The Titanic Awards

Name Christopher Reynolds
Who? Christopher Reynolds has been writing about travel, culture and the outdoors for the Los Angeles Times and others since the late 1980s.
Age 48
Countries Visited about 60.

Titanic Nominations
1. Worst Hotel Room On a 1998 bus tour around Iran, I landed  in a cinder-block box in the town of Tabas. Vermin. Spiders. Open loft above the pit toilet, allowing full sharing of sounds and smells from the adjacent pit used by aged couple next door. Nearby lay the spot where two U.S. aircraft crashed in a failed 1980 hostage-rescue attempt. Cost for one night: $10.
2. Worst Ride on the Back of an Animal Camel, Sinai, Egypt. Besides the wooden saddle, the bony back of the beast and the awkward gait, there was the shame of watching my camel herder berate his little child-laborer daughter. Also, the thought of all the unexploded mines in that desert.
3. Worst Airport Near Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe. After issuing my boarding pass, the agent jogged out to the runway to chase away monkeys. A few minutes later, I swear I saw him giving flag signals to the plane.
4. Worst Flight Flew to Ireland despite a severe headcold. As landing approach, I desperately yawned, huffed, etc. But as my wife gazed out window at that gorgeous green countryside for the first time, my eardrum burst. Significant pain.  (But there’s good news– they grow back.)
5. Worst Tourist Attraction About an hour outside Guangzhou, China, somebody has built a sort of rural-living theme park, compete with cockfights, pigs being dropped into water from great heights, and throbbing music by that great Chinese folk artist, Cher.  Ideal  on a 100-degree summer day.
6. Worst Performance by a Hotel Maid Latvija Hotel, Riga, Latvia. This was in 1992, when old Soviet ways still prevailed.  I checked into the hotel, went upstairs to my room, and found a maid seated inside, smoking a cigarette and watching TV.  “Very good film,” she said. “Ten minutes.” Then she took another drag and turned her eyes back to the screen.

Famous Travelers Chris Reynolds, Christopher Reynolds