Off-topic What's your favourite destination that you've visited in Australia or overseas?

[frggr]

Actually speaking of goats, I attended a festival once where men on horseback played a football-like game with a dead goat.

The goal was to deposit the goat in a basket at your end of the field and defend against your opponents doing the same.

 

[frggr]

‘Death Wank’ - now there’s a great name for any up-and-coming band.

They can tour with Crywank. It'll be great.

 

[frggr]

If you are ever sober enough to leave Kuta, there's a village in Bali that places placentas in coconut shells and hangs them from trees in the forest.

Further up the road there's a tribal group who bury their dead above ground.

In the Himalayas all the way across to the Caspian there are burial rituals where remains are for birds of prey - it seems to transcend religious practice.

In the Gobi desert are abandoned townships built by Europeans with perfectly gridded out streets and swimming pools. They found oil that was easier to drill in Siberia, so packed up and left.

And in another long forgotten corner of the desert, large earthen aircraft hangars that housed MiG fighter jets erupt out of the ground. The runway cracked and broken with weeds piercing through the surface.
Eerie to think that at some point not long ago the place would have been teeming with Soviet military personnel and their families - ready launch into action at a moments notice.

In the city there are bars dedicated to Hitler and a rampant neo-nazi scene - they understand they're Mongolian but they hate the Chinese.

There are cities whose names weren't known by the public. Cities where research took place and atomic weapons were detonated. In a nearby city there's a university and if you have passable Russian they'll let you see their collection of radiation-affected organisms. Still births and non-viable live births swimming in glass jars.

Did you know that Noah's Ark didn't finish up on Mount Ararat? It's on a hill near Shymkent.

Abandoned townships that house the families of aerial bomber units.

Seas that were emptied for agriculture.

What were islands became attached to the mainland which is bad news when you have your bioweapons lab on an island.

A cosmodrome a million miles from anywhere.that still launches rockets to this day. The abandoned Soviet version of a space shuttle left to decay in a place that takes a full day to get to, under darkness so as not to alert security.

In an abandoned park in Poland the world's largest statue of Pope John Paul II looks over the city.

There's a defence line built to stop the Soviets, that now houses Europe's largest bat colony. If you're not a peanut, the guide will take you to places usually off limits.

In the southern Caucuses you'll drink wine better than any you've had before and it will come out of a recycled water bottle. You'll eat food you didn't know existed.

You'll visit monasteries hewn from stone, stepping on the graves of dead monks and hearing the acoustic properties under hand carved domes that make them famous.

You'll see the ruin the capitalist transition left behind. The people still work but their wages are less. Their holidays fewer. Their safety an afterthought. The old timers paint the ordinary with gold remembering the heyday before coca cola was sold in every corne of the universe

You can see the town where two brothers lived. One brought ice cream to the Soviet Union and the other designed the MiG fighter jet.

You can see the hole the king threw Gregory the Illuminator into on a crisp clear morning as Ararat rises up off the floor with a border staffed by Russian-but-not-Russian troops in between.

You'll see a VVER-440 Model V-270 nuclear powerplant built in an earthquake prone area and see the half-built dreams of an imagined future all around it. The theatres and sports centers designed to attract top scientific talent that fell in a heap as the world's foundations shifted underneath and the curtain fell and the vultures and oligarchs circled high and wide.

You can find countries that don't exist propped up by gangsters and tinpot dictators. The incomplete bunkers 70 metres underground designed to withstand the worst excesses of human aggression. Just make sure you have a rope for when the ladder breaks 5 storeys down.

You can have guns pointed at you if you take a wrong turn.

In the jungle the mangrove snakes slither over your toes and countless turtle hatchlings make their way along the beach.

You can be out of range of all telecommunications and for weeks not knowing (thankfully) who won the flag. It's a blessed life.

In Arizona there's a yacht club in the middle of the desert. There's no body of water but you can stay on a yacht and you can become a member giving you reciprocal rights to yacht clubs elsewhere.

If you're lucky it'll be karaoke night and Omar will make you a drink. You'll sing one of the few songs you know that'll cross the cultural.divide and later a man will sternly ask what car you drive and threaten to slash your tyres.......so you can't leave and will be around for next week.

In Slovakia you can see the world grave digging championships or watch a football game where a train passes between the field and stands and old men call their players from their team campaigners (the universal truth).

