Roughest Place You've Been?

[Guest]

I highly doubt any of you live in a city as dangerous as Lima.

I had to accompany a college mate to La U's training ground which is in the south of the city. He lives somewhere completely different to me and isn't a higher class citizen, so on the way back I followed him on the bus and didn't take my usual route. Regretful decision, as I ended up in Cerro el Pino, the most dangerous part of the entire city. The worst part is our second would take half an hour to arrive, so it's not like I was there a few seconds and then left. I was standing in the same place for about a good 30 minutes.

It looks kind of like this...

[Stan]

10 minutes ago, Cannabis said:

Looks like Croxteth that. 

I was gonna say Bradford.

Same difference!

[nudge+]

7 minutes ago, Blue said:

I highly doubt any of you live in a city as dangerous as Lima.

I had to accompany a college mate to La U's training ground which is in the south of the city. He lives somewhere completely different to me and isn't a higher class citizen, so on the way back I followed him on the bus and didn't take my usual route. Regretful decision, as I ended up in Cerro el Pino, the most dangerous part of the entire city. The worst part is our second would take half an hour to arrive, so it's not like I was there a few seconds and then left. I was standing in the same place for about a good 30 minutes.

It looks kind of like this...

I always wondered what is it with Latin/Central/South America that the violence and crime is so prevalent? Extreme poverty exists everywhere; it's at least as bad in certain parts of Asia (and much worse in some), but none of the places here are even close to being as dangerous as the ones in the Americas, with certain areas of Manila being the only exception maybe.

[Rab]

Sandpaper isle at B&Q.

[Dr. Gonzo]

21 minutes ago, nudge said:

I always wondered what is it with Latin/Central/South America that the violence and crime is so prevalent? Extreme poverty exists everywhere; it's at least as bad in certain parts of Asia (and much worse in some), but none of the places here are even close to being as dangerous as the ones in the Americas, with certain areas of Manila being the only exception maybe.

I'm sure it has something to do with the drug route from South America to the USA that plays a part in it. Controlling the drug trade means big money that isn't made legally, so when you've got a black market you've got gangs and all of the stuff that goes with a black market. And with the widespread poverty there, the extreme wealth you can make from getting in on the drug trade makes it profitable to jump onto it when it's one of your country's most popular exports (or the route for a highly sought after product's biggest markets crosses through your country).

The roughest place I've been is Zona Norte in Tijuana at about 3 A.M. - I've heard there's much rougher there though.

[DeadLinesman]

10 minutes ago, Rab said:

Sandpaper isle at B&Q.

Get. Out.

[nudge+]

6 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I'm sure it has something to do with the drug route from South America to the USA that plays a part in it. Controlling the drug trade means big money that isn't made legally, so when you've got a black market you've got gangs and all of the stuff that goes with a black market. And with the widespread poverty there, the extreme wealth you can make from getting in on the drug trade makes it profitable to jump onto it when it's one of your country's most popular exports (or the route for a highly sought after product's biggest markets crosses through your country).

The roughest place I've been is Zona Norte in Tijuana at about 3 A.M. - I've heard there's much rougher there though.

Might be a part of explanation, yes... I also think it partly stems from the culture; Latin America is very much macho whereas in Asia most cultures generally tend to avoid confrontation ("saving face" concept). Kind of explains the Philippines being an outlier as well as they inherited a lot of that culture from the Spanish conquerors.

[Honey Honey]

54 minutes ago, The Rebel CRS said:

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.

Maybe but knife crime in London is hit and run, postcode war type. You're not necessarily under the rough unsafe feeling. Especially not on the well lit CCTV main roads. This is especially the case because of the mix between rich and poor on the same streets. Maybe 15 years ago before gentrification parts of London would put the willies up someone from somewhere safer.

[stink]

On 01/12/2018 at 16:53, nudge said:

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.

3

I have many fond memories of thailand myself 

[Stan]

Welcome to the forum, @stink!

@Cannabis went to Thailand and came back a different person, but he won't ever tell us the true story of what happened... 

