My other favourites include:

You can order a Burger Bomb at Buns and Guns in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut in Lebanon. The chef wears a military outfit and the customers sit behind a wall of sandbags. Food is served under the slogan ‘a sandwich can kill you’. Just don’t ask for any shots.

Warning, may contain nuts. The ‘Clothing Optional Dinner’ takes place once a month in a restaurant in New York City. A group of nudists wanted something a bit more elegant than the wilderness getaways and beach resorts they generally frequent, so now they can nude up in style. Just watch where that hot chilli sauce falls…

Every meal is shit. That’s because every meal is served in a toilet. Oh, and you sit on a toilet as well. The toilet-themed restaurant is in Hangzhou, in the Zhejiang province of China. I suppose it saves getting up to go the toilet.

Going to the toilet might be a little more difficult at this restaurant. The restaurant in Brussels, Belgium is actually a dining table suspended by crane 50 metres above the street. Here a toilet ’seat’ might come in handy.

And lastly you can’t go past a Naked Sushi Restaurant (or Nyotaimori as they’re called in Japan). Pretty much it’s a naked woman covered in sushi that you, well, eat off. There’s quite a few of these around, so they must be popular. And at least it gives a whole bunch of young women and men a nice steady job (or the sashimi will fall off).

I could keep going, but it’s time for dinner – ‘Nurse!!’

Gun to the head – Trans Mongolian train, Russia
The train was trundling along through the middle of Siberia when I was confronted by two scarily drunk Russians on my way back from the dining car. One asked a me a question in Russian and when I said that I didn’t understand he began shouting at me and grabbed my arm so I couldn’t get away. Then he reached into his jacket and brought out a gun. A gun? It took my brain a second to register that he was holding a real-life handgun. As he was bringing the gun up to my head his friend screamed out ‘NYEY! NYET! and grabbed his arm. The gun fell to the floor. They both dived to the ground and a struggle for the gun ensued. It took me another few seconds for my brain to figure out that it was probably a good idea to get the hell out of there. I did get back to my compartment, but I never did see them again and I’ll never know whether he was just trying to scare me, rob me or murder me and throw me off the train into the Siberian wilderness (which happens quite a bit apparently).

Motorcycle crash – Koh Samui, Thailand
Okay, I’m not a very good motorcycle rider and I’ve had a few crashes in my travels (including this most recent one), but one crash was not only so frightening, but I was worried that I was going to bleed to death before I got back to civilisation. I’d ridden up a steep dirt track to a view point, but riding down was not so easy – particularly with my riding skills. It certainly didn’t help that I lacked the most basic of skills and I had to use my feet for balance, so could only use the hand brake. I had my hand tightly gripped around the handbrake as I crawled down the steep hill at a snail’s pace when suddenly the handbrake cable snapped. The bike (and I) hurled down the steep hill at full speed. How could I stop? In the split second that I had to make a decision I pointed the bike towards the jungle, but the bike tipped over and dragged me along the ground. I was still holding on (in hindsight, that was probably not a good idea). The bike stopped dead and I lay on the track covered in blood. My leg had torn open and blood was gushing out all over me. Anyway, I somehow managed to jump back on the motorbike and get my foot on the brake (and crawl down the hill) then spent a painful two hours riding in first gear (my leg had seized up and I couldn’t change gears) back to ‘town’ while being chased by dogs and bleeding all over the seat. And do you know what? On my very next trip to Asia I hired a motorbike again – and fell off again.

Violently ill – Togo, Africa
I’ve had a few dodgy tummies in my travels, but when I got sick in the jungles of Togo I thought I was going to die. It probably didn’t help that I had no idea where I was (which was my whole idea for my book Where’s Wallis?) or where the nearest hospital was or what was wrong with me or the fact that I literally had to drag myself through a steamy jungle with cramps that would kill a black dog. I guessed that it was some sort of food poisoning, but my whole body ached (including my eyeballs and even my eyebrows). I had to cross a large lake in a tiny wooden canoe, trudge through thick jungle then stand on a stifling hot road and hitch for a ride (there was no public transport). I got dropped off at the first place that resembled a hotel then spent 24 hours in bed in a fitful sleep. I hadn’t eaten anything in 36 hours by the time I crawled out of bed, but I forced myself to eat something so I could get enough energy to find out where the hell I was.

