting belt was the worst of the many grim places.
Other places worth a mention - Belfast is pretty disappointing; wide roads, fast moving traffic and not much in between.
Ruislip - just because it took ages to get there on the tube.
But for the award as the worst place I've been to I'm going to go for Shenzhen, bordering Honk Kong in Guangdong Province, China.
It is big, 10 million plus, and the suburbs run for 30km, with all the lovely features of small industrial towns elsewhere in China; terrible air pollution, grey sooty skies, dirty dusty streets and grim industrial vistas, but combined with mind boggling congestion, with no adequate public transport system the suburbs are over an hour from the city centre.
It can even take an hour to get from one central district of the city to another.
The centre is modern, gleaming, fashionable, fast paced and all those other words you could use that put a positive spin on totally without soul.
Skyscrapers line wide boulevards full of traffic, and humans are forced underground often into cavernous shopping arcades, of bright lights and shops, just to cross the road.
It is surely hard not to have a good time in Vegas, more than just gambling, kind-a wild clubs and the Big Shot is the best thrill ride I've ever been on.
The festival in Glastonbury is, or at least used to be, awesome, and I find the town itself a really pleasant place.
Phnom Penn meanwhile is one of my favourite cities, lakeside rocks for chilling, the people are full of smiles, cyclos still ply their trade making transport a pleasure, the bars and clubs are fun and combined with indulgence in the veritable cornucopia of pharmaceuticals easily and cheaply available, what's not to like?
Places I have been which suck... already mentioned;
Corby - an awful lorry park of a town
Los Angeles - only if you love driving on busy Freeways for hours to get anywhere could you dig it.
Small Industrial towns in China - yep, a small town 100km outside of Jinan in Shandong in heart of the aluminium smelting belt was the worst of the many grim places.
Other places worth a mention - Belfast is pretty disappointing; wide roads, fast moving traffic and not much in between.
Ruislip - just because it took ages to get there on the tube.
But for the award as the worst place I've been to I'm going to go for Shenzhen, bordering Honk Kong in Guangdong Province, China.
It is big, 10 million plus, and the suburbs run for 30km, with all the lovely features of small industrial towns elsewhere in China; terrible air pollution, grey sooty skies, dirty dusty streets and grim industrial vistas, but combined with mind boggling congestion, with no adequate public transport system the suburbs are over an hour from the city centre.
It can even take an hour to get from one central district of the city to another.
The centre is modern, gleaming, fashionable, fast paced and all those other words you could use that put a positive spin on totally without soul.
Skyscrapers line wide boulevards full of traffic, and humans are forced underground often into cavernous shopping arcades, of bright lights and shops, just to cross the road.
Bahnhof Strasse
Let's av ya fuckin' dancin'!
^ Corby - I believe it was there that Dotty was mugged for his Fillet O'Fish.
LA - a shithole of the highest order. Nuts when San Francisco is relatively up the road and so wonderful.
LA - a shithole of the highest order. Nuts when San Francisco is relatively up the road and so wonderful.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
I was talking to someone from Limerick recently and he was telling me that it's on the slide again.
discokermit
Well-Known Member
smethwick and west bromwich.