[Guest]

13 hours ago, nudge said:

I always wondered what is it with Latin/Central/South America that the violence and crime is so prevalent? Extreme poverty exists everywhere; it's at least as bad in certain parts of Asia (and much worse in some), but none of the places here are even close to being as dangerous as the ones in the Americas, with certain areas of Manila being the only exception maybe.

See, I personally don't find it that dangerous here if you use common sense. I go to shitty areas of Lima all the time and always come out alive. However, I'm expecting it to happen to me someday, I'm just good at reducing the risk of it.

I try to be as careful as possible. My dad, ex girlfriend and a couple mates have all been robbed at gunpoint here. I know the precautionary thing to do if that ever happens to me but even still in those situations you don't always make it out.

[nudge+]

2 minutes ago, Blue said:

See, I personally don't find it that dangerous here if you use common sense. I go to shitty areas of Lima all the time and always come out alive. However, I'm expecting it to happen to me someday, I'm just good at reducing the risk of it.

I try to be as careful as possible. My dad, ex girlfriend and a couple mates have all been robbed at gunpoint here. I know the precautionary thing to do if that ever happens to me but even still in those situations you don't always make it out.

Oh sure, common sense goes a long way and can keep one out of trouble in most cases. I was just wondering about the overall homicide and other violent crime rates; the Americas are way ahead of anyone else in the world with only Africa keeping up. Just a comparison: I've been to slums and other shady areas in Cambodia and Thailand and felt safe there during the day (after dark is a different story but that's what I mean by common sense...), but I would never even think of doing the same in the Americas. There's poverty, drugs, gangs and criminal activities too, still the levels of violent crime towards outsiders aren't anywhere near the Americas level...  

[Harry]

On 02/12/2018 at 00:07, Cannabis said:

Not that it's a dangerous place (it's beautiful) but I visited Barcelona last month and the taxi I was in taking me from the airport to the hotel got side-swiped . My mobile phone flew out of my hand and under the drivers foot, luckily nobody injured.

Have you been to India mate? 

My bus loss of mirror was the craziest and most preventable thing ive ever seen. We were overtaking a car that was itself overtaking a truck on a single lane road. 

The car went right onto the other side of the road to overtake (oncoming traffic coming straight at it).  We tried to go around them even wider by going out wide right onto the dirt median. 

We only just got bank into the right spot before the truck coming the other way took our wing mirror. 

I wanted to kill that driver for stupidity. 

[Toinho]

2 hours ago, Harry said:

Have you been to India mate? 

My bus loss of mirror was the craziest and most preventable thing ive ever seen. We were overtaking a car that was itself overtaking a truck on a single lane road. 

The car went right onto the other side of the road to overtake (oncoming traffic coming straight at it).  We tried to go around them even wider by going out wide right onto the dirt median. 

We only just got bank into the right spot before the truck coming the other way took our wing mirror. 

I wanted to kill that driver for stupidity. 

When asked where you’re from, when you said Australia, how many times did they respond with “eyyy Ricky Ponting!” ? For me it was about 90% of the time haha 

[Bluewolf]

On 01/12/2018 at 09:53, nudge said:

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.

Do you go to these places out of choice just for the crack ( and when I say that I obviously mean the laugh as opposed to the drug ) or do you end up in them because you are in the company of others.. I appreciate you are the adventurous kind but just can't see you being lured in to a place like that alone just because it has nice flickering pink neon lighting above the door.. 

Used to find myself in some right dodgy dives in London back in the day... All the usual dodgy stuff going on of course and even one place we were at had some bloke trying to flog us guns.. tried to seal the deal by throwing in some ammo as well.. crazy stuff

[nudge+]

3 minutes ago, Bluewolf said:

Do you go to these places out of choice just for the crack ( and when I say that I obviously mean the laugh as opposed to the drug ) or do you end up in them because you are in the company of others.. I appreciate you are the adventurous kind but just can't see you being lured in to a place like that alone just because it has nice flickering pink neon lighting above the door.. 

Used to find myself in some right dodgy dives in London back in the day... All the usual dodgy stuff going on of course and even one place we were at had some bloke trying to flog us guns.. tried to seal the deal by throwing in some ammo as well.. crazy stuff

Haha usually in the company of others and that just happens spontaneously; illegal brothels and filthy hostess bars aren't something I'd be going to on my own on purpose normally  There are a few exceptions though; some of the said bars are dodgy but cool and it's usually a fun place on a night out...that one was absolutely disgusting though. 

