Hopefully most of the time this will involve the sort of uneventful travel experience which is flushed from your memory as soon as it is over.

But the more you travel, the more the law of averages pulls the scales towards the likelihood of having a travel toilet nightmare.

Saying that, not all unusual travel bathroom experiences leave an unpleasant stain on the memory.

Scariest toilet experience – Sri Lanka
It seems obvious but downing a couple of big bottles of Lion beer over lunch before heading into a rural part of Sri Lanka’s hinterland was a recipe for a protesting bladder. Why I chose a tiny workers’ shed beside a river instead of just ‘going’ behind a tree I don’t know, but I did and a long, happy sigh of relief was cut short when I felt something big land on my shoulder, then something else. Before I knew it the insect cast from Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom – big spiders, huge centipedes – were dropping from the ceiling onto my back and shoulders as it gradually dawned on me the toilet wasn’t actually black porcelain, it was covered in creepy crawlies. The memory still makes me shudder.

Hi-Tech toilets – Singapore
The first time I encountered a self-flush toilet was in a bar beside the river in the financial district of Singapore. The oppressive heat had us downing icy jugs of Tiger beer far too quickly before they turned tepid. This in turn resulted in a bit of a maelstrom in my guts. It was a smart, clean bar with immaculate loos, so no hardship… until I dropped my wallet on the floor and bent even further forward to retrieve it. Which is when I discovered it was a toilet with a laser which, when the beam was broken, automatically flushed… powerfully. It was a sobering moment.

Sexiest WC on Earth – Lisbon
For once there was no urgent need to enter this toilet on Terreiro do Paço in Lisbon, but when a loo proclaims itself the ‘sexiest WC on Earth’ you have to take a pee-k. It was nicely designed, with a vibrant colour scheme and lots of bathroom eroticism adorning the walls, but sexy? I think most people might pooh-pooh that claim. Read our ‘Ten alternative things to do in Lisbon’ for more unusual suggestions of things to do and see in the city.

Most confusing convenience – Mumbai
During a meal in a restaurant on the top floor of a hotel in Mumbai I had to visit the men’s room between courses. When I returned the table had gone, completely disappeared. It simply wasn’t where it had been when I’d left it. Moving tables isn’t one of the things you think about when eating in a revolving restaurant for the first time. It took me five minutes to track down its new location.

Paying for the convenience – Beijing
It’s not uncommon to have to pay to use public toilets, but signs at the entrance to the ones at the entrance to the Forbidden City intrigued and amused. There were different prices depending on what the purpose of your visit was. This fascinated me. I wanted to ask if a cleaner went in afterwards/during to check people were being honest and not trying to sneak a number two for the price of a number one.

Historic attraction – Rothesay, Bute
People visit the Victorian toilets on the pier at my home town of Rothesay on the Isle of Bute whether they need to spend a penny (actually thirty pence the last time I was there) or not. These gorgeous enamelled toilets are a masterpiece of pissoir art from the 19th century and one of the few loos where the sight of someone lurking around with a camera wouldn’t result in a swift call to the local police.

Pissoir or art? – London
With some modern urban pissoirs it isn’t always obvious they’ve been designed for the purpose for which they exist. Such was the case one murky Sunday night near the Embankment in London. Whilst Andy was at a plush British Guild of Travel Writer’s dinner at the Savoy, I stood cross-legged desperately trying to decide if the cylindrical concrete block with curved man-sized niches cut into was indeed a pissoir or a work of modern art. I still don’t know for sure, but it reached a point where I didn’t care.

Most bizarre toilet – Costa Adeje, Tenerife
In recent years toilet designers have loosened up and are now having some fun with public conveniences, especially urinals. I like the one where photographs of women mock those using the urinals. In Munich Airport some urinals have a little golf flag in the bowl, to encourage better aim. Ones which were visually stunning, but also quite disturbing were in a bar called the Faro Chill Art in Costa Adeje, Tenerife where metal urinals were sculpted into the shape of nude women.

Intriguing bowls – Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria
I didn’t like to ponder too much about the toilet bowls in the cable car station at Bad Reichenhall in Bavaria. It’s Germany’s oldest cable car and I suspect the toilets date from the same time. What’s odd about them, to me anyway, is there’s a flat shelf in the bowl, right in the target zone area. The process doesn’t bear thinking about. But I’m intrigued as to why? It wasn’t really the sort of thing I could ask a Bavarian stranger.

