October 11, 2025 • 30 mins
Two worlds collide in this week's episode, as Artificial Intelligence makes the news for sending travellers to locations that don't exist. We hear about a couple in Peru who were left stranded, after letting AI plan their trip!
We find out what a coffee pot, water pump and a safe box all have in common, as Tripological Reasoning returns with hypothetical scenarios that may or may not be Alun's real life dilemmas.
Tales of a Trip crosses a border with no passport stamp! We hear from a fellow travel podcaster who attempted to cross into Laos without having technically been in Thailand. Nothing a game of snooker and a small bribe can't fix!
Follow James at Roaming with Hammo: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC173L0udkGL15RSkO3vIx5A
James' Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wingingittravelpodcast?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=NnkxZjdteWFpbmhu
Submit your travel stories to: https://www.tripologypodcast.com/talesofatrip
BBC Travel article: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250926-the-perils-of-letting-ai-plan-your-next-trip
Need travel insurance? We recommend SafetyWing! Click here to get started: https://safetywing.com/?referenceID=26035801&utm_source=26035801&utm_medium=Ambassador
Require an onward flight? Please use this fantastic flight rental service: https://onwardticket.com/tripologypodcast
Check out our Discord: https://discord.gg/gztSSwBg
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tripologypodcast/
Take a look at out our website: https://www.tripologypodcast.com
Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@tripologypodcast
Join us on X: https://x.com/tripologypod
Thank you, as always, for your continued support. It means the world.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hello and welcome to this episode of Tripology.
It's the only show where the twohosts creeping, tiptoeing about
planet Earth with ever such speed.
I'm Alan and I'm here with the ever misleading Adam.
It's one hell of a show today, mate.
We've got an article in the beginning, a really fun article.
We're going to talk about when 2worlds collide, the travel
(00:24):
world, the real world, and the futuristic world of AI.
Then in the second section of the show, we've got a
tripological reasoning where you're going to ask me what on
earth would I do in this situation?
It's completely hypothetical. And then of course, at the end
of the show, we've got everyone's favorite section.
It's Tales of a Trip where we hear from one of you guys What
an. Excellent summarisation of the
show to come. It's all very, very exciting.
(00:44):
An article, you say? Using artificial intelligence in
the travel world. Do pray tell?
I know that is something that you're well, something something
you've got experience in very first hand.
I remember when you were waltzing around Shanghai with
ChatGPT up your arm. Yeah, I think.
There's two categories of peoplein their relationships with AI.
You've got the doomers, the people that think AI is going to
(01:06):
take over the world and it's a terrible thing, and people who
dare to have a glimmer of hope, thinking that actually AI is a
useful tool and if used in moderation it can just make life
better. I think I'd probably sit in that
camp. I think that it can be a good
tool to be utilised. Yeah, so there I was earlier
today, mate. And I was thinking, I've got a
(01:28):
chat with Alan later. What is it we can talk about?
I went on the BBC website and I went to the travel section as
I'd like to do, because that's just sort of my, my afternoon
reading. You know, when I'm at work and
there's nothing to do, I like toread about travel.
And I came up with this article,came across this article, beg
your pardon. And it was titled The Perils of
Letting AI Plan Your Next Trip. So I'm just going to go through
(01:48):
the the article now. And it really is quite
interesting. It was published earlier today.
So the article starts an imagined town in Peru and Eiffel
Tower in Beijing. Travellers are increasingly
using tools like ChatGPT for itinerary ideas and being sent
to destinations that don't exist.
Miguel Angel Gongora Meza, founder and director of
(02:09):
Evolution Treks Peru, was in rural Peruvian town preparing
for a trek through the Andes when he overheard a curious
conversation. 2 accompanied unaccompanied tourists were
chatting amicably about their plans to hike alone in the
mountains to the sacred Canyon of Humante.
He said. He said he said they showed me
(02:30):
the screenshot confidently, confidently written and full of
vivid adjectives. Hello, man, after your own
heart. It was, it was not true.
There is no sacred Canyon of Humante, said Gongura Meza.
The name is a combination of twoplaces that have no relation to
the description. The tourists had paid nearly
$160 in order to get to a rural Rd. in the invariance of
(02:52):
Moyapata, which I don't know somewhere you've been without a
guide and they were essentially stranded there.
And what this guy goes on to sayis basically the problem with
this is especially somewhere like Peru, is that if you end up
somewhere you shouldn't be as a result of ChatGPT just coming up
with something fanciful, it saysyou could find yourself at 4000
(03:15):
metres altitude without oxygen and no phone signal.
What do you make of that mate? Well.
I think that the guy is rightly kind of dismissive of their use
of ChatGPT. Obviously they've not done a
good job there, but I would say we everyone kind of knows that
ChatGPT hallucinates sometimes. Sometimes you ask a question and
(03:35):
it goes off on the right tangential mess of dialogue.
So I think basically what they what they've done is the
equivalent of asking a very knowledgeable friend a question
and then just taken their response at absolute face value
and gone on a whole adventure without Googling it first.
(03:57):
Actually, that's you make a goodpoint actually, because that
would be my second port of call after saying to ChatGPT, we
imagine the first question was tell me some great places to go
in Peru. Yeah.
And then the the moment it sendsyou, it comes up with the the
result. Surely the the second thing you
would do is just Google it to have a look at some pictures or
go on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, isn't it?
Absolutely, certainly. I mean, I would expect you to do
(04:20):
that to me if, if I asked you for recommendations for for some
place that you've been to and I've not, let's say, Vladivostok
in Russia, if I said, you know, Adam, what should I do in
Vladivostok? And you gave me a list of five
things. What I'm not going to do is jump
on a plane and go to Vladivostokfor those five things without
(04:40):
first being like, OK, well, let me figure out which one of those
would I want to do, where to go,where to do it.
I believe you that they exist, but I wouldn't just use you as
the only reference book. It is a really strange thing
actually to do some of the work and maybe not the most important
thing. The article then continues and
says. According to a 2024 survey, 30%
(05:01):
of those surveyed who used AI tohelp plan their travels reported
that it could not provide enoughinformation, while around 33%
said that AI generated recommendations included false
information. So is that something you came
across when you were in China? Did you get taken to a location
that didn't exist? Kind of, yeah.
I mean, but I think it was just because I struggled to read the
signage. As a result of not being able to
(05:26):
speak Mandarin. Well, I think this, yeah, I
think basically it said you got to go to this dumpling shop, but
it used English to convey that information to me.
And when I arrived on the streetwhere the dumpling shop was
supposed to be, it didn't say dumpling shop.
It had a series of Chinese characters.
(05:48):
So, so that we don't end under, so that we don't end up going
around in circles here with AI and technology and social media
and all that sort of stuff. Does AI form part of that?
And is it actually hindering ourexperience of travel or do you
think that it exists sort of separately and it should be used
(06:09):
or treated with a sort of different level of respect or
exigent? What's it?
What's it demands? Yeah, that's it.
I said the French. Are you dating a French person?