A scary proposition – Benin, Africa
I was in the dark back streets of Cotonou in Benin (for my book Where’s Wallis?) when I stopped for a drink at a bar. First of all I probably shouldn’t have been walking around in the first place (Lonely Planet suggests that you shouldn’t be walking around the area I was in AT ALL!). The streets were pitch black, so when I saw a well-lit bar I stopped for a drink, even though the bar’s name was a tad discouraging. The inside of Rita’s Rough Bar was full of boisterous drunk locals, so I grabbed a table on the footpath. Before long I was surrounded by a band of merry men asking me questions. After about thirty minutes a young very large muscly fellow asked me if I would like to go to his house for a party. ‘We can have lots of fun,’ he enthused. He then leant in, while putting his hand gently on my knee, and whispered, ‘I promise I won’t be violent with you.’ I took that as a cue to leave (and sprint back to my hotel).

Skiing off a cliff – Mt Hutt, New Zealand
I’ve done the bungy jumping thing and the biplane and other ‘extreme’ scary sports, but the most scared I’ve been is when I was skiing. I’ve skied every season for 25 years and I also worked as a ski guide, so I can ski, but one day at Mount Hutt in New Zealand I was sure I was going to die. I’d gone out of bounds to find some wind-blown powder and found myself a great steep gully full of the fresh stuff. It was only when I finished skiing the gully that it got freakin’ scary. I had to ski along the top of a steep, narrow ridge to get back to the ski area. I only had to traverse across it but it was all ice. As in blue, shiny, ice. But what put me on the edge of complete panic was that there was a sheer cliff directly below me. As in a sheer drop of hundreds of metres to certain death. It was only the sharpness of my ski edges and my steady slow traverse that kept me gripped to the ice. Just one tiny mistake and I would have been gone for sure. I was even worried that my heart was beating so hard that it might make my skis ‘chatter’ and I’d lose grip. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited skiing when I got back over the ridge and back to the ski runs.

Alofi, Wallis and Futuna
I had the entire island to myself for two days (besides a few wild pigs). I slept on the beach and lived on Sao biscuits and tins of tuna. Heaven.
 

Whitehaven, Australia
In photos of Whitehaven the sand is so white and the water so blue that it looks like its been retouched in Photoshop. But, it really is that white and blue.
 

Hanauma Bay, Hawaii
Yes, Hanauma Bay can be absolutely swarming with tourists, but I got there first thing in the morning and had the amazing beach to myself. Oh, except for a couple of Germans because they are always there first.
 

Baucau, East Timor
There was only one room available on the whole beach (in fact, about four beaches) and I had the water all to myself (although the large man-eating crocodile in the water that I only learned about when I was leaving probably kept the locals away).
 

Nilaveli, Sri Lanka
Nilaveli Beach Resort not only sits on a gorgeous palm-fringed beach, but there are no other resorts within kilometres of it (oh, except the burnt out shells of resorts that had been blown up by the Tamil Tigers).

Pelican Beach, Australia
See previous blog.
 

Blue Lagoon, Malta
Boatloads of daytrippers pour into Blue Lagoon, but I was staying at the only hotel on the island of Comino and I got up ridiculously early for someone on holidays to have it to myself for a couple of hours.
 

Paleokastritsa, Corfu
Paleokastritsa was the first beach I’d ever seen out of Australia. I was staying by a tiny muddy bay and hired a scooter to zoom across the island to get there. It was off-season, so without the crowds it was truly magical.
 

Lizard Island, Australia
Lizard Island is so exclusive that you get your own beach. You are given a little chug-chug boat and a map and sent to your own beach (there is one for every guest!). You also get a huge hamper full of food and amazing coral and fish only metres off shore. And you can go to a different beach every day you are there. 
 