Worst ever experience – Kandy, Sri Lanka
To round things up, it’s back to Sri Lanka. In the Royal Botanical Gardens near Kandy in the middle of a monsoon downpour, as we sheltered under a baobab, my stomach turned mutinous in the most violent fashion and I had to make a run for it on a desperate mission to find a loo. A sign for ‘welfare café’ seemed promising. It turned out to really be a welfare café where servers passed bowls of gruel through an iron grill to a sorry collection of souls. I shouted “toilet?” and one pointed to the rear where there was a lone corrugated-iron shed. My savour. In true thriller film fashion I made it with barely a second to spare. Only then did I realise there was no paper, no means for washing… nothing except the hole in the ground. All I had in the pockets of my snow-white shorts was a wad of rupees. It was the most expensive toilet visit I’ve had to this day.

I still wonder now what the next person who used that loo must have thought. I can imagine him/her saying to friends and family: “You want to know just how rich Europeans are?”

Jack is co-editor, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites as well as a contributor to online travel sites and travel magazines. Follow Jack on Google+

Since that fuzzy conversation I’ve been bewildered by the opinion of our culinary prowess, or lack off, by non-Brits. When I say non-Brits I mainly mean our American cousins as they invariably are the main perpetrators.

I regularly read travel pieces which accuse British food of being almost inedible.

Whenever I read this the same question pops into my head – where the hell do these people eat?

We’re based in Tenerife and view returning to Britain as a culinary treat. Not because food in Tenerife is mediocre, it isn’t, but because of the sheer diversity of the food available throughout the United Kingdom.

Recent visits have taken in Scotland, Wales and England, eating at randomly chosen restaurants and bars along the way, none of them expensive.

Food in Scotland
In Glasgow we started a day with a full on Scottish breakfast (including haggis, black pudding and tattie scones) in a city centre hotel. It might be a shortcut to a heart attack, but it is delicious. The day was ended at Asian fusion restaurant Opium on Hope Street where the most wonderful Thai green curry and chilli salt ‘n’ pepper squid was rounded off with deep fried ice cream. Can you get more west of Scotland than deep fried ice cream?

A trip to the highlands included a tablet tasting tour (of our own design). I’ve never met anyone whose knees didn’t buckle after trying tablet. At a nondescript motorway service station we picked up a range of Scottish pies, including venison pie; pure class.

Back on my home island of Bute, a place not known for its culinary greatness, we’ve enjoyed some ‘proper’ Scottish nosh – pheasant pâté (as local as you can get, it’s almost impossible not to run one over in those parts), tender venison fillets, haggis bons bons and rhubarb crumble.

Even at the restaurant in the Manor Park Hotel, chosen for its convenience for a flight from Prestwick Airport, the food was of the Scottish with flair variety, including a terrific tasting tower of black pudding, haggis and mash potatoes.

Food in Northern England
Anyone who writes about British food being poor clearly hasn’t been to York where there are pubs so welcoming and cosy, you’d happily set up home in some. Many of these taverns serve ales that have more flavour than some countries’ cuisine with food to match. In nooks and open courtyards we wolfed thick Cumberland sausages and flooded creamy mash potato mountains with savoury gravy, and demolished flaky steak and ale pies.

At Café No8 on Gillygate we struggled to choose from a menu of contemporary Brit food, each delectable sounding dish screaming ‘choose me, choose me’ from the menu. Slow cooked belly of pork with black pudding croquettes in an apple and fennel sauce wooed me in the end.
On another night I was transported dreamily back to south India with a mix of colourful creamy curries at Viva Goa on Fossgate, an unusually green chicken cafreal (mother’s favourite chicken dish according to the menu) being particularly good.

Food in Wales
Our most recent dining experiences in Wales were shocking. But that’s because we were pandering to young nephews who still view a trip to McDonald’s as a treat. It was awful food. But then, that’s an American import. Our Welsh eating experiences are normally in Hay on Wye where there are a head-spinning amount of rustically bohemian choices, warming soups at the Granary Café), or even just a simply, chunky homemade pork pie from the old school family butcher Chris Gibbons. The juices start flowing at the very thought of a visit to Hay on Wye.

Southern England
In North Devon our culinary travels veered from huge Cornish pasties beside the salty sea at Lynmouth to a Devon cream tea of scones, clotted cream and homemade jam. At night we had our first foray into the world of Nepalese food at the Gurkha Restaurant on Market Street in Barnstaple (locally recommended) which was a complete contrast with ye olde English Jack Russell pub in Swimbridge (where the first breeder of Jack Russells lived). The pub might be traditional English but the food, which included crispy sea bass and sweet potato chips, was bang up to date.