Yeah, well, that's I'm trying tospeak French as much as I can,
but because her English is so much better than my French, we
would have quite boring conversations in the evening if
(06:30):
if we just only spoke in French.Adam's one of those people that
you can do in a bit of French. He'll do that kind of fame thing
where you confuse it. I'll be like, oh, you're right
mate. I'll go.
Oh, bonjour. Oh, sorry, sorry.
Hello. I just got back from France.
Sorry. That's what you're saying,
France. Sorry, sorry.
Look, I think this sort of problems always existed to some
(06:50):
extent. I remember when I was travelling
around Africa and I can't exactly remember where it was,
but it might have been Zambia. Nice.
Me and my then partner, we were searching for something to do
and we were Googling like one ofthose lists, like an aggregator
of like this is the top 10 things to do in this town, this
(07:11):
quite small town. And in all of those lists was go
and visit the little model village.
OK. And.
I was quite excited. I thought, well, I mean, look,
there wasn't that much to do in this town.
So we thought let's go and checkout the model village because
quite insane for a model villageto make it to the top of various
(07:34):
best thing to do aggregators. So it must be quite exceptional.
Some of them really raved about this village.
So we went to where the village was supposed to be and it didn't
exist. Oh, and it just wasn't there,
right? And my partner was like, oh, OK,
whatever, right. We moved on, but I couldn't let
it go because I was like, what happened there?
(07:55):
And I really was digging in online, like what is it that
occurred that meant that that was just a field and not a model
village, despite so many places raving about it.
And it turned out that basicallyit was someone's did a proposal
as like a university project. Right.
Like, oh, wouldn't it be nice for like the community to build
(08:18):
a model village and they they like presented on it and like
done a video maybe where it was like the model village and it
had just been, there was so little to do in that town that
that university presentation gotlike picked up and just inserted
into the algorithm about things to do in that town.
It didn't exist. It never existed.
Not even one model house ever was placed there.
(08:40):
It was just a university project.
So can we blame ChatGPT, Is whatI'm saying?
Because human writers have been making the same mistakes for
years. Yeah, well, you're not wrong.
I mean, there's this whole Instagram versus reality thing.
And maybe maybe the onus is on the Instagram, the influences,
the travel influences to, to portray a side of travel or a
(09:02):
location that is maybe more realistic.
I don't know where where you draw the line because is from a
certain angle, isn't AI only kind of doing what Ocelot do
anyway because you know, the top10 things to do in any city?
I rarely agree with those lists,by the way.
I mean, they aren't, they're quite generic.
If they get up to the, you know,the top few entries on Google,
(09:26):
they're normally there or thereabouts to say.
You kind of have to Scroll down a little bit further to get to a
list that's written by someone who's more similar to us.
Yeah, you usually have to type in something like, oh,
backpacking Zambia or a shoestring budget.
Yeah, I mean, hidden gems now has just become completely
redundant. But I don't think a hidden gem
(09:47):
exists because if you're typing into a website, if you're typing
into Google, you know, hidden gems, Budapest or whatever.
Yeah, every single person in their dog who's ever been to
Budapest has probably found thatsame list, because once you
just. Get a jewelry shop.
Once, once it becomes the default to type in hidden gems,
you know, it's, it's just going to be so ubiquitous and and
(10:09):
overrun with tourists. And as we learned on the last
week's episode, there's one thing I don't like about travel
is other tourists. Yeah, I think Hidden Gems is a
funny one because if you, if youwere going to write the actual
hidden gems, you wouldn't get many hits on Google.
I think because we're living in this gamified system where
you've got to like, say the right things in order to get
ranked on a search engine. If I was going to do a hidden
(10:32):
gems thing about Shagao, where I'm currently living, I would
say like, oh, there's this Moodylittle beach sort of 30 minutes
away from the town. You can go and sit there and
watch crabs if you want. That's my hidden gem.
But that ain't no one's typing that in, so no one's ever going
to discover it. The location to the apartment
you're in, you say when you're in the kitchen you can smash the
(10:53):
the window frame out. That's a hidden gem.
Yeah, yeah, if you need to breakin, it's a hidden gem.
You can take whatever you like. No, but you know, we digress.
I mean, AI is getting getting its claws into travel.
It hasn't affected us just yet. If anything has benefited the
show, but I don't know. I won't be asking ChatGPT to
(11:14):
curate an itinerary for me without sort of doing my double
and triple checking. I think that's our message for
the listening audience. If you are going to use ChatGPT
to plan your travels, and I do recommend you give them a little
ping, ask them a few questions. Always double check on Google
first as you may end up going toa model village that doesn't
really exist. Now though, Adam, it's time for
me to ask you some hypothetical questions because I've got
(11:35):
something on my mind that I wantto know what you would do if it
happened to you hypothetically. It's tripological reasoning,
tripological reasoning, tripological reasoning driving
me inside. Oh, what would you do?
Tripological reasoning, Adam hypothetical backpacking
(11:55):
questions. What sort of backpacker training
ground where I ask you things just to see what you would do,
see if you're a good backpacker.But this week I have a range a
few questions. I just want to know just kind of
quick fire, what is it that you would do if these things what
happened to you? Let's say you're living
somewhere on the road. Like a bus stop.
(12:17):
Yes, yes. Or perhaps A10 to the ditch.
Let's say you're on the road, you're living somewhere, and the
place you're staying has a rangeof amenities.
And one of the amenities that you use regularly, let's say
sort of a coffee pot. You're walking from the kitchen
(12:37):
area to where your cup is on a table and you dropped it and it
smashed into proverbial smithereens all over the ground,
shards of glass everywhere. Would you, I mean, what would
you do? Basically, would you, would you
contact your landlord and tell them that you smashed the coffee
pot? Or would you, would you try and
replace it without knowing? Or would you?
(13:00):
What would you do? So the coffee pot came, comes
with the apartment, does it sortof.
I didn't bring it there. I didn't bite myself.
This imaginary apartment? Yeah.
And this imaginary apartment, first port of call.
I'd be pretty frustrated actually.
I hate breaking things. It happens almost never, very
rarely. And you know, I work with a lot
of glass, as you can imagine working in the wine industry.
(13:22):
So I'm always polishing hundredsof glasses a day, very rarely
break 1. So this already would be very
strange for me to for drop a glass coffee pot.
But I would be, I would be beside myself.
I'd sweep it all up for sure. I'd regret all the coffee that I
was wasting. And I think I would probably
leave it a very long time beforenotifying the landlord.
(13:43):
Hoping that what would happen inthe interim period.
Well, maybe that. I wouldn't see them probably I
think. Ever.
You just go without talent. No, no, I'd replace it for sure.
I'll try and replace it if I could.
Yeah. But yeah, in all honesty, I
mean, things not exactly like that.
I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but I know
(14:04):
in that situation it would be one of those things that was in
the back of my mind thinking, I've got to do that tomorrow,
I've got to maybe address that next week.
And before you know, it's two months.
And then the person approaches you and says where the fuck's
the coffee pot and you go. Yeah, I can empathize.
I can empathize with that. Yeah, that's interesting.
OK, so you basically go as long as you could.
OK, well, that's interesting. Another hypothetical travel
(14:26):
backpacking scenario. If you were on the road staying
somewhere, for example, and there was a bunch of amenities
providers and one of them was a a safe.
