The Dark Side of Travel: 10 Cities That Tourists (and Even Some Locals) Remember with Disappointment and Horror (11 photos)

Different cities of the world attract tourists with different attractions – cultural, architectural, sports, gastronomic, mystical and more. But it also happens that the trip turns into a complete disappointment and even horror.





Readers on Reddit shared their stories about the most terrible cities they had a chance to visit. Although, even in the darkest and most oppressive atmosphere of such a settlement, you can find its own highlight.

1. Managua, capital of Nicaragua



Children with traces of paint around their mouths and noses crowded around every intersection, begging for change. If someone gave them a coin, the child would run to an adult, give them the money, and in return they would let him inhale from a bag of paint.

At the entrance to the hotel, doormen hid MP5 machine guns under their jackets. Some kind of liquid was flowing through the gutters. Judging by the smell, it was sewage. Of course, I didn't check.

2. Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh





A terribly overcrowded city, where rivers of sewage flow along the roads. There are simply no traffic rules there, buses and cars drive around beaten up, with broken windshields, with doors falling off. All this disgrace is regulated only by people with sticks, knocking on buses that are delayed on the road.

It is unbearably hot there almost all year round. An all-pervasive stench hangs over the entire city like a curse. And if you're white, the locals stare at you like you're an alien. Once, a woman suddenly shoved a baby at me and my colleague for no apparent reason, and then started screaming at the top of her lungs when we didn't want to take it. Hell of a place.

3. Termez, Uzbekistan



I was kidnapped there by a smuggler.

I was in Termez for work (I was working in international development in Central Asia at the time), and unfortunately, I decided to hitchhike to the place.

A man picked me up, but asked me to sit in the back seat and locked the door. At first, everything was fine, but then I noticed that he had driven past his destination. I asked why, and he said, "Wait a few minutes." Those "few minutes" turned into a half-hour race along a dusty road to nowhere with no network coverage. Finally, he stopped at an abandoned gas station. At the time, I thought he just wanted to fill up with gas at a discount, but I still didn't understand why he needed to take me with him.

He parked, got out, took a large black duffel bag out of the trunk and handed it to the man waiting for him. Then he returned to the car, pulled out a knife and demanded my phone. Considering that I had no idea where I was, I gave him the phone. It was at that moment that I realized that the situation was clearly not going well.

After that, we drove around the border regions of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan for a few more hours - he delivered black bags and took white envelopes in return. I thought about hitting him or breaking the window and running away, but honestly, I didn’t believe I could do it. So I just sat there, huddled up, hoping that they wouldn’t kill me.

In the evening, he dropped me off on the outskirts of Termez, but didn’t give me my phone back. I went into the first cafe I came across and called my employer. They came for me. Curiously, my kidnapper didn’t even try to steal my wallet - I still had my money and documents.

I told my colleagues from the employer’s security service about what happened. They assumed that this man was transporting illegal substances and decided to use a foreigner in his car in case of capture, so that he could say that the bags belonged to me. I didn't report it to the local police and just left the country as quickly as possible. I haven't been back to Uzbekistan since.

4. Alexandra, South Africa



I'm not sure if this is considered an independent city or technically part of the Johannesburg metropolitan area, but it deserves to be on the worst places list.

There are many bad places in South Africa, but there are few worse than Alexandra. Everywhere you look, there are slums and poverty. There are no paved roads, and sewage flows right through the streets. Entire families huddle in tiny shacks made from galvanized iron sheets. Burning tires, piles of garbage and broken bottles.

Crime, gang warfare and violence envelop the village like a thick, suffocating fog.

Don't even think about going there at night. Pray that your car doesn't break down while you're driving through this place. If you find yourself there without a really good reason, you might want to seriously reconsider your life choices.

5. Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA



It's been almost five years since I moved here, and I'm still trying to get out. The weather is terrible - seven months of the year, unbearable. Crime and road rage are off the charts, and people generally don't care about anything but their own interests. The food is good, though.

I was in a restaurant in Albuquerque one time, and suddenly I saw a cat walking calmly across the room. I said to the waiter, "I've never been in a restaurant with a cat before." To which he replied, "That's not actually our cat."

6. Sanliurfa, Turkey



This is my hometown, by the way. It's unbearably hot there, but that's not even the biggest problem. The whole city is filthy, the people are loud and rude, the food is overpriced, and it all looks like the "Dust 2" map from Counter-Strike.

7. Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia



I was warned at the hotel not to take valuables with me when going out. The city was full of people covered in mud, with obvious signs of mental illness, defecating right in the street. And the taxi to the airport was surrounded by guys who started rocking the car back and forth with all their might because we accidentally ran over their soccer ball.

I got cheated out of $50 in my first 48 hours in Addis Ababa. At the Merkato market, some guy called me "Mr. Moron." The hotel staff just laughed at me when I told them about it. I was bitten by fleas in the room. The city is wild, nothing to say.

8. Auano, Ecuador



I'm sure almost none of you have even heard of this place. I recommend you search it on the Internet, go to Google Images and look at the top ten pictures.

This settlement is located in the heart of the Amazon forest, literally on the last frontier of civilization before. You can get there only by motorboat up the Napo River. The atmosphere of poverty and hopelessness reigns in this place, the locals have no hope for changes for the better. This is the most brutal manifestation of poverty I have ever seen.

Poor people live all over the world, even in the richest cities, but the people of Auano are distinguished by their resignation to their fate - they know that they will never get out of there.

At the same time, the people themselves are amazing - hospitable, kind, creative. But their life is incredibly sad, and the place itself looks terribly neglected and dirty.

9. Nairobi, Kenya



The slums are horrific, a stark contrast to the house we visited in a gated community with guards and barbed wire. Another house we were invited to also had its own wall, topped with barbed wire, and was guarded 24 hours a day.

In Nairobi, you get the impression that you are either incredibly rich or incredibly poor – and the poor are the vast majority. Even McDonald's is surrounded by a barbed wire fence.

10. Varanasi, India



I once got into a tuk-tuk (motor rickshaw) to go to Sarnath, and we passed by a giant open-air dump literally filled with people - adults and children, who were digging through garbage and climbing ten-meter mountains of garbage. Just endless mountains of garbage ... I have never seen anything like this before and I hope I never see it again.

The sight of people brushing their teeth with water from the river was also a shock to me. Hungry animals roaming everywhere. However, this is quite common in South Asia, but there were especially many of them on the stepped embankments - ghats.

One day, when I was not in the room, monkeys got into it, left their "gifts" everywhere and tore up most of my things. Goats attacked me several more times on the ghats. And there are fake sadhus (ascetics) wandering around, trying to extort money from tourists. But culturally and historically, this place is unique - there is nothing like it anywhere else in India.

The Paharganj area of ​​Delhi is generally hell on earth. And I no longer have the desire to return to the central regions of Northern India. But Kerala, Karnataka and Rajasthan left the most pleasant impressions.

Users shared their opinions on cities that they do not want to visit