Went to the Khlong Toei slum in Bangkok out of choice though as we wanted to do some photography. It's not that bad during daytime (there's even a relatively popular market there); and my dad was actually staying there at a friend's shack for over a month back in the early 80s when he had some financial issues while living in Thailand and had to wait for a while before he could get it sorted back in Germany; so I knew what to expect. 

 

[The Artful Dodger]

On ‎03‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 18:23, Stan said:

I was gonna say Bradford.

Same difference!

It amazes me that people use Bradford as a definition of a 'shithole', it's got one of the finest Victorian centres in Britain, crammed full of fascinating buildings. It's immensely preferable to its neighbour Leeds which is just bland and uninspiring for a supposedly big city.

Of course it has myriad social problems but you can find them anywhere human beings of more than a small amount exist.

[The Artful Dodger]

I've not experience anywhere truly terrible, many of the inner city areas of London/Liverpool/Manchester/Birmingham are pretty ropey at times but they usually have the redeeming feature of being close to the energy and life of the city centre. The more dismal places tend to be the big estates tagged onto these places when we made some of the worst planning decisions ever post-1945. The soulless towns like Kirkby and Skelmersdale offer very little and the sink estates of Wythenshawe or Bransholme in Hull are pretty depressing.

Then again, even the 'wealthy' versions of these new towns are miserable places, Milton Kenyes has very little character and Stevenage is even worse. Probably don't fall into the 'rough' category but grim places all the same.

 

 

[Lucas]

Being truly honest, I don't think I've experienced what I'd call a true 'shithole'. Lots of uninspiring places I haven't been keen on that are a little rough and undesirable but nothing like a proper full on slum somewhere or shanty town where you'd genuinely feel for your life.

That said, recently went to Belfast and was on one of those hop on, hop off bus tour's. Was pretty nice city till I went to the west side of the city and couldn't believe they still had peacewalls in place to separate a neighbourhood, one side catholics, one side protestants. There is a road with gates either side that open at 7am and close at 7pm at night. Once closed, nothing can pass in and out of there. 80% of Belfast's crime rate seems to happen there.

You could genuinely feel the tension there. I wouldn't want to be knocking about there in the evening.

[Dan+]

I don't think anywhere I've been is really that bad in all honesty. Some parts of Glasgow maybe but that's not really that bad compared to what is out there.

Biggest dump in the UK I reckon is either Blackpool or Newport.

[Marc]

Phnom Penh is also up there for me. Just a dirty place in every sense of the word. I never really felt threatened, but I was uncomfortable at points. Went to the S21 prison and there were some really aggressive beggars when we left. People with bad facial scars , pointing to their injuries andtrying to grab us asking for money, not a nice experience. I also remember some young teenagers hanging around a market that looked dodgy as fuck and were apparently addicted to sniffing glue?! It's also hard to find a bar in parts of the City that isn't also acting like a brothel.

Cambodia is an amazing place though and I wouldn't want this thread to put people off going to cambodia or Phnom Penh. 99% of the people are some of the nicest i've ever met, but it's still a very poor third world country that has its problems.

[Vegan Kel]

Ordsall

[MUFC]

7 hours ago, Salford Kel said:

Ordsall

Lol use to play Sunday league, under 16s and open age in the Eccles and Salford League. Played on Ordsall Rec and Dutchy, shit places in the summer when they all pissed lol. 

 

Anyway been to Peshawar in Pakistan for an hour, is on the border with Afghanistan. Was weird seeing people walking around with missile launchers and AK47's. Karachi is rough as fuck.

[Azeem]

6 minutes ago, MUFC said:

Lol use to play Sunday league, under 16s and open age in the Eccles and Salford League. Played on Ordsall Rec and Dutchy, shit places in the summer when they all pissed lol. 

 

Anyway been to Peshawar in Pakistan for an hour, is on the border with Afghanistan. Was weird seeing people walking around with missile launchers and AK47's. Karachi is rough as fuck.

When ? 

[MUFC]

4 minutes ago, Azeem said:

When ? 

December 1990.