And you're about to put something in the safe and you to
and and the handle of the safe door just came completely off in
your hand into pieces. So the safe no longer worked.
(14:49):
Sounds quite unsafe. Yeah.
What would you, what would you do?
Because you can't replace a safeobviously, but.
Yeah, so, well, hang on. In this situation, it is the
safe, but the safe is now open. Was hypothetical the situation,
but I imagine the safe was wouldbe open and unable to close,
yeah. So it's redundant.
It's completely redundant and now no longer operates as a safe
(15:10):
at all. Yeah, yeah, the handle's just
broken. OK, the landlord's getting a
call about that 1 I think. OK.
Because you don't think that's your fault, because obviously
you were just trying to use a safe as intended and it opened,
Yeah. I think that's a faulty piece of
equipment. Does it make it more awkward to
do the coffee call and the safe call in one go?
(15:32):
Like let's say you were moving out soon or something and you
just have. Would you just do them both at
the same time or? But you could roll it into one.
Because if both of those happens, if both of those things
happened completely hypothetically, then what you
could do is if you did need to make a call and it was around
the time you were leaving said hypothetical apartment, maybe
(15:54):
you could say that you smashed the coffee pot as a result of
the handle coming off of the safe.
Yeah, or you could move it into the conversation.
You could be like, Oh yeah, and the glass whenever it was really
unsafe. Speaking of which, the handle, I
like it. Good ideas mate I think.
I think it's probably what I would do that the handle coming
(16:15):
off of the safe feels less that you had less control over that.
I think that's a faulty piece ofequipment.
I think that's something that's imperative to the Airbnb or the
the apartment itself. I think not having a safe
immediately means that there there's like a change in the
offering. Oh.
Really I I would have thought ofthe safe as quite redundant
(16:37):
because there's obviously a lockon the door of the house, but.
Which you know all too well because you've been locked out
multiple times. The listener won't know this,
but we had to cancel last week'sweek's recording because you
locked yourself out of your own apartment.
Yeah, yeah, stuff like that doeskeep on happening.
Anyway, one more hypothetical situation, if you sort of on the
road, you were travelling and, you know, you're staying
(16:58):
somewhere with some amenities that were provided.
One of them was that was a waterpump which was actually
purchased new for you and sort of like it gets put on top of a
big water jug and it pumps the water out so you can have clean
drinking water and all that sortof stuff.
And then one day the IT just stopped working and whenever you
(17:22):
push the button, it just made a sort of whirring noise, but it
spotted out and it just wasn't working anymore.
What would you do in that situation?
This is happening in complete isolation of the other two
events that are well. Let's just hypothetically say
that they're all happening together at once.
(17:42):
I think the the water pump seemslike the should be the most
important but I care about it the least.
Maybe I would try, and you know better than anyone how bad I am
at a taking the initiative to tosolve anything can be, then
actually being able to solve it myself.
I'd soon ask you for help or anyone else at this passing by,
(18:04):
but I would probably try. And there's usually a lid on
those things, isn't there? I can imagine the water tanks
you're talking about, does it have sort of a spout?
And when you compress the lid, it goes quite slowly, like one
of those slow closing kitchen cupboards.
No, in this hypothetical scenario it's very much an
electronic pump that is very difficult to analyse.
Just from looking at it, it seems like it's completely one
(18:25):
sealed unit basically. Oh dear.
And and hypothetically quite expensive.
I mean, that would be my concernif I was you answering this
hypothetical question. OK, well, it's I'll get you a
little bit overwhelmed with the amount of hypothetical things
that are going wrong and I think.
It's interesting that you feel overwhelmed because I feel.
(18:46):
Great, that's a long list of things that are hypothetically
going wrong in this altogether. Yeah, I think one of the
problems is if you were to report it, it kind of seems like
a bit of a piss take, doesn't it, to do it all at once.
So then you might try and stagger it out over a period of
weeks, but then realise that youmay not have weeks to go.
(19:08):
So you would change your plans to potentially stay in this
place longer just so you can stagger the various broken
things? Just just out of curiosity,
yeah. How how long has it been since
these things have have broken in?
In the situation I'm in, the hypothetical situation that I'm
in, are these all? Am I addressing this as it's
(19:30):
happened in the moment? I like to imagine I've given you
them in chronological order starting about two weeks ago.
I would feel more and more guilty the more times I
interacted with my landlord. Is is what I think the moment
you have an opportunity to address something and and speak
to someone about something. And this goes for, you know,
(19:52):
this can be extended into not just any other hypothetical
situation, but maybe even real life situations when when you
have something to tell someone and you interact with them
regularly and choose to avoid it, obviously that's what
snowballs. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. But obviously this, this
landlord, she wouldn't know thatthey've happened a long time
(20:12):
ago. You know, she wouldn't be like,
but I was there the other day, why didn't you say anything?
Because she wouldn't know when it had happened and that.
She's not going to come in like a forensic detective and start
running her finger along the floor, smelling it and going
hang on a minute, that's four week old coffee.
Yeah, exactly. That would be terrible.
Well, those are insightful answers you've given.
(20:34):
I mean, basically, you just toldme you'd be overwhelmed.
In other news, everything's going great in the Philippines.
I'm happy and as I'm just glad to do this podcast.
So yeah, man, I love travelling.I love it very much.
And now it's time to hear from someone else who loves
travelling in a night. And we like to call Tales of a
Trip, where people give us their3 minutes of the greatest travel
(20:56):
story of all time. Perhaps tell us a tale of the
time you went and absolutely ransacked and Airbnb while you
were staying in the Philippines.Perhaps tell the time of the
most beautiful sunset you've ever had, All that sort of
stuff. 3 minutes. Your greatest travel story.
Let's listen to one right now. All right, guys, this is Hammer
(21:17):
from the Wing Net Travel podcast.
Love your podcast. Here's my quick story.
It's a bit of an old one. This is at the Lao and Thailand
border. There's a river there.
And when I got to the Lao side to get my exit stamp, I had my
passport over and this guy was absolutely going nuts at me.
I had no idea. And otherwise they haven't done
(21:39):
anything wrong, just queued up by everyone else.
He didn't like it. Anyway, I told him where to go
because I was like well I ain't got time for this.
So in my ignorant arrogant self,younger self, I popped on a boat
across to Thailand, got to Thailand side and the guy there
a bit more professional in a uniform basically said no, you
can't come in. I said, oh, why not?
(22:01):
He goes, well you haven't got a stamp out of the country.
I was like, all right, he has also you haven't got a stamp in
the country. I was like, that's the problem,
no idea how I missed that. So he said you've got to go
back, get your stamps in and then come back to me.
So off I go in a bit of a huff and a puff.
And my mates who was with about 6-7, I was travelling at the
(22:23):
time, just said, hey, look, you might need this.
And that was U.S. dollars and Thai baht.
So stuffed that in my pocket, jumped in a boat back across the
river and guess who's waiting for me?
That same guy and three of his mates.
And one of those is some some army captain with a gun pointed
me out in my England shirt as I come back across the river.