Ipanema Beach, Brazil
Yes there are crowds, but boy what a nice crowd – girls wearing barely anything, skilled footballers and oh so cool Cariocas. And the beach is beautiful, too – If you can keep your eyes of all the hot bodies.
 

And there are plenty of other amazing beaches out there that I haven’t been to yet (Seychelles, Mauritius, Maldives, most of the Caribbean islands just to name a few).

So, what’s your favourite beach in the world?

Bagan, Burma
My perfect day started at  5.00 am where I was met by my ‘driver’ and his horse and buggy. We rode in the dark to a temple in the middle of a field then climbed it to watch the sunrise over an endless and magnificent multitude of temples dotted across the countryside. The rest of the day was spent riding from one temple to another and each one was just and incredible and unique as the one before.

Majestic Hotel, Malaka, Malaysia
It’s nice to get a bit of over-the-top luxury now and again. Particularly when my girlfriend Beth and I had been staying mostly in cheap, dirty dives as part of the travels for my new book about.. well, staying in cheap, dirty dives. But this was something truly special. The Majestic Hotel (which used to be a cheap, dirty dive in the 70s) now lives up to it’s name. The rooms were stunning, the food was out of this world and the bed was the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in.

Vertigo, Banyan Tree Hotel, Bangkok.
Vertigo is right. The rooftop restaurant is on the 61st floor of the Banyan Tree Hotel and Beth and I were lucky enough (or unlucky if you’re scared of heights) to get a table right on the edge. To enhance the spectacular views there is only candlelight at the table and the waiter uses a torch to show you the menu and show you your food when it arrives.  We were quite giddy by the end – but that may have had something to do with the wine that accompanied each course of our ‘banquet’.

Stuttgart, Germany
I loved Stuttgart so much I went there twice. The first time was as part of my book tour for ‘Couch Surfing – Eine abenteuerliche Reise um die Welt ‘. My bookshop ‘talk’ was the best attended of my tour and I had a lovely afternoon wandering the streets (and beer gardens). I came back to Stuttgart at the end of my tour for Canstatter Volksfest (Germany’s second biggest Oktoberfest) and did all those fun Oktobefest things like drink lots of beer, danced the polka and queue for 20 minutes to go to the toilet.

Lutzen, Minnesota, USA
This couldn’t have been more idyllic with our cute little wooden cabin right on Lake Superior (as in take one step out the door and you’re IN Lake Superior). And the big open fire certainly came in handy (the large piles of snow gives you an idea). We had lovely walks through the snow and it was so romantic when we saw a bald eagle tearing apart some road kill on the road near our cabin.

Ubud, Bali
I was in Ubud for the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival and the highlight was the three-hour ‘Jalan Jalan’ walk that I led through the Ubud countryside (well, when I say ‘led’ I did get lost in the first 10 minutes). And we ended the walk at a gorgeous villa overlooking the rice fields for a breakfast of smoked salmon and crusty bread, fresh juice, croissants and apple danishes.

Mandalay, Burma
As I mentioned in my On ya bike blog, I spent a few days riding around Mandalay. I visited impressive temples, local restaurants and well, generally just rode around a lot checking out the city. And the highlight of my highlight was going to see the Moustache Brothers. The brothers are a comedic trio that perform ’shows’ in their lounge room that combine wacky comedy routines, classic Burmese dance and satirical criticism of the totalitarian Burmese military regime. One of the brothers served six years in a labour camp for telling a joke about the government. 

Batu Ferringhi, Malaysia
Batu Ferringhi is apparently the single most heavily developed stretch of tourist resorts in Malaysia, but the southern end of the long stretch of beach was quiet, the guest houses were nice (and cheap) and the handful of beach side restaurants (as in right on the beach) were delightful. It was my girlfriend Beth’s favourite place we travelled to.

Peterson, Minnesota, USA
Peterson is a cutesy tiny town in the south of Minnesota (near the border of Iowa) with plenty to do. We went canoeing on the Root River, cycling on the Root River bike track, stayed at a cutesy B&B, ate at cutesy restaurants and shopped in cutesy shops.