Our last visit ended in the capital at the World Travel Market where much of the food we ate was connected with the event; a Tenerife dinner (not Canarian food) and a Balearic tapas taster (tapas from the Balearics). However, we did manage to fit in another Indian curry (so-so) and a Turkish combo of dips (hummus, tzatziki and, my favourite, taramasalata) with fried mezes in the buzzing Sefa restaurant on Trafalgar Road in Greenwich.

Before stepping on the plane at Gatwick, we managed to slip in one more meal, a full English breakfast at Jamie Oliver’s in the north terminal – bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs, mushrooms, beans, black pudding and potatoes served in a frying pan. Pukka, as a certain famous British chef might say.

These might seem random choices from around Britain, but that’s the point – they were. They also reflected the diversity of culinary choice, the use of local products, the old, the new and the multiculturalism of the country. We enjoyed some super British food and didn’t pay a lot for the privilege of doing so.

Some people might turn up their noses at the idea of some British offerings such as haggis or black pudding, but that’s their limitations and doesn’t mean the food isn’t good. It’s a mistake to confuse personal preferences with a judgement on quality – the same applies to books, movies, music etc.

The bottom line is anyone who thinks British food isn’t good is clearly looking for lunch in all the wrong places.

Jack is co-editor, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites as well as a contributor to online travel sites and travel magazines. Follow Jack on Google+

The driver slowly and deliberately turns to me, fixes me with his glassy stare and, pronouncing every word as if he’s speaking to either a two year old or someone with learning difficulties, bellows at me:
“YOU’RE THE THIRD PERSON TO ASK ME THAT QUESTION IN THE LAST FIVE MINUTES! THERE WOULDN’T BE MUCH POINT IN HAVING AN AIRPORT SHUTTLE BUS IF IT DIDN’T GO TO BOTH TERMINALS, NOW WOULD THERE?!”

I’m now standing on the packed bus, my foot trying to prevent my case from falling over as the driver hurtles us around an endless series of roundabouts. In front of me two large red cases are dancing together across the aisle, wheeling over and back in synchronised darts, occasionally accompanied by a small twirl.

Ordinarily the dosey-doe duo would have brought a smile to my face, but I’m livid, and busily compiling my parting shot for when the bus finally grinds to a halt at Gatwick North Terminal.
“You know,” I rehearse to myself. “When someone doesn’t know your city or your systems and asks a perfectly polite question, it really would cost you nothing to give a polite response. May I suggest that you consider long and hard whether being in the public service sector is really the right career choice for you.”

I’m reasonably happy with my speech and as the bus pulls up in front of the Terminal, I move to just beyond the doors and turn to face the driver. But before I can get past “You know…”, a small blonde woman with an Essex accent strides towards the doors and loudly intones:
“Thank you sooo much for that wonderful journey, Driver, and for your happy and caring disposition towards your passengers, you ignorant GIT!”

It seems I’m not the only one who’s less than impressed with the bus driver’s attitude this morning.

But if I thought I was over the worst of my Gatwick experience I was sadly mistaken. Arriving in the departure lounge I check the information board for my Geneva flight which is on time, and head for the two long banks of easyJet check-in desks, each fronted by a single snaking queue that winds itself around five loops and tails out into the central hall. I take pot luck, join one of the queues and began to inch my way towards the start of the roped waiting area, wondering if I’ll still have time for breakfast before I board.

I’ve made about two feet of progress when I hear someone shouting over the heads of the queue on the other side of the hall:
“Anyone for Alicante flight please? Anyone for Alicante? Please make your way to the front of the queue.”
I continue to shuffle forward and a few minutes later a voice on my side of the zone shouts the ‘anyone for Alicante‘ message. Eight or ten people pass by me to make their way to the front. I check the time and see my fruit cocktail and hot buttered toast disappearing into Never Never Land.

After Alicante comes an ‘anyone for Corfu‘ call, then ‘anyone for Amsterdam‘ and ‘anyone for Marrakech‘ as inexorably, I and most of the rest of the queue make no progress whatsoever towards the check-in desk as more and more people surge forward to check in lest they miss their flights. By the time it gets to the ‘anyone for Tenerife‘ call there’s near anarchy in the queue with everyone, including me, clearly able to see that the easyJet check-in system SUCKS.

I finally make it to a check-in desk having been in the queue for the best part of two hours and my flight is now boarding. Not only do I not have time for breakfast, I still haven’t even had a cup of coffee and I’m beginning my journey in a foul mood.

My Gatwick departure was in late June – low season – and the weather was cold. I can’t even begin to conceive of what a nightmare that check-in system will be right now, or worse still, when August Bank Holiday weekend comes around.
It seems some airlines, hotels and public service employees still have a very long way to go in terms of customer service and unfortunately, they all seem to converge on Gatwick, my idea of travel Hell.