I was like, oh shit, I'm in trouble there.
(22:45):
And he said, yeah, you come thisway.
Is that right? Here we go.
It was scared at this point actually.
I'm like, oh, my friends have all gone across the border and
there's a bus waiting for us to go to Chiang Mai.
So I got into the room for what seemed like just to get the
admin done and he said I'll sit down.
Do you speak low issue? I said no, don't speak low
issue. There's snooker on the TV when
(23:06):
O'Sullivan was playing in the Crucible and he said you haven't
got a stamp in your passport, Why not?
I said I don't know, I must havemissed a sign, which is actually
generally true. I don't.
I still don't know to this day why I didn't get stamping.
He said your visa's here but your stamp's not, so you need a
visa to get out. So you need a stamp to get out
of the country and then you'll be fine to go.
Is that cool? He said it's going to cost
(23:28):
$70.00. I was like what, 70 U.S.
dollars? He goes yeah, so now I'm not
having that. He goes, well if you don't have
that, then you're going to stay in this room for forever.
Is that right? OK, so I sat there for 30
minutes trying to negotiate to and fro, tried everything, the
silent treatment, angry, nice, bad cop, good cop, all the
above. And it got to 30 minutes.
I was like, I'm stuck here, whatdo I do?
(23:49):
I said OK, well I've got no choice.
What the options? He goes U.S. dollar or Thai
baht. I said well give me a Thai baht
estimation and gave me a tie by estimation that was $7.00
cheaper. So yeah, I'll have that.
Paid the money and as soon as I paid the money, stamp, stamp in
in my passport. Away you go and lesson learned.
There is become under pressure. Be careful of signs and follow
(24:10):
the right signs and don't get too angry.
Cheers. James Hammond from Winging It
Travel podcast, one of the best travel podcasts out there.
Go and check it out. It's a great show.
What I will say, Adam and I think James is a great
traveller, but if you're there in the Louisian border with
Ronnie O'Sullivan playing snooker on the TVI reckon I'm
(24:33):
I'm chilling. I'm spending a little bit more
time in there and I think as thetime ticks away and you're sort
of proving to them that you're comfortable and that price
starts coming down. But he's got places to be.
James is a busy man. He's got places he wants to go.
He's there's probably people waiting for him on the other
side. He's in his England shirt.
You would have been more patient, would you?
I just think I quite like watching Ronnie O'Sullivan play
(24:55):
snooker. So I reckon you got at least two
hours of being very comfortable in that low Asian like office.
And I just think that at a certain point of time, they're
going to be like, is this guy having a good time?
And you're like, yeah, go on therocket.
And they're going to be like, ohGod, maybe let's just say 50
bucks and call it a day. So you're trying to put yourself
(25:16):
in the mind of an army officer on the border of of Thailand and
Laos? I don't know if they give two
shits mate. Do you reckon the money went
straight in the pocket? Yeah, I think it was bribe
money. But but my general perspective
in a situation like that is I'm just going to rejig the
mentality because they're like this guy's trapped in a room
(25:36):
with us until he pays us. I'm like you guys are trapped in
a room with me as well. There's mind games going on.
Yeah, because all all you've got, I'm ordering a stamp on
eBay and saying we'll see what credit goes for.
Will I get the stamp or are you going to give it to me, you
know? Because the stamps on eBay are
down sight cheaper than what you're trying to charge me.
(25:57):
Let me just put myself in James's flip flops for a second.
I think I probably would have done what he did.
I might have even folded at the 70 U.S. dollars because I I
don't like going across borders and not being able to meet the
criteria or provide documentation or anything like
that. It's happened to to me on a
couple of occasions. There was one time actually when
(26:18):
I was crossing from Russia into China.
And bearing in mind I've just spent a month in Russia, it
wasn't the I didn't have any problems along the way apart
from the very first day, but that's a different story for a
different day. They actually held up a bus that
I was on for 45 minutes before we even got into the sort of no
man's land in between Russia andChina.
The Russian authorities weren't happy with my passport and I'm
(26:40):
sure I've told that in a previous episode, but it was
amazing. The whole bus was of 60 of us on
this bus and they wouldn't let me through because they didn't,
they didn't believe that my British passport was real, even
though I sort of thought thinking to myself, your
counterparts at the other end inMoscow, they let me in the
country with this so. Yeah.
(27:00):
What was what did they suppose that maybe happened?
That you'd you'd checked in on adifferent passport and then
acquired a sort of fake one? No, because the stamps in there,
the entry stamp was in there. Yeah, but you can buy one of
those on eBay. Me.
I'm starting to think that I'm on the Russian side.
No, no, I I stood with them at one of their Boo things.
(27:22):
The desk. Well, they had three people
looking at a computer screen andthey were genuinely Googling
photos of British passports. That's quite cool, isn't it?
I was like, look, it's that one.That one matches mine.
It's the that doesn't look like you.
Now there's a different person. Bad time for you for ChatGPT
here to hallucinate and make a bright pink sort of like cosmic
(27:43):
looking passport. This doesn't like what touchy BT
says at all, Seth. Yeah, our poor old James, though
I, I don't envy him. I'm not surprised that he just
forked out the money. Half an hour, I don't know if
half an hour in that environmentfeels like a a couple of days.
You don't want to lose any time when you're doing insight and
stuff. If I'm one of those six of the
people he's travelling with, I'mgoing back with him in
(28:03):
solidarity. Yes, yeah.
I mean a. 100%. I like that about you.
I like it a lot. Because I'd be frustrated that I
was missing the snooker as well.I just hope there was a chance
that the game was being shown onthe other side.
Although actually, to be fair tothe Thai border control and the
Laotian border control, that's Ibet they love it when things
like that happen because I'm notsaying that they're the sorts of
(28:23):
people that that Gen. generally or often will kind of they they
might welcome a bribe. Why not?
But but when something happens when when it's like a very a
genuine error. Do you know what I mean?
Like he doesn't have an entry stamp.
That's a real issue. So they said, well, I'm sorry,
it's 70 bucks. I'm sorry.
What? What do you want me to do?
It's your fault. Yeah, if I had a sovereign
(28:44):
state, I would make the signage for the exit stamp very
confusing indeed. I would put like a labyrinth
before the stamp and be like, OKguys, time to get your exit
stamp. Or you can just get on the boat
and trance your arm but might have to come back.
Yeah. Do you reckon the England shirt
actually has done him a disservice there?
He's seen him. You know this white guy, white
guy with his backpack on, He's wearing an England shirt and
(29:07):
they've looked him up and down and gone 70 bucks.
Yeah, if you go and check out Wing Unit Travel podcast on
Instagram, you might notice thatJames Hammond, the host, doesn't
particularly pass for Lao Asian.I think that might have been a
disservice to him as he tried totraverse the border.
But he has got some amazing stories.
We do listen to to his show on the regs.
It is great. Go and check it out.
(29:28):
It's slightly different format, lots of interviews and this sort
of stuff with very interesting people.
He's a great host and yeah, we, we hope you go and check his
stuff out as well. There's even an episode way back
when, when we first started podcasting, where I'm in
Scotland talking stories about riding my bike and travelling
around the world. So that'd be exciting.