Luang Prabang, Laos
I spent a few days on a bicycle riding around this stunning town and it was one of those places that I just didn’t want to leave. Great food, great bars, great scenery and even a great bowling alley.

I don’t know what is in store for me travelling wise in 2010 (so far only a trip to Bali), but that’s what I love about it. Life, like travel, is a great big adventure.

So, do you have a travel ‘highlight’ of 2009?

Yes, but do they get the true experience of travelling. You can’t have truly experienced Africa unless you’ve slept in a bed covered with giants ants or got the real taste of India without stained sheets that smell like vindaloo. So, I’ve decided to make my own list. This is my Top 5 World’s Worst Hotels:

Wisma Tirta Yatra - Penelokan, Bali (US$4.20 a night) 
Okay, I could put up with the smelly, stained sheets and the fan that didn’t work and the barking dogs all night right next to my window and the bucket shower with somewhat rancid water, but the toilet was so scary I couldn’t go anywhere near it. I couldn’t go anywhere near it because it was totally covered in giant ants feasting on the ’stains’ around the hole. And that’s not much fun when you’re busting for the loo.
 

Happylands – Dahab, Egypt (US$2 a night) 
I was happy to leave Happylands. I had a sleepless night because the sheets were so disgusting I couldn’t even touch them. God only knows what the horrific stains were on the bed and I certainly didn’t give it a closer inspection to try and figure out what exactly they might have been. I went to bed fully clothed (even though it was boiling hot) and used my T-shirt as a pillow case, then spent the night waking up in shock when any part of my skin touched the sheet. And the bathroom smelled even worse than the sheets (if that was possible). The next night I lashed out and paid a whopping $5 a night for another hotel (which wasn’t quite as happy, but nowhere near as stainy). 

Hotel Saut d’Eau - Saut d’Eau, Haiti (US$60 a night) 
The Hotel Saut d’Eau wasn’t quite a hotel. There were no hotels in the village, so to find a room involved walking up to people’s houses and asking if they had a spare room. Which wasn’t easy because we were in Saut d’Eau for Haiti’s largest vodou festival. The room we eventually found (I was with two other travellers and a guide) was tiny with a concrete floor, lots of cockroaches and no beds. The owner told us that we could buy our beds (straw mats)at the market. All four mats didn’t quite fit into the room, so I had the guide’s smelly feet in my face all night. Oh, and the toilet was outside next to a banana tree where hundreds of people walked past day and night.

YHA - Hamburg, Germany (US$20 a night) 
The hostel itself was nice. I just didn’t get any sleep and almost threw up in the shower. I didn’t get any sleep (and I’d gone to bed early because the hostel had a curfew) because the South African fellow sleeping above me in the bunk bed sounded like a lion on heat. He snored all night so I lay awake all night. Okay, I did finally nod off to sleep at around 5.00, but I slept in and missed breakfast (even though I was only 2 minutes late). After a sleepless night I really needed a shower to wake me up, but when I stepped in the shower I stood in a pile of shit. And yes, you may wonder just like I did why someone would poo in a shower – particularly when there was a toilet in the same room. 

Hotel de la Plage - Cotonou, Benin (US$45 a night) 
I had a beer on the hotel balcony overlooking the beach when I arrived. Actually, ‘beach’ is too kind a word. Pigs were rummaging through piles of rubbish near the waterline, while only a hundred metres further along there was a dense shantytown that seemed to be built entirely from rubbish. A barbed-wire fence separated the hotel from the beach, which meant that it probably wasn’t a good idea to go for a nice sunset stroll along the seashore. The hotel also had a swimming pool and, although it was stinking hot,  I didn’t go for a swim: a grey and brown film of sludge was floating on the surface and I’d only got shots for three out of the nine diseases in the water. I didn’t get any sleep either. Firstly, there was a knock on my door at around ten o’clock. When I asked who was there no one answered. This went on a few more times. My heart started beating wildly. I was pretty sure it was a mugger doing house calls using the old trick of waiting until you open the door, then bursting in and robbing you. Over the next two hours they tried again a number of times (or maybe it was a new set of muggers each time). At about one in the morning, when the knockers had finally given up I was finally about to doze off to sleep when the air-conditioner broke down. Soon after, the room was like a one of those furnaces they melt glass in. I had to take showers periodically throughout the night to prevent myself from bursting into flames.

