Roughest Place You've Been?

[Guest Cannabis]

There are some proper shitholes around the world, places where even the pigeons look desperate to get out and never come back. Quite a simply question really, what is the roughest place you've ever had the misfortune of visiting? A place where you were counting down the minutes (and seconds) to get out?

[Bluewolf]

Any one of my kids rooms.... 

[nudge+]

The roughest but also the most hilarious was having a few beers at one of the disguised brothel for locals in one of the shady areas of Phnom Penh. The place is basically a typical local style rundown house/garage with a few pieces of worn filthy furniture and a stereo system inside, a few working girls, a few pimps and a other shady characters coming and going, bringing you drinks and offering various services haha. A very unique experience, but I was also quite happy to leave after a few drinks  

The filthiest, most disgusting place I've ever been to was one of the hostess bars in the city; low light, loud shitty music, smoke, it had cockroaches on the bar counter, strong smell of piss coming in from the toilets, a lot of drugged up worn out aggressive hookers and drunken customers, and a feeling that a fight will break out at any moment  

Worth mentioning: Khlong Toei slums in Bangkok. My apartment house some 20 years ago that was full of petty criminals, hookers, drunks and drug addicts, other lowlifes and a psycho who sometimes used to run around half naked with an ax in the lobby when he was having a flare up. A gypsy encampment.

[Inverted]

Never been stuck anywhere that mental abroad, so I'd probably say somewhere like Possil or Castlemilk.

Obviously they're pretty rough, and you'll even get a couple of shootings a year in Castlemilk, but it doesn't really compare to somewhere in the third world.

[IgnisExcubitor]

I have two on my list. 

1)  Govandi slums in Mumbai. Imagine a stretch of half a kilometer long road littered with garbage and faeces, with tiny shanties on both sides. It doesn't help that the city's garbage dumping ground is in this area, which also has stray fires, which adds the smell of burning plastic and rubber to the stench. Stray dogs that are menacing and itching to attack. Children that pester you for money and some who are pickpockets. And adults who are rank arseholes. I was stranded there after I caught the wrong bus. Asked a group of adults for directions, they demanded  hundred rupees. I thought they were joking initially, but they weren't. I could see that they were hoping for me to react, so that they could get into an argument and probably beat the shit out of me. Asked another group  and they pointed towards an alley. I quietly put my head down, stuck to the main road, walked for half an hour and got out of the area. 

My friends, who live close to that area, told me that I was lucky. If I had ventured into the alley, then I would probably have been mugged or suffered something worse. 

2)Number two would be Gurgaon, up north in the country. The place has a massive reputation, so I knew beforehand how to behave.

On my way to the hotel, a car was trying to overtake my Uber. It took my driver sometime to allow that car to pass by. As it was passing by my driver told me and my office colleague to not respond. As the car passed by we were greeted with expletives and threats by the men in that car, because we made them wait for few seconds instead of letting them pass by quickly. Apparently, this is quite a norm in Gurgaon and if you are ever visiting India, and happen to venture into Gurgaon, then remember to never argue. Cause every third person has a gun and is well-connected and a little short in the head, and won't think twice before doing something violent. 

[Tommy]

Blackpool.

[Harry]

Delhi, india. Maniac bus driver. Taking me to the airport. We lost a side mirror to an oncoming truck. I wanted out so badly

[SirBalon]

Returning to my toilet after having had something too spicy the night before.

[carefreeluke]

London is quite strange in the fact that some of the areas that were previously known as being rough have now become considered posh or good places to live. 

[Honey Honey]

Rough, at least in Britain, I think is just areas with high juvenile delinquency. 

[Smiley Culture]

Can’t really recall any times I’ve felt unsafe or scared in a place in all honesty. Probably in a pub in a place called Goldthorpe near Barnsley where, upon being the first of 50ish in the door, the local youths greeted me with taunts about Maggie Thatcher, a woman who was dead and was in power before I was born.

I went to Blackpool in May and it’s rundown and deprived rather than what I’d class as rough. I didn’t exactly feel uncomfortable there but I didn’t really put myself in situations where that could arise. 

Most, if not all places will have it’s nice parts and it’s not so nice parts, especially big cities. You can travel ten-twenty minutes away from a nice area and you’ll be in a horrible part of town. I took my girlfriend to Rome for her birthday a couple of years ago and on the way into the city from the airport I was thinking “what have I done here?” as the taxi driver drove through parts of the city that were deprived, graffiti ridden and awful on the eye places but another ten minutes in the car and we were in the most beautiful city I’ve had the pleasure of going to. 

[Stan]

Luton.

[Toinho]

Deadlinesman.