Go and check that one out. Oh, yeah, yeah.
I loved that episode, actually. It's long, wasn't it Really
(29:49):
long, Yeah. Good podcast, like the host.
All right, well, thanks very much for sending it in.
If you've got a great travel story, just three minutes, great
travel story. It's
www.tropologypodcast.com/tales of the trips and it into us.
We can't wait to hear it, mate. Lots of exciting stuff going on.
But right now we've got to go tothe Lost and Found section for
(30:12):
Patreon only. So if you don't pay for it, do
pay for it and then you might beable to wear it too.
Happens after their theme music.Let's go there right now.
We'll see you there. Bye.
Hello and welcome to this episode of Tripology.
It's the only show where the twohosts creeping, tiptoeing about
planet Earth with ever such speed.
I'm Alan and I'm here with the ever misleading Adam.
It's one hell of a show today, mate.
We've got an article in the beginning, a really fun article.
We're going to talk about when 2worlds collide, the travel
(00:24):
world, the real world, and the futuristic world of AI.
Then in the second section of the show, we've got a
tripological reasoning where you're going to ask me what on
earth would I do in this situation?
It's completely hypothetical. And then of course, at the end
of the show, we've got everyone's favorite section.
It's Tales of a Trip where we hear from one of you guys What
an. Excellent summarisation of the
show to come. It's all very, very exciting.
(00:44):
An article, you say? Using artificial intelligence in
the travel world. Do pray tell?
I know that is something that you're well, something something
you've got experience in very first hand.
I remember when you were waltzing around Shanghai with
ChatGPT up your arm. Yeah, I think.
There's two categories of peoplein their relationships with AI.
You've got the doomers, the people that think AI is going to
(01:06):
take over the world and it's a terrible thing, and people who
dare to have a glimmer of hope, thinking that actually AI is a
useful tool and if used in moderation it can just make life
better. I think I'd probably sit in that
camp. I think that it can be a good
tool to be utilised. Yeah, so there I was earlier
today, mate. And I was thinking, I've got a
(01:28):
chat with Alan later. What is it we can talk about?
I went on the BBC website and I went to the travel section as
I'd like to do, because that's just sort of my, my afternoon
reading. You know, when I'm at work and
there's nothing to do, I like toread about travel.
And I came up with this article,came across this article, beg
your pardon. And it was titled The Perils of
Letting AI Plan Your Next Trip. So I'm just going to go through
(01:48):
the the article now. And it really is quite
interesting. It was published earlier today.
So the article starts an imagined town in Peru and Eiffel
Tower in Beijing. Travellers are increasingly
using tools like ChatGPT for itinerary ideas and being sent
to destinations that don't exist.
Miguel Angel Gongora Meza, founder and director of
(02:09):
Evolution Treks Peru, was in rural Peruvian town preparing
for a trek through the Andes when he overheard a curious
conversation. 2 accompanied unaccompanied tourists were
chatting amicably about their plans to hike alone in the
mountains to the sacred Canyon of Humante.
He said. He said he said they showed me
(02:30):
the screenshot confidently, confidently written and full of
vivid adjectives. Hello, man, after your own
heart. It was, it was not true.
There is no sacred Canyon of Humante, said Gongura Meza.
The name is a combination of twoplaces that have no relation to
the description. The tourists had paid nearly
$160 in order to get to a rural Rd. in the invariance of
(02:52):
Moyapata, which I don't know somewhere you've been without a
guide and they were essentially stranded there.
And what this guy goes on to sayis basically the problem with
this is especially somewhere like Peru, is that if you end up
somewhere you shouldn't be as a result of ChatGPT just coming up
with something fanciful, it saysyou could find yourself at 4000
(03:15):
metres altitude without oxygen and no phone signal.
What do you make of that mate? Well.
I think that the guy is rightly kind of dismissive of their use
of ChatGPT. Obviously they've not done a
good job there, but I would say we everyone kind of knows that
ChatGPT hallucinates sometimes. Sometimes you ask a question and
(03:35):
it goes off on the right tangential mess of dialogue.
So I think basically what they what they've done is the
equivalent of asking a very knowledgeable friend a question
and then just taken their response at absolute face value
and gone on a whole adventure without Googling it first.
(03:57):
Actually, that's you make a goodpoint actually, because that
would be my second port of call after saying to ChatGPT, we
imagine the first question was tell me some great places to go
in Peru. Yeah.
And then the the moment it sendsyou, it comes up with the the
result. Surely the the second thing you
would do is just Google it to have a look at some pictures or
go on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, isn't it?
Absolutely, certainly. I mean, I would expect you to do
(04:20):
that to me if, if I asked you for recommendations for for some
place that you've been to and I've not, let's say, Vladivostok
in Russia, if I said, you know, Adam, what should I do in
Vladivostok? And you gave me a list of five
things. What I'm not going to do is jump
on a plane and go to Vladivostokfor those five things without
(04:40):
first being like, OK, well, let me figure out which one of those
would I want to do, where to go,where to do it.
I believe you that they exist, but I wouldn't just use you as
the only reference book. It is a really strange thing
actually to do some of the work and maybe not the most important
thing. The article then continues and
says. According to a 2024 survey, 30%
(05:01):
of those surveyed who used AI tohelp plan their travels reported
that it could not provide enoughinformation, while around 33%
said that AI generated recommendations included false
information. So is that something you came
across when you were in China? Did you get taken to a location
that didn't exist? Kind of, yeah.
I mean, but I think it was just because I struggled to read the
signage. As a result of not being able to
(05:26):
speak Mandarin. Well, I think this, yeah, I
think basically it said you got to go to this dumpling shop, but
it used English to convey that information to me.
And when I arrived on the streetwhere the dumpling shop was
supposed to be, it didn't say dumpling shop.
It had a series of Chinese characters.
(05:48):
So, so that we don't end under, so that we don't end up going
around in circles here with AI and technology and social media
and all that sort of stuff. Does AI form part of that?
And is it actually hindering ourexperience of travel or do you
think that it exists sort of separately and it should be used
(06:09):
or treated with a sort of different level of respect or
exigent? What's it?
What's it demands? Yeah, that's it.
I said the French. Are you dating a French person?
Yeah, well, that's I'm trying tospeak French as much as I can,
but because her English is so much better than my French, we
would have quite boring conversations in the evening if
(06:30):
if we just only spoke in French.Adam's one of those people that
you can do in a bit of French. He'll do that kind of fame thing
where you confuse it. I'll be like, oh, you're right
mate. I'll go.
Oh, bonjour. Oh, sorry, sorry.
Hello. I just got back from France.
Sorry. That's what you're saying,
France. Sorry, sorry.
Look, I think this sort of problems always existed to some
(06:50):
extent. I remember when I was travelling
around Africa and I can't exactly remember where it was,
but it might have been Zambia. Nice.
Me and my then partner, we were searching for something to do
and we were Googling like one ofthose lists, like an aggregator
of like this is the top 10 things to do in this town, this
(07:11):
quite small town. And in all of those lists was go
and visit the little model village.