If you find yourself in the right time you'll get a text message a decade later saying "I saw someone that looked just like you in a documentary about the strangest subject"

"Oh yeah. That was me" you'll say.

I think it doesn't really matter where you go, there's always something of interest to see if you're keen to see it.

 

[Wallaby]

Just in Aus:

The Coorong has an almost spiritual feel to it. There are no large deltas in Australia - the Coorong is the closest we get, but there is something about it.

In Tassie, the Tasman peninsula is great - not just Port Arthur. Don't sign up for the 3 Capes walk - you can do all the walks individually (as out-and-backs), and go back in the afternoon to a decent B&B for about half the price, and if you time it right, far fewer crowds (Cape Raoul is one of the 3 Capes and is right next to Shipstern Bluff).

Lord Howe Island is majestic.

 

[catscratchfever]

Actually speaking of goats, I attended a festival once where men on horseback played a football-like game with a dead goat.

The goal was to deposit the goat in a basket at your end of the field and defend against your opponents doing the same.

I think they play a game along those lines in Afghanistan (?)

 

[Occidental]

Caught a ship from Ushuaia at the bottom of Argentina down to Antarctica around 10 years ago. I still reminisce about that time as it was such a thrilling and amazing experience. I can still clearly recall my first step onto the continent of Antarctica.

 

[Triggering Tiger]

Caught a ship from Ushuaia at the bottom of Argentina down to Antarctica around 10 years ago. I still reminisce about that time as it was such a thrilling and amazing experience. I can still clearly recall my first step onto the continent of Antarctica.

I went on the old fairstar back in the day to see some beautiful islands, any on that way back to oz we hit some really bad weather, and I didn't think we'd make it back alive because some of those swells must have been at least 15 to 20 feet high.

 

[Pistol Night]

Caught a ship from Ushuaia at the bottom of Argentina down to Antarctica around 10 years ago. I still reminisce about that time as it was such a thrilling and amazing experience. I can still clearly recall my first step onto the continent of Antarctica.

That would be awesome. I watched a doco in the other day about Antarctica and the race for countries to set up “communities” there for when they can drill for oil when it’s allowed there in 2047 or something. Weird when we’re targeting net zero emissions before then and there’s 50 billion barrels worth under the ice down there according to test holes.

 

[catscratchfever]

That would be awesome. I watched a doco in the other day about Antarctica and the race for countries to set up “communities” there for when they can drill for oil when it’s allowed there in 2047 or something. Weird when we’re targeting net zero emissions before then and there’s 50 billion barrels worth under the ice down there according to test holes.

Drill in Antarctica??? Filthy greedy MF bastards. The mega corps know no boundaries except the limitations on their profits

 

[Tiger2709]

I have always wanted to visit Auschwitz or any other concentration camp with a girlfriend late at night and have inappropriate sex there

Reckon it would be a pretty thrilling experience myself !

I've been to Auschwitz, believe me it is not thrilling in the slightest, my wife who is Polish spent the day in the cafe sipping coffee, she said the smell of death was too much for her to walk around the place.

 

[frggr]

I've been to Auschwitz, believe me it is not thrilling in the slightest, my wife who is Polish spent the day in the cafe sipping coffee, she said the smell of death was too much for her to walk around the place.

Good kebab shop about 300 metres from the entrance.

I always figured it was an 'out of the way' place, but nope - right near the township.

 

[frggr]

I think they play a game along those lines in Afghanistan (?)

Yeah it's common through central asia. The Kyrgz are huge fans - Tajiks to a lesser extent. Excellent horsemanship.

 

[Saveloy Rockstar]

So you make empty claims without any proof

lol you mean like when you called me a LIAR because you can’t read? What a massive hypocrite you are. I don’t see anyone ITT posting proof, and nor should they

But since your ego won’t allow you to retract your false accusations, let’s have a bet about it. Loser deletes their account and never darkens the Bay again

Deal? Or you gonna squib it like a ?

I think we all know the answer

 

[Madas]

Most scenic - Lauterbrunnen Switszerland

Surreal - Petra Jordan

Best Party - Greek Islands during World Cup 1993

All round awesome - Japan everything ( except good fresh fruit and veg )

Dumbest thing ( one of many ) - climbing the steep side of Stromboli on my own in the afternoon and underestimating how long it would take , coming down in the dark ( live volcanoes at night are cool though but scary AF )

Life experience- taking a year off and driving around Oz with the wife and kids when they were little 15 years ago