Andrea (Andy) Montgomery is a freelance travel writer and co-owner of Buzz Trips and The Real Tenerife series of travel websites. Published in The Telegraph, The Independent, Wexas Traveller, Thomas Cook Travel Magazine, EasyJet Traveller Magazine, you can read her latest content on Google+

The post Gatwick, My Idea of Travel Hell first appeared on buzztrips.co.uk.]]> https://buzztrips.co.uk/posts/gatwick-my-idea-of-travel-hell/feed/ 2 https://buzztrips.co.uk/posts/review-of-radisson-blu-hotel-london-stansted-airport/ https://buzztrips.co.uk/posts/review-of-radisson-blu-hotel-london-stansted-airport/#respond Fri, 16 Nov 2012 14:53:59 +0000 https://buzztrips.co.uk/?p=6630 A few minutes covered walk from the airport, the Radisson Blu Hotel is perfectly positioned for a late night arrival or early departure. [...]

The ‘room’ at that point was subdued to what seemed the point of boredom. Either I was in a parallel universe, I had the definition of ‘rocking the room’ all wrong or some tweets just weren’t accurately reflecting what was taking place at STM 2012 events.

This was just one of the reasons that some Social Media and Social Travel Market sessions just didn’t do it for me and why they represented the only disappointing aspect of World Travel Market 2012.

How to Measure Travel Blogger ROI
First up was Keith ‘Velvet Escape’ Jenkins  and Melvin ‘Travel Dudes’ Boecher’s How to Measure Travel Blogger ROI (return on investment). Developing a formula to measure ROI is a thankless and impossible task. The traditional print based method for measuring ROI has been by using AVE (Advertising Value Equivalent), something that is viewed by some professional marketing experts as nothing more than a marketing tool that uses arbitrary formulas to make PR companies look good to their clients.
In many way that is what ROI formulas are all about; providing clients with something they can use to justify budgets. It’s not qualitative in the slightest but traditional media has been getting away with using AVE for years, so respect to Keith and Melvin for trying to level the playing field.

Keith and Melvin made a valiant effort but the most searching questions from a couple of tourist board representatives in the audience exposed the problems with trying to measure ROI using selected statistics and questionable tools (e.g. Klout – whose popularity goes up and down depending on whether it makes people look good or not).

To be fair, Keith and Melvin’s presentation, although it raised many questions, was honest and sincere. What made me uneasy was that the session was also used as a promo for TBU’s travel bloggers directory; the opening salvo of what seemed to be a struggle for dominance in the travel blogging world between TBU and TBEX.

How to Sort Bloggers from Blaggers
This session highlighted my real beef with my Social Media & STM experiences and provided the most ironic title of Social Travel Market 2012.

There was much that wound me up with this presentation but the biggest crime was that it drew a large crowd based on its name and then didn’t address the question of How to Sort Bloggers from Blaggers in the slightest; the title was a hook.

About 20 minutes in, Rick Calvert asked Steve Keenan what a blagger was. Giving a presentation when you don’t know what the title means doesn’t inspire confidence and Steve’s explanation of a blagger being a thief didn’t match the more appropriate definition that a blagger is a bullshitter. Hence the irony, the title of the session bullshitted the audience.

Tourist boards and DMOs were there to find out how to identify serious travel bloggers, instead they got a promo for TBEX and the shiny new Professional Travel Bloggers Association.

I’m all for a professional association for those who view travel blogging as more than a hobby. But having entry requirements that consist of a) having blogged for 9 months and b) 3,000 page views a month begs the question ‘what exactly is the professional aspect’?

Maybe the professional part is that you have to pay a $75 subscription to be included as a professional travel blogger. Still, the low entry requirements means that the door to being a member of the PTBA is open to nearly all.

Additionally, tweets screened on the TV at the front of the room seemed to be selective and the irony was piled on further when the audience was asked if they trusted traditional media. This, at a session whose title had misled us, was a step too far.

Overall Disenchantment
At other sessions I listened to advice on how to get a job in social media from someone who didn’t have a blog because ‘you have to have something interesting to say to have a blog’; a PR rep who considered that older people experienced in traditional PR methods brought wisdom whilst young guns brought energy and enthusiasm – no sweeping generalisations there. There were also too many tweets that didn’t reflect at all what was being said or that repeated sound-bites out of context.

I didn’t attend the White Paper Best Travel Blogging Practice presentation. Having a government background, the name itself had me raising an eyebrow. My idea of a White Paper is a government policy document. But there is another definition; a private marketing tool. It’s important to make that distinction.