OK. And.
I was quite excited. I thought, well, I mean, look,
there wasn't that much to do in this town.
So we thought let's go and checkout the model village because
quite insane for a model villageto make it to the top of various
(07:34):
best thing to do aggregators. So it must be quite exceptional.
Some of them really raved about this village.
So we went to where the village was supposed to be and it didn't
exist. Oh, and it just wasn't there,
right? And my partner was like, oh, OK,
whatever, right. We moved on, but I couldn't let
it go because I was like, what happened there?
(07:55):
And I really was digging in online, like what is it that
occurred that meant that that was just a field and not a model
village, despite so many places raving about it.
And it turned out that basicallyit was someone's did a proposal
as like a university project. Right.
Like, oh, wouldn't it be nice for like the community to build
(08:18):
a model village and they they like presented on it and like
done a video maybe where it was like the model village and it
had just been, there was so little to do in that town that
that university presentation gotlike picked up and just inserted
into the algorithm about things to do in that town.
It didn't exist. It never existed.
Not even one model house ever was placed there.
(08:40):
It was just a university project.
So can we blame ChatGPT, Is whatI'm saying?
Because human writers have been making the same mistakes for
years. Yeah, well, you're not wrong.
I mean, there's this whole Instagram versus reality thing.
And maybe maybe the onus is on the Instagram, the influences,
the travel influences to, to portray a side of travel or a
(09:02):
location that is maybe more realistic.
I don't know where where you draw the line because is from a
certain angle, isn't AI only kind of doing what Ocelot do
anyway because you know, the top10 things to do in any city?
I rarely agree with those lists,by the way.
I mean, they aren't, they're quite generic.
If they get up to the, you know,the top few entries on Google,
(09:26):
they're normally there or thereabouts to say.
You kind of have to Scroll down a little bit further to get to a
list that's written by someone who's more similar to us.
Yeah, you usually have to type in something like, oh,
backpacking Zambia or a shoestring budget.
Yeah, I mean, hidden gems now has just become completely
redundant. But I don't think a hidden gem
(09:47):
exists because if you're typing into a website, if you're typing
into Google, you know, hidden gems, Budapest or whatever.
Yeah, every single person in their dog who's ever been to
Budapest has probably found thatsame list, because once you
just. Get a jewelry shop.
Once, once it becomes the default to type in hidden gems,
you know, it's, it's just going to be so ubiquitous and and
(10:09):
overrun with tourists. And as we learned on the last
week's episode, there's one thing I don't like about travel
is other tourists. Yeah, I think Hidden Gems is a
funny one because if you, if youwere going to write the actual
hidden gems, you wouldn't get many hits on Google.
I think because we're living in this gamified system where
you've got to like, say the right things in order to get
ranked on a search engine. If I was going to do a hidden
(10:32):
gems thing about Shagao, where I'm currently living, I would
say like, oh, there's this Moodylittle beach sort of 30 minutes
away from the town. You can go and sit there and
watch crabs if you want. That's my hidden gem.
But that ain't no one's typing that in, so no one's ever going
to discover it. The location to the apartment
you're in, you say when you're in the kitchen you can smash the
(10:53):
the window frame out. That's a hidden gem.
Yeah, yeah, if you need to breakin, it's a hidden gem.
You can take whatever you like. No, but you know, we digress.
I mean, AI is getting getting its claws into travel.
It hasn't affected us just yet. If anything has benefited the
show, but I don't know. I won't be asking ChatGPT to
(11:14):
curate an itinerary for me without sort of doing my double
and triple checking. I think that's our message for
the listening audience. If you are going to use ChatGPT
to plan your travels, and I do recommend you give them a little
ping, ask them a few questions. Always double check on Google
first as you may end up going toa model village that doesn't
really exist. Now though, Adam, it's time for
me to ask you some hypothetical questions because I've got
(11:35):
something on my mind that I wantto know what you would do if it
happened to you hypothetically. It's tripological reasoning,
tripological reasoning, tripological reasoning driving
me inside. Oh, what would you do?
Tripological reasoning, Adam hypothetical backpacking
(11:55):
questions. What sort of backpacker training
ground where I ask you things just to see what you would do,
see if you're a good backpacker.But this week I have a range a
few questions. I just want to know just kind of
quick fire, what is it that you would do if these things what
happened to you? Let's say you're living
somewhere on the road. Like a bus stop.
(12:17):
Yes, yes. Or perhaps A10 to the ditch.
Let's say you're on the road, you're living somewhere, and the
place you're staying has a rangeof amenities.
And one of the amenities that you use regularly, let's say
sort of a coffee pot. You're walking from the kitchen
(12:37):
area to where your cup is on a table and you dropped it and it
smashed into proverbial smithereens all over the ground,
shards of glass everywhere. Would you, I mean, what would
you do? Basically, would you, would you
contact your landlord and tell them that you smashed the coffee
pot? Or would you, would you try and
replace it without knowing? Or would you?
(13:00):
What would you do? So the coffee pot came, comes
with the apartment, does it sortof.
I didn't bring it there. I didn't bite myself.
This imaginary apartment? Yeah.
And this imaginary apartment, first port of call.
I'd be pretty frustrated actually.
I hate breaking things. It happens almost never, very
rarely. And you know, I work with a lot
of glass, as you can imagine working in the wine industry.
(13:22):
So I'm always polishing hundredsof glasses a day, very rarely
break 1. So this already would be very
strange for me to for drop a glass coffee pot.
But I would be, I would be beside myself.
I'd sweep it all up for sure. I'd regret all the coffee that I
was wasting. And I think I would probably
leave it a very long time beforenotifying the landlord.
(13:43):
Hoping that what would happen inthe interim period.
Well, maybe that. I wouldn't see them probably I
think. Ever.
You just go without talent. No, no, I'd replace it for sure.
I'll try and replace it if I could.
Yeah. But yeah, in all honesty, I
mean, things not exactly like that.
I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but I know
(14:04):
in that situation it would be one of those things that was in
the back of my mind thinking, I've got to do that tomorrow,
I've got to maybe address that next week.
And before you know, it's two months.
And then the person approaches you and says where the fuck's
the coffee pot and you go. Yeah, I can empathize.
I can empathize with that. Yeah, that's interesting.
OK, so you basically go as long as you could.
OK, well, that's interesting. Another hypothetical travel
(14:26):
backpacking scenario. If you were on the road staying
somewhere, for example, and there was a bunch of amenities
providers and one of them was a a safe.
And you're about to put something in the safe and you to
and and the handle of the safe door just came completely off in
your hand into pieces. So the safe no longer worked.
(14:49):
Sounds quite unsafe. Yeah.
What would you, what would you do?
Because you can't replace a safeobviously, but.
Yeah, so, well, hang on. In this situation, it is the
safe, but the safe is now open. Was hypothetical the situation,
but I imagine the safe was wouldbe open and unable to close,
yeah. So it's redundant.
It's completely redundant and now no longer operates as a safe
(15:10):
at all. Yeah, yeah, the handle's just
broken. OK, the landlord's getting a
call about that 1 I think. OK.