[CaaC (John)+]

Niddrie/Craigmillar here in Edinburgh, we lived there for around 12 years, you had young kids roaming the streets and back alleys all night and in the early hours of the morning setting fire to bins and empty blocks of flats, heard it's quietened down a bit now since they pulled all of the old housing blocks down and built new modern blocks but it's still a drug haven place behind closed doors.

Also, Tilbury Docks where I was born and grew up and the police were just as rough, if they caught you doing something wrong in them days they would kick you up the arse and grab you by the ear or scruff of the neck and march you home to your parents and let them deal with you too.    

[DeadLinesman]

19 minutes ago, Toinho said:

Deadlinesman.

Fucking nob 

[Berserker]

In 6th grade when i was at one of the poshest schools in the country we made a school trip to a foster home i think in a neighbour called Gonzalez Catan which is one of the poorest of the country and is also in one of the poorest municipalities. The fucking place was like visiting fucking Detroit, abandoned burnt cars everywhere, houses that looked they had with-stained a bombing, lots of mud, shady looking characters, awful place i wouldn't want to visit again.

Another time i accompanied a Paraguayan guy i used to hang out with to visit his dad at the villa 31 which is also known as "La villa de los Paraguayos" and i believe is the second biggest slum in the country and like all of them is mostly inhabited by immigrants of neighbouring and near countries and their descendants, it's a giant place with lots of alleys, stray dogs, cockroaches, rats and ironically is emplaced next to one of the poshest and nicest parts of the city where an apartment could easily cost you 400k USD.

You'd never want to venture in one of those places alone and much less at night.

 

[Danny]

7 hours ago, carefreeluke said:

London is quite strange in the fact that some of the areas that were previously known as being rough have now become considered posh or good places to live. 

Never thought I'd see a day where people rush to live in Hackney and Brixton

[SirBalon]

1 hour ago, Danny said:

Never thought I'd see a day where people rush to live in Hackney and Brixton

Pekham too... If only Delboy had've held onto his flat in Nelson Mandela Estate. 

Properties are way overpriced everywhere by a very long margin and as we all know that's the crux of how the original de ographic was pushed out of those areas.

I remember the centre of Islington (The Angel and Upper Street) being dumps when I was a kid and now you need to be more than just very wealthy to buy a property there.

[Smiley Culture]

1 hour ago, Danny said:

Never thought I'd see a day where people rush to live in Hackney and Brixton

I work with loads of middle class saddos who are from the likes of Berkshire and Cambridgeshire who live in Brixton. 

[Danny]

3 minutes ago, Smiley Culture said:

I work with loads of middle class saddos who are from the likes of Berkshire and Cambridgeshire who live in Brixton. 

Who I'm sure will complain about gang culture, knife crime, homelessness etc without giving much back to the community.

Its all good, just chuck up a load of niche shops and try and hide the poor

[carefreeluke]

Yeah, Peckham was where my Mum and her side of the family grew up and she often comments on what it used to be like. Changed now though as mentioned.

[Inverted]

On 01/12/2018 at 13:23, carefreeluke said:

London is quite strange in the fact that some of the areas that were previously known as being rough have now become considered posh or good places to live. 

A similar thing has happened in Glasgow too. Back even up to the nineties locals wouldn't go near somewhere like Finnieston or Anderston at night. Now they're full of new student accommodation developments and (in Finnieston's case) properly good bars and restaurants. 

 

[Toinho]

Personally, Phnom Penh is arguably the worst place I have ever been. Horrible. 

I also spent just under a day in Delhi. Couldn’t wait to leave. Madness. No thanks. 

[nudge+]

5 minutes ago, Toinho said:

Personally, Phnom Penh is arguably the worst place I have ever been. Horrible. 

I have a love/hate relationship with Phnom Penh. It has a lot of rough/shady/rundown areas and I would never want to live there for various reasons, but it also has a very unique flair which unfortunately is disappearing fast due to all new big projects and investments and rapid urban development. Love a stroll along the riverside ending with watching the sunset and the locals in front of the Royal Palace and then a few beers in one of the cult bars/cafes/pubs (like Foreign Correspondents Club). Love all the temples that are actually complex little communities with life bustling behind its walls. Love the buildings in the old French and the old Chinese quarters. The suburbs are also very chill and nice. And then you have the crazy side with horrible traffic, filthy streets with hidden brothels and dirty bars with drugged up hookers, tuktuk drivers offering you drugs and anything else you might wish for at night, dark dirty alleys with shady characters gathering on dimly lit corners... It's mad but it's also strangely intoxicating 

[Carnivore Chris]

On 01/12/2018 at 13:32, Harvsky said:

Rough, at least in Britain, I think is just areas with high juvenile delinquency. 

I'd say it was a bit more than that in the big cities these days mate. People(mainly kids) are being stabbed almost on a daily basis. There are areas that you just wouldn't want to enter after dark and not because of a few teens hurling abuse at you or drinking in streets.