I’ve read the document and whilst there’s much to commend within, it ultimately ended up coming across to me as another promo for the people involved. There is nothing wrong with that, there’s some innovative stuff going on that deserves to be broadcast, but by the end of the sessions I was tired of being ‘sold’ products and people.

And that’s why these sessions didn’t do it for me. I like travel; I like learning and developing, I like the sharing of good practices; I like healthy debates; I like communities; I like travel bloggers and  travel writers; I like the fact that travel blogging has blown away tired old barriers.

But for me there was an overall feeling of being led (or misled) down carefully laid paths.

I’ve never responded well to attempts at manipulation, even in a subliminal way, by sales pitches with knobs on and that’s what some Social Media and Social Travel Market sessions felt like.

Jack is co-owner, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites plus lots of other things. Follow Jack on Google+

The World Travel Market is a huge shrine to the best of the world’s destinations with wonders and surprises around every corner.

Some places don’t need fancy stands and gimmicks; sometimes a few, well chosen photos are enough to have us staring dreamily towards exotic horizons. The banners above Tanzania worked that magic for me.

Mexico’s vibrant colour scheme screamed ¡ay caramba! and came across as mixing fun with the contemporary.

Some of the images on India’s stand held a sobering quality that stopped you in your tracks. I was transfixed by the intensity of this woman’s gaze.

The Middle East displays exuded style and opulence… but for me lacked the allure of other destinations.

The spot where all the smokers at the World Travel Market congregated for a nicotine hit.

The contrast of scenes could be quite bizarre – business suits in an ultra modern building in the same scene as huge bunches of flowers and a woman carrying fruit on her head.

What a Falkland’s penguin was doing in The Gambia who knows but he seemed to be enjoying the warmth.

After a few hours nobody even batted an eye at dwarf elephants under trees. But then, an elephant in the room at Social Travel Market presentations wasn’t uncommon.

Andalusia had a stand made completely from cardboard. I’m not sure I got the significance of that but I liked the images.

I wasn’t too sure what this guy was doing in his fish bowl but he seemed a happy chappy and he did know the way to some quite incredible tasting Colombian coffee.

Jack is co-owner, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites plus lots of other things. Follow Jack on Google+

People rush down tiled passages, slipstreaming to right and left, barely glancing away from their iPhones and iPads as they scurry along familiar routes.

Trains scream; the wind roars down tunnels and along platforms sending hair flailing and dust particles spinning; neon signs flash 5mins, 4mins, 3mins, 2.

Inside the trains eye contact is taboo. Faces peer at screens across which thumbs move deftly; the Metro News gets passed from fingers to seats to fingers in real time recycling. Seats vacate and occupy at lightening speed like a game of well rehearsed musical chairs and space morphs from ample to premium in the rhythmical opening of doors.

“The next stop”, “mind the doors” and “change here for…” intones the PA system in a bright, BBC accent while all around voices talk on phones and to each other in languages that bring the globe within a single carriage.

And everywhere the urgency is palpable. Crowds hurtle along corridors beneath the ‘Do not run’ signs, taking stairs two at a time, throwing themselves between closing doors. Bodies surge forward as doors glide open, joining Mother Nature in her abhorrence of a vacuum as they squeeze into gaps that don’t exist, personal space sacrificed to time.

Confused beyond words, we ask for help:
“How can we get from here to World Travel Market at Excel for the next three days without the aid of a second mortgage?”
Careful explanations are given, routes are weighed up in terms of speed versus costs and a solution is agreed. Cards are issued, payments are made, advice is given – “ping the pink for transition, swipe the yellow for exit”. It becomes our daily mantra.

Each time we hesitate before stepping from platform to train a friendly face is there to reassure or redirect. From Stratford our every move is choreographed over the PA system: “this exit for press, that for new registrations”; “change at Canning Town”; “services are good”.

Soon we’ve joined the throng of humanity that twice daily traverses the city, our disposable coffee cups in hand, faces scanning our screens for #WTM2012 updates, our feet taking us unconsciously competently from Overground to Underground to DLR to WTM at lightening speed and little cost, pinging the pink and swiping the yellow as we go.

There must be days, or weeks when Londoners face delays and rail at the rails for failed appointments, wasted time and late arrivals but through the eyes of a visitor, this is a fast, efficient, clean and cost effective way of travelling around the greatest capital city in the world.
Thank you London.

Andrea (Andy) Montgomery is a freelance travel writer and co-owner of Buzz Trips and The Real Tenerife series of travel websites. Published in The Telegraph, The Independent, Wexas Traveller, Thomas Cook Travel Magazine, EasyJet Traveller Magazine, you can read her latest content on Google+

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