Because you don't think that's your fault, because obviously
you were just trying to use a safe as intended and it opened,
Yeah. I think that's a faulty piece of
equipment. Does it make it more awkward to
do the coffee call and the safe call in one go?
(15:32):
Like let's say you were moving out soon or something and you
just have. Would you just do them both at
the same time or? But you could roll it into one.
Because if both of those happens, if both of those things
happened completely hypothetically, then what you
could do is if you did need to make a call and it was around
the time you were leaving said hypothetical apartment, maybe
(15:54):
you could say that you smashed the coffee pot as a result of
the handle coming off of the safe.
Yeah, or you could move it into the conversation.
You could be like, Oh yeah, and the glass whenever it was really
unsafe. Speaking of which, the handle, I
like it. Good ideas mate I think.
I think it's probably what I would do that the handle coming
(16:15):
off of the safe feels less that you had less control over that.
I think that's a faulty piece ofequipment.
I think that's something that's imperative to the Airbnb or the
the apartment itself. I think not having a safe
immediately means that there there's like a change in the
offering. Oh.
Really I I would have thought ofthe safe as quite redundant
(16:37):
because there's obviously a lockon the door of the house, but.
Which you know all too well because you've been locked out
multiple times. The listener won't know this,
but we had to cancel last week'sweek's recording because you
locked yourself out of your own apartment.
Yeah, yeah, stuff like that doeskeep on happening.
Anyway, one more hypothetical situation, if you sort of on the
road, you were travelling and, you know, you're staying
(16:58):
somewhere with some amenities that were provided.
One of them was that was a waterpump which was actually
purchased new for you and sort of like it gets put on top of a
big water jug and it pumps the water out so you can have clean
drinking water and all that sortof stuff.
And then one day the IT just stopped working and whenever you
(17:22):
push the button, it just made a sort of whirring noise, but it
spotted out and it just wasn't working anymore.
What would you do in that situation?
This is happening in complete isolation of the other two
events that are well. Let's just hypothetically say
that they're all happening together at once.
(17:42):
I think the the water pump seemslike the should be the most
important but I care about it the least.
Maybe I would try, and you know better than anyone how bad I am
at a taking the initiative to tosolve anything can be, then
actually being able to solve it myself.
I'd soon ask you for help or anyone else at this passing by,
(18:04):
but I would probably try. And there's usually a lid on
those things, isn't there? I can imagine the water tanks
you're talking about, does it have sort of a spout?
And when you compress the lid, it goes quite slowly, like one
of those slow closing kitchen cupboards.
No, in this hypothetical scenario it's very much an
electronic pump that is very difficult to analyse.
Just from looking at it, it seems like it's completely one
(18:25):
sealed unit basically. Oh dear.
And and hypothetically quite expensive.
I mean, that would be my concernif I was you answering this
hypothetical question. OK, well, it's I'll get you a
little bit overwhelmed with the amount of hypothetical things
that are going wrong and I think.
It's interesting that you feel overwhelmed because I feel.
(18:46):
Great, that's a long list of things that are hypothetically
going wrong in this altogether. Yeah, I think one of the
problems is if you were to report it, it kind of seems like
a bit of a piss take, doesn't it, to do it all at once.
So then you might try and stagger it out over a period of
weeks, but then realise that youmay not have weeks to go.
(19:08):
So you would change your plans to potentially stay in this
place longer just so you can stagger the various broken
things? Just just out of curiosity,
yeah. How how long has it been since
these things have have broken in?
In the situation I'm in, the hypothetical situation that I'm
in, are these all? Am I addressing this as it's
(19:30):
happened in the moment? I like to imagine I've given you
them in chronological order starting about two weeks ago.
I would feel more and more guilty the more times I
interacted with my landlord. Is is what I think the moment
you have an opportunity to address something and and speak
to someone about something. And this goes for, you know,
(19:52):
this can be extended into not just any other hypothetical
situation, but maybe even real life situations when when you
have something to tell someone and you interact with them
regularly and choose to avoid it, obviously that's what
snowballs. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. But obviously this, this
landlord, she wouldn't know thatthey've happened a long time
(20:12):
ago. You know, she wouldn't be like,
but I was there the other day, why didn't you say anything?
Because she wouldn't know when it had happened and that.
She's not going to come in like a forensic detective and start
running her finger along the floor, smelling it and going
hang on a minute, that's four week old coffee.
Yeah, exactly. That would be terrible.
Well, those are insightful answers you've given.
(20:34):
I mean, basically, you just toldme you'd be overwhelmed.
In other news, everything's going great in the Philippines.
I'm happy and as I'm just glad to do this podcast.
So yeah, man, I love travelling.I love it very much.
And now it's time to hear from someone else who loves
travelling in a night. And we like to call Tales of a
Trip, where people give us their3 minutes of the greatest travel
(20:56):
story of all time. Perhaps tell us a tale of the
time you went and absolutely ransacked and Airbnb while you
were staying in the Philippines.Perhaps tell the time of the
most beautiful sunset you've ever had, All that sort of
stuff. 3 minutes. Your greatest travel story.
Let's listen to one right now. All right, guys, this is Hammer
(21:17):
from the Wing Net Travel podcast.
Love your podcast. Here's my quick story.
It's a bit of an old one. This is at the Lao and Thailand
border. There's a river there.
And when I got to the Lao side to get my exit stamp, I had my
passport over and this guy was absolutely going nuts at me.
I had no idea. And otherwise they haven't done
(21:39):
anything wrong, just queued up by everyone else.
He didn't like it. Anyway, I told him where to go
because I was like well I ain't got time for this.
So in my ignorant arrogant self,younger self, I popped on a boat
across to Thailand, got to Thailand side and the guy there
a bit more professional in a uniform basically said no, you
can't come in. I said, oh, why not?
(22:01):
He goes, well you haven't got a stamp out of the country.
I was like, all right, he has also you haven't got a stamp in
the country. I was like, that's the problem,
no idea how I missed that. So he said you've got to go
back, get your stamps in and then come back to me.
So off I go in a bit of a huff and a puff.
And my mates who was with about 6-7, I was travelling at the
(22:23):
time, just said, hey, look, you might need this.
And that was U.S. dollars and Thai baht.
So stuffed that in my pocket, jumped in a boat back across the
river and guess who's waiting for me?
That same guy and three of his mates.
And one of those is some some army captain with a gun pointed
me out in my England shirt as I come back across the river.
I was like, oh shit, I'm in trouble there.
(22:45):
And he said, yeah, you come thisway.
Is that right? Here we go.
It was scared at this point actually.
I'm like, oh, my friends have all gone across the border and
there's a bus waiting for us to go to Chiang Mai.
So I got into the room for what seemed like just to get the
admin done and he said I'll sit down.
Do you speak low issue? I said no, don't speak low
issue. There's snooker on the TV when
(23:06):
O'Sullivan was playing in the Crucible and he said you haven't
got a stamp in your passport, Why not?
I said I don't know, I must havemissed a sign, which is actually
generally true. I don't.
I still don't know to this day why I didn't get stamping.
