Danger is my middle name
I have in the past bemoaned the way that the UK has become very, well, safe. Ambulance-chasing lawyers have seen this nation become nearly as litigious as the US, with everything from health and safety legislation to ultra-cushioned adventure playground surfaces meaning that it is extraordinarily difficult to do yourself a mischief. Stupid people have to go to extraordinary lengths to kill or maim themselves by tombstoning off piers or cliffs, and the last time I saw an English child with a fat scab on his knee or his arm in plaster was probably about the same time I last saw white dog poo.
There is just no middle ground, no moderately risky activity any more. It’s either tea and cake and Midsomer Murders, or suicide. How is Darwinian natural selection supposed to work in these ridiculous conditions?!
So it’s going to be a great change of scene in Cambodia, where it is quite a lot easier to get hurt, or dead. Take last month’s plane crash in dense Cambodian jungle, where 22 people died on a decrepit Russian plane piloted by an Uzbek. The pilot’s final conversation with the control tower went like this:
“We are flying at an altitude of 2000 feet.” (pilot)
“You are flying too low. Given your current location, you should move to an altitude of 4000 feet.” (control tower, Sihanoukville)
“It’s no problem; I am familiar with this area.” (pilot)
There was no more communication after this point as the pilot promptly flew the plane into the side of a mountain.
That may be an extreme example, but there are plenty of other ways to buy it, mainly by going anywhere near the roads, as well as the various diseases one could contract. This means that bitching health insurance which gets me airlifted all the way home if need be was one of the first things on my shopping list for this trip.
So, Ambulance Chasing Lawyers For You, could I get 100% of the compensation I am entitled to? Not on your nelly, mate.
Dangerous things that happened to me last time I travelled to Asia:
- Had bricks thrown at me and ran risk of being knifed by irate drunken Vietnamese moto driver
- Fell out of a toilet in a bar in Siem Reap, received nasty bruises to abdomen
- Sat in the back of a motorcycle rickshaw that was not securely attached to motorcycle, very quickly flipped back 90 degrees to see stars with feet stuck up in air
- Ate a cricket
Quite Random is the blog of Nathan Nelson, a human male who lives in the UK and is not entirely sure what he's going to do when he grows up but is interested in international development, photography, secularism, technology, music and movies and other things anyone of his age would be.
There I was, trying to avoid worrying, and then you go on about plane crashes!
Stop frightening people with tales of plane crashes. All your previous “mishaps” seem to have a self-inflcted element to them.
The worst thing that happened to me was being stung by a nasty looking insect on a salt pan in Death Valley ( US), then waiting to see how bad the sting might be and whether I was one of those people who goes into anaphylatic shock.
I’d never been stung by anything other than a horse-fly previously, and the nearest help was at a tourist centre 45 minutes drive away.
I’m glad to say insect stings seem to bring on nothing more than a huge lump on the offended part of the anatomy.
OK, my previous mishaps were mostly self-inflicted, but they were nevertheless all really nasty.
Glad you survived your nasty experience. Travel is dangerous!