See, that’s really experiencing a country. None of those fluffy slippers, cable TV and mini shampoo bottles – just stained sheets and dysentery.

1. Belgrade, Serbia
2. Montreal, Canada
3. Buenos Aires, Argentina
4. Dubai, United Arab Emirates
5. Thessaloniki, Greece
6. La Paz, Bolivia
7. Cape Town, South Africa
8. Baku, Azerbaijan
9. Auckland, New Zealand
10. Tel Aviv, Israel 

Well, I don’t mind a good party, but I haven’t been to a single place on the list. Not one. And here’s me thinking I know where to party in the world. So, I’ve decided to make up my own top 10 list of cities and towns that I’ve partied in like it’s 1999. Here’s my top 10:

1. Reykjavik, Iceland
One word: Rúntur. Rúntur, which means ’round tour’ is the name given to the weekend pub crawl, when partiers make their way around town to multiple bars and clubs. Ask any Icelander and they’ll be the first to admit – they drink a lot. In summer they drink to celebrate the long sunny days and in winter they drink to make it through the cold, dark ones. Straight-laced and sober during the week, Icelanders let loose on weekends. It seems that alcohol is so expensive, they figure if they are going to pay a fortune to drink, they might as well really go at it. They sure do. I was whisked though dance clubs and bars so quickly I couldn’t keep track of where I was (or how much I’d drunk). I seem to remember dancing a lot and handing my credit card over the bar as freely as if I was Bjork. 

2. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Yes there are great nightclubs, bars and all-night restaurants, but what made it for me were the samba bars. My favourite was Casa Rosa (The Pink House) for the Sunday night roda de samba party. The seven-dollar entrance fee included dinner and a perpetual parade of girls wiggling their perfect bottoms. A band were all sitting around a table that was covered in bottles of beer and the musicians were singing while thumping drums (surdos) and bongos and swinging their cavaquinhos. The music was so contagious that I couldn’t help but wiggle my not-so-perfect bottom. 

3. Munich, Germany
‘Ein Prosit Der Gemutlichkeit…’ Munich is a great party town with numerous beer halls, beer gardens and the nightlife in Schwabing, but the biggest party of all (with 6 million visitors every year) is Oktoberfest. I’ve been three times. I can just about remember one of them. But, I do remember dancing on the seats in the Hackerbräu-Festhalle and falling onto the East German weightlifting team on the next table and knocking over all their beers and then having to buy them all beers so they wouldn’t kill me.

4. Sapporo, Japan
I started my night in the Sapporo beer hall, which is a huge smoky place full of people skulling beer. You pay around $40 and you have 100 minutes to eat and drink as much as possible. The locals can eat, drink and smoke all at the same time. Then it was off to the Sapporo Snow Festival to watch drunk people fall on the ice and then finish the night off with, naturally, karaoke.

5. Hora, Greece
Ios. That’s all I need to say really for anyone who has been there. I went there in the late 80s with a water bed salesman from Rotorua called Sleazy and we partied so hard that we couldn’t leave. We kept missing the one and only morning ferry to Santorini because we’d been out till four in the morning every night. Sadly, after finally escaping from Ios we went back after Santorini for more tequila slammers.

6. Sydney, Australia
Twenty thousand men dancing with no shirts on. Now that’s a party! The after party for the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is one wild, fantastic party. I’ve been three times now and I don’t really like dance music or Barbara Streisand. I do like the Chupa Chup stand, though.