He said your visa's here but your stamp's not, so you need a
visa to get out. So you need a stamp to get out
of the country and then you'll be fine to go.
Is that cool? He said it's going to cost
(23:28):
$70.00. I was like what, 70 U.S.
dollars? He goes yeah, so now I'm not
having that. He goes, well if you don't have
that, then you're going to stay in this room for forever.
Is that right? OK, so I sat there for 30
minutes trying to negotiate to and fro, tried everything, the
silent treatment, angry, nice, bad cop, good cop, all the
above. And it got to 30 minutes.
I was like, I'm stuck here, whatdo I do?
(23:49):
I said OK, well I've got no choice.
What the options? He goes U.S. dollar or Thai
baht. I said well give me a Thai baht
estimation and gave me a tie by estimation that was $7.00
cheaper. So yeah, I'll have that.
Paid the money and as soon as I paid the money, stamp, stamp in
in my passport. Away you go and lesson learned.
There is become under pressure. Be careful of signs and follow
(24:10):
the right signs and don't get too angry.
Cheers. James Hammond from Winging It
Travel podcast, one of the best travel podcasts out there.
Go and check it out. It's a great show.
What I will say, Adam and I think James is a great
traveller, but if you're there in the Louisian border with
Ronnie O'Sullivan playing snooker on the TVI reckon I'm
(24:33):
I'm chilling. I'm spending a little bit more
time in there and I think as thetime ticks away and you're sort
of proving to them that you're comfortable and that price
starts coming down. But he's got places to be.
James is a busy man. He's got places he wants to go.
He's there's probably people waiting for him on the other
side. He's in his England shirt.
You would have been more patient, would you?
I just think I quite like watching Ronnie O'Sullivan play
(24:55):
snooker. So I reckon you got at least two
hours of being very comfortable in that low Asian like office.
And I just think that at a certain point of time, they're
going to be like, is this guy having a good time?
And you're like, yeah, go on therocket.
And they're going to be like, ohGod, maybe let's just say 50
bucks and call it a day. So you're trying to put yourself
(25:16):
in the mind of an army officer on the border of of Thailand and
Laos? I don't know if they give two
shits mate. Do you reckon the money went
straight in the pocket? Yeah, I think it was bribe
money. But but my general perspective
in a situation like that is I'm just going to rejig the
mentality because they're like this guy's trapped in a room
(25:36):
with us until he pays us. I'm like you guys are trapped in
a room with me as well. There's mind games going on.
Yeah, because all all you've got, I'm ordering a stamp on
eBay and saying we'll see what credit goes for.
Will I get the stamp or are you going to give it to me, you
know? Because the stamps on eBay are
down sight cheaper than what you're trying to charge me.
(25:57):
Let me just put myself in James's flip flops for a second.
I think I probably would have done what he did.
I might have even folded at the 70 U.S. dollars because I I
don't like going across borders and not being able to meet the
criteria or provide documentation or anything like
that. It's happened to to me on a
couple of occasions. There was one time actually when
(26:18):
I was crossing from Russia into China.
And bearing in mind I've just spent a month in Russia, it
wasn't the I didn't have any problems along the way apart
from the very first day, but that's a different story for a
different day. They actually held up a bus that
I was on for 45 minutes before we even got into the sort of no
man's land in between Russia andChina.
The Russian authorities weren't happy with my passport and I'm
(26:40):
sure I've told that in a previous episode, but it was
amazing. The whole bus was of 60 of us on
this bus and they wouldn't let me through because they didn't,
they didn't believe that my British passport was real, even
though I sort of thought thinking to myself, your
counterparts at the other end inMoscow, they let me in the
country with this so. Yeah.
(27:00):
What was what did they suppose that maybe happened?
That you'd you'd checked in on adifferent passport and then
acquired a sort of fake one? No, because the stamps in there,
the entry stamp was in there. Yeah, but you can buy one of
those on eBay. Me.
I'm starting to think that I'm on the Russian side.
No, no, I I stood with them at one of their Boo things.
(27:22):
The desk. Well, they had three people
looking at a computer screen andthey were genuinely Googling
photos of British passports. That's quite cool, isn't it?
I was like, look, it's that one.That one matches mine.
It's the that doesn't look like you.
Now there's a different person. Bad time for you for ChatGPT
here to hallucinate and make a bright pink sort of like cosmic
(27:43):
looking passport. This doesn't like what touchy BT
says at all, Seth. Yeah, our poor old James, though
I, I don't envy him. I'm not surprised that he just
forked out the money. Half an hour, I don't know if
half an hour in that environmentfeels like a a couple of days.
You don't want to lose any time when you're doing insight and
stuff. If I'm one of those six of the
people he's travelling with, I'mgoing back with him in
(28:03):
solidarity. Yes, yeah.
I mean a. 100%. I like that about you.
I like it a lot. Because I'd be frustrated that I
was missing the snooker as well.I just hope there was a chance
that the game was being shown onthe other side.
Although actually, to be fair tothe Thai border control and the
Laotian border control, that's Ibet they love it when things
like that happen because I'm notsaying that they're the sorts of
(28:23):
people that that Gen. generally or often will kind of they they
might welcome a bribe. Why not?
But but when something happens when when it's like a very a
genuine error. Do you know what I mean?
Like he doesn't have an entry stamp.
That's a real issue. So they said, well, I'm sorry,
it's 70 bucks. I'm sorry.
What? What do you want me to do?
It's your fault. Yeah, if I had a sovereign
(28:44):
state, I would make the signage for the exit stamp very
confusing indeed. I would put like a labyrinth
before the stamp and be like, OKguys, time to get your exit
stamp. Or you can just get on the boat
and trance your arm but might have to come back.
Yeah. Do you reckon the England shirt
actually has done him a disservice there?
He's seen him. You know this white guy, white
guy with his backpack on, He's wearing an England shirt and
(29:07):
they've looked him up and down and gone 70 bucks.
Yeah, if you go and check out Wing Unit Travel podcast on
Instagram, you might notice thatJames Hammond, the host, doesn't
particularly pass for Lao Asian.I think that might have been a
disservice to him as he tried totraverse the border.
But he has got some amazing stories.
We do listen to to his show on the regs.
It is great. Go and check it out.
(29:28):
It's slightly different format, lots of interviews and this sort
of stuff with very interesting people.
He's a great host and yeah, we, we hope you go and check his
stuff out as well. There's even an episode way back
when, when we first started podcasting, where I'm in
Scotland talking stories about riding my bike and travelling
around the world. So that'd be exciting.
Go and check that one out. Oh, yeah, yeah.
I loved that episode, actually. It's long, wasn't it Really
(29:49):
long, Yeah. Good podcast, like the host.
All right, well, thanks very much for sending it in.
If you've got a great travel story, just three minutes, great
travel story. It's
www.tropologypodcast.com/tales of the trips and it into us.
We can't wait to hear it, mate. Lots of exciting stuff going on.
But right now we've got to go tothe Lost and Found section for
(30:12):
Patreon only. So if you don't pay for it, do
pay for it and then you might beable to wear it too.
Happens after their theme music.Let's go there right now.
We'll see you there. Bye.
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.