humour Archives - Insideotherplaces

Posts tagged "humour"

The Egyptian Highway Code

Thinking of driving in Egypt? Don’t! Unless you are considering shortening your life span considerably or have an uncontrollable urge to invest in car body repairs. Don’t take this to mean Egyptian drivers are unskilled: it actually takes great skill to avoid getting killed in the malestrom of automotive chaos that is Egyptian traffic. In fact, they have the lowest road death rate in Africa, not far behind the European average. What you need to understand is that they operate…

In search of the shit things about Colombia

No doubt you’ve all heard wonderful things about Colombia, so there’s no point in me repeating them all here is there? So, at great effort and minimal expense I made an intrepid search to discover all the rubbish bits about the country that other blogs won’t tell you about. The tragic failings of paper tissues Whoever it was in the Colombian, paper serviette design department, they didn’t get the message that the whole point of the object is to remove…

Buffalo arse on the road to enlightenment.

Buffalo arse formed the most vivid memory of the traffic jam. It was this that was responsible for much of the predicament, along with the dozens of dark, dusty grey creatures they were attached to of course, ambling at a stately plod over the dusty, potholed tarmac on the outskirts of Larkana, Pakistan. Sitting in the back of an auto rickshaw conveniently gives you an almost perfect eye level view of this feature of the animal. When confronted with such…

My Top Travel Skills (that are completely useless back home)

If you are not picking up skills on your adventures, it means you are only on holiday and not pushing the experience envelope. Hopefully, somewhere along the way you will have developed supreme self-confidence, an acute sense of direction and astute bargaining skills, all of which should come in useful once in a while when you are back home, fending off the suicidal urges of your day job. Along with these, if you have been properly immersing yourself in all…

Annoying travel personalities No.2: The Country Counter

More shameless insults hurled at travel personalities. Given my lowly place in the nether regions of the travel blogging world I haven’t got much to lose by slagging off some of the popular heroes of the travel world, as well as some of the targets more worthy of derision. But lets start with the type of country counter most of us will probably agree are totally tedious aresewipes. Thankfully this breed is relatively rare but if you’ve spent a bit…

Top ten language tips for the hard of thinking traveller

Just because you have a doctorate in speaking English loudly while waving your arms about, doesn’t mean you have mastered the art of communication as you travel around the world. Buying a melon with grunts and pointing may be an admirable skill but you’re missing out if you don’t learn at least a bit of the local language wherever you go. With English being the most international language and native English speakers being the most bone idle of linguists as…

Totally wired in Dhaka

Chaotic tangles of cables nesting above the pavements may be a common sight in South Asia but the Bangladesh capital Dhaka is certainly a prime contender for the International Excessive Wiring Award. For us tourists it can be treated as the light entertainment of an indigenous art form but for the residents it is more of a sociopolitical statement that goes to the heart of everyday life, a visible reminder of what’s wrong with the country. The imagery is not…

The joys of Bengali haystacks

A shocking anomaly in the art world surely has to be the tragically overlooked form of the hay stack, where euro-centric critics have dismissed it as an agricultural craft discipline, devoid of true creative flair. If they only left their ivory towers long enough to travel to Bangladesh or eastern India they would surely realise the error in their ways and recognise that Bengali culture has devoted centuries to the perfection of hay stack construction as a higher art form….

Dear Indonesia – we need to talk

Dear Indonesia Firstly, so as there is no misunderstanding, let me state quite clearly that I love you, sincerely and deeply. Rarely have other places in the world treated me so well but a few issues have come up in our relationship that I need to talk to you about, so I hope you will understand. Do you know what pavements are for? I think it is instructive in this instance to use the American term sidewalk, as it conveys…

The signs of China

No doubt anyone visiting China could rustle up a selection of amusing manglings of the English language on signs and shop fronts, so I make no grand claim to originality here but just wish to celebrate the country’s touching faith in translation software and piss poor, old dictionaries someone found at a garage sale. People may concentrate on obvious errors but often they just have a special charm in expressing something in a way that a native English speaker never…

Tag: humour

The Egyptian Highway Code

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In search of the shit things about Colombia

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Buffalo arse on the road to enlightenment.

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My Top Travel Skills (that are completely useless back home)

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Annoying travel personalities No.2: The Country Counter

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Top ten language tips for the hard of thinking traveller

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Totally wired in Dhaka

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The joys of Bengali haystacks

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Dear Indonesia – we need to talk

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The signs of China

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