7. London, England
I love old London pubs. And one time I tried to drink in 27 of them in one day. I was attempting the Circle Line Pub Crawl. This entails drinking half a pint of beer in a pub at each and every one of the 27 stops on London Underground’s Circle Line. That’s 13 and a half pints of beer in 12 hours. We got to 20. I think. Luckily I wrote down the names of the pubs, though, because there were some classic names: Old Dr. Butlers head, Slurpin Toad, Hoops & Grapes, Chesire Cheese, Ye olde Cock Tavern, Halfway to Heaven, Lord Moon of the Mall, The Plumber’s Arms and The Rat and Parrot.   

8. Bangkok, Thailand
 
Roof top bars, snazzy nightclubs and ‘me love you long time’. Admittedly I haven’t done the girly bars (no, really), but I’ve been to a couple of amazing roof top bars (Vertigo at Banyan Tree and Red Sky at Central). And when I was there earlier this year with my girlfriend Beth we went to a such a cool nightclub that we danced all night (and neither of us can dance).

9. Saut d’Eau, Haiti

Woman throwing off their underwear, people getting possessed by spirits, great live music, incessant drumming all night, a potent and dangerous local rum and folk biting heads of chickens. Now that’s a real party. I was in Saut d’Eau for the annual vodou festival and the party (and biting off chicken heads) went all night. Although it was hard to tell whether people were possessed by spirits or had just drunk too much spirits.

10. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
 A large glass of beer for 10 cents. That’s a good enough reason to be a great party town. You can buy locally brewed beer (bia hoi) on the street where, usually, a lady has a big container of beer that she sucks out with a garden hose into a bottle and you get a big chunk of ice in your glass to cool it down. Tet (the Lunar New Year) is a week long celebration with lots of garden hose sucking going on.

Do you have a favourite party city or town?

Beijing, China
I lost my city map in the first 15 minutes then spent a wonderful day riding around the Forbidden City, discovering hidden back streets, stopping for delicious Peking duck and getting completely and utterly lost.
 

Comino, Malta
My 73 year old father and I rode around this tiny, barren island looking for the remaining four ‘locals’ who live there (we found all of them plus a donkey). The good thing about the small population is that we just about had the beautiful island to ourselves.
 

Santa Fe, USA
This was my first serious attempt at ‘proper’ mountain biking. Beginning at around 2,500 metres I rode over boulders, jumped logs, shot down steep embankments and negotiated narrow tracks along precarious ridges. Well, I actually wasn’t that good at negotiating the precarious ridges and I ended up getting thrown over the handlebars and tore my knees to shreds.
 

Lauterbrunnen to Bönigen, Switzerland
The 20 km easy ride was pretty much all downhill through a stunning Alpine landscape. We rode by a raging river, through fields of snow (and cow poo), past ever-so-cute villages, through the charming town of Interlaken (to pick up some grilled chickens and some wine) then finished in the town of Bönigen with a picnic on the shore of Lake Brienz.
 

Mandalay, Burma
Besides the incessant honking of car horns, riding around Mandalay was a relaxing way of seeing the town and its many and amazing sites. Oh, except at night when the streets were pitch black and you couldn’t see the road in front of you.
 

Root River, USA
This was my first go on a tandem bike (with my girlfriend Beth sitting at the back) and it was great fun (although I had my suspicions that Beth was just pretending to peddle – although she might say that I was doing the same!). The Root River (no sniggering, please) Bike Trail is in southern Minnesota and is built on a former train line. We rode through forests and farmland and past cutsie little towns and stopped for lunch at a cutsie little restaurant overlooking Root River (now, now!)
 

Hoi An, Vietnam
I hired a bike from a 12 year old boy and spent the day trundling around the countryside, through villages, past rice paddies and along the coast. And the whole time – because the bike was so small – I looked like Kermit the Frog.
 

Amsterdam, The Netherlands
When in Rome… Or when in Amsterdam it’s great fun to cruise around the city and along the canals on one of those clunky, cumbersome Dutch bicycles. I’ve done it many times, but my favourite is on a warm sunny day cruising around Vondel Park watching the locals sun themselves (okay, and Dutch girls don’t look half bad in bikinis).
 

Yosemite, USA 
I spent a whole day cycling around the valley from amazing waterfall to amazing waterfall, being befriended by gophers, chasing raccoons and looking out for hungry bears.
 

Bangkok, Thailand 
I went on a ‘Bangkok Back streets Bicycle Tour’ only a couple of months back and, although I had been to Bangkok a number of times, I got to see many ‘hidden gems’ amongst the back streets and canals (although I did fall off twice and took out a fence).
 

Have you been on any great bike rides?

Best airports

1. Singapore Changi

2. Hong Kong Chek Lap Kok Intl

3. Amsterdam Schiphol

4. Dubai World Central Intl

5. London Heathrow (ironically, Heathrow also rated as the worst airport!)

Worst airports

1. London Heathrow

2. Paris CDG

3. Los Angeles – LAX Intl

4. Frankfurt International

So for my two cent’s worth this is my top three best airports in the world:

1. Changi Airport (Singapore)

It’s not only me who likes Changi – the airport has won over 250 awards for airport excellence since 1987. I’ve been there so many times, but still haven’t utilized all their great facilities, which includes: free internet (they were the first to have it), free cinema, ‘napping’ areas (I love those!), spa and gym, very nice showers, free Singapore tours (for those in transit for more than five hours), a Nature Trail (with six themed garden reserves) and – you’ve gotta love this – a rooftop swimming pool.

2. Zurich 
What can I say – they’re Swiss. Everything is spotless, everything runs on time, the staff are polite (and very officious!), the restaurants are good (they have fondue on the menu) and, best of all, they have lots of shops selling Swiss chocolate.

8. Manas International airport (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan)
I flew into Bishkek with Uzbekistan airways in Business Class (it was $50 more) and as the plane came to a halt on the tarmac, a shiny, new-looking green van with a huge white VIP emblazoned across the side pulled up next to us. Out of the five other Business Class passengers, a silver-haired fellow in a blue suit seemed the most likely to be of some importance. He looked like either a politician or a Very Important Accountant. I was right. Us six pointy-end passengers were let off the plane first and Mr Blue-suit was directed to the van. And so was I and the other Business Class passengers. We drove straight past the large entrance to the arrivals hall and pulled up in front of a small wooden door. We got out and stepped into a plush lounge bar where a bevy of waiters was lined up awaiting our orders. ‘Would you like a drink, sir?’ my personal waiter asked. A smiling lady asked me if I needed a visa and then took my passport away. Ten minutes later, the lady returned with my bag and passport with visa. ‘You can go through the exit door now,’ she said. ‘When you have finished your beer,’ she added with a beaming smile. I was still expecting to go through customs and baggage check before standing in a pointless queue so an official could grunt at me, but the exit door led straight out to the front of the terminal. I was in Kyrgyzstan. On the return leg I was pulled from the check-in queue and taken back to the bar. Now that’s what I call an airport.

And here is my top three worst airports in the world:

1. LAX (Los Angeles)
You’d think as a major airport and gateway to the capital of the free world that LAX would be a great airport. Well, it’s shit. Here’s why: they have lost my bags (twice!), there are no showers at the airport for transit passengers (you have to catch a bus to a gym near the airport and pay $10 membership to use their showers and no-one at the airport can tell you about this place – I found it on the internet), there is no ‘left luggage’ so if you are in transit for a few hours you have to lug around all your bags if you want to visit any part of LA, passport control are grumpy, rude and just a bit too paranoid. And when it comes to ‘restaurants’ there is lots of choice – as long as you like American chain fast food.

2. Domodedovo International Airport (Moscow)
The staff at Moscow airport have truly mastered the art of being grumpy, rude and bloody slow. At one point I left the horrendously long queue for passport control (when I was leaving the country) because I was simply intrigued on why it was taking so long. Now no disrespect to passport officials, but you could train a chimpanzee to do the job, so I just wanted to know why it took ten minutes to stamp each passport. Oh, and the shops at the airport were more expensive than Champs-Elysées, the toilets hadn’t been cleaned since the iron curtain came down and there wasn’t a comfy seat in the whole airport.

3. Léon M’ Ba Airport (Libreville, Gabon) 

I didn’t have a visa for Gabon, so I was only in transit for a few hours en-route to São Tomé and Príncipe. Or so I thought. I may have been in more rundown airports, but I was stuck at Libreville airport for three days waiting to get an airline ticket out of the place. I slept on a ‘barbecue grill’ seat with Arctic setting air conditioning, the one and only restaurant only served croissants and beer, check in was something akin to a riot and they played French rap 24 hours a day on the airport PA (and you think ‘normal’ rap is bad!).

So, do you have a favourite (and least favourite) airport?

I stumbled upon a website that listed the most disgusting foods in the world (by country) and amongst the camel’s feet, tiger’s testicles, pork uterus, ox penis, cow urine and maggot-cheese was Vegemite. Come on. Vegemite is not disgusting. Yes, it doesn’t look the most appetising, but it fair dinkum tastes good on ya toast in the morning. Also under the ‘Australia’ list were witchety grubs and beetroot! The ‘American’ list of disgusting foods was just as strange (as in strange that they made the list). On that list was Spam (okay, fair enough there), iceberg lettuce and peanut butter.

I’ve eaten some pretty disgusting foods in my travels, so here’s my list of the 10 most disgusting foods I’ve eaten:

Rancid shark – Iceland
Hakarl, or rancid shark, is traditionally prepared by digging a hole, placing the shark in the hole, pissing on it, then burying it for about six months until it rots. It’s then served cold ala sashimi style.

Burned sheep’s head – Iceland
If you’d like to prepare this at home, it’s very easy. Get a sheep’s head, burn it to remove the wool, cut it in two in order to remove the brain, boil it, then serve with mashed turnip.
 

Fried grasshoppers – Burma
A local girl brought me one and when I said, very politely, that it was quite nice she brought me a whole bowl of them. It wasn’t nice – sort of burnt with gooey horrible stuff inside – and I had to eat about 20 of them.
 

African sausages – Kenya
Otherwise known as goat’s intestines. The boiled intestines, which were grey and slimy, were served dangling daintily from a stick.

Worms – South Africa
I had a traditional South African entrée of fat black slimy Mopani worms that were ‘gently simmered’ and came served with peanut butter and tomato relish. They tasted like burnt sausage, and then the second crunch let loose the slimy insides which tasted exactly as I had feared a worm would taste like. As if someone had blown their nose into my mouth.
 

Frog’s brains – Indonesia
I’d eaten frog’s legs in France before, but when I ordered frog in Yogyakarta, Indonesia I got the whole frog – including legs, eyes, stomach and brain.

Goat soup – Kenya
I’m pretty sure this mug of soup isn’t in the Continental Cup-a-Soup range: Hearty Goat with Fat Globs and Grey Sludge.
 

Foetus eggs – Vietnam
It’s as horrible as it sounds. It’s duck eggs with the foetus inside only a few days away from hatching. And it’s eaten raw.
 

Offal sausage – France
I ordered this by accident. I thought I was ordering some gourmet sausages in a very nice restaurant in a Paris, but instead I’d ordered sausages stuffed with smelly and grey offal bits.

Beetroot – Anywhere
I agree with the ‘disgusting foods’ list here. Why anyone would want to eat beetroot is beyond me. I think I’d rather eat raw rancid frog’s brain soup.

But then again none of the above comes close in the disgusting stakes to something else I saw on my travels (and rather sensibly passed up an offer to try). I found it in China and it’s called Baby Mice Wine. It’s a traditional Chinese ‘health tonic’, which apparently tastes like raw gasoline. Little mice, eyes still closed, are plucked from the embrace of their loving mothers and stuffed (while still alive) into a bottle of rice wine where they are left to ferment. Here’s a pic… (and yes, gross!)

Has anyone eaten any other ‘disgusting’ foods in their travels?