Your favourite country and why?

Hi,

On your travels, which country has the fondest memories for you and why?

Mine is Chile.
I was working there for 6 months in 1979 as a 23 year old.
Chilenos are the nicest people IMO.

Five? I only had one :vhappy: (sorry)

Spain and Portugal. Great climate, great beaches, great culture, great food and wine. Football aint bad either and they aren't too far from blighty.

For me, without any question or doubt..............JAPAN.
Period.

BTW that's the opinion of my wife too.

Too many reasons why.
However. Not actually being Japanese is always going to be a disadvantage unless you know how to 'charm and disarm' in Japanese

I met many Japanese on dive boats in Asia.
I always found them to be the most unusual people and more different than any other nationality! What does 'charm and disarm' mean?

Don't know much about Portugal John but I love Spain also, particularly away from the sleaze of the coast, which affected everyone.

Yep, there is a lot more to Spain than the Costa Brava. Same with Portugal.

I first went to Spain in 1977, John.
I remember the donkeys everywhere.
Lots of older women wore black clothes.
Spain has changed so much.
I lived on the Costa del Sol for a while and didn't enjoy it.
When you live somewhere that everyone just seems to want to get pished all the time, it can get boring quite quickly.
Even the ex-pats who lived there seemed to be like this.
The Spanish people are more stand-offish on the coasts too.

Spain is a big country and the "tainted" areas are just a small portion of the whole. Again, same as Portugal - though of course Portugal aint so big.

A blast from the past on package tours to the Iberian Peninisula:

I spent 9 months working with navigation systems in a lot of the coastal areas.
Once we went inland it was a different world.

Do you see many Libyans over there Rob?

I never spent any time in Malta but landed there a few times leaving Libya for the UK. I knew people that had vacation there after stints in Libya. I heard from them about Malta being popular with Libyans. I think they (the Libyans) saw it as a place to let their hair down.

I can remember walking through the Gut and seeing drunken Libyans, wearing what had been spotless white uniforms, horizontal in the road. Evidently they had ignored the Prophet's advice on the affluence of incohol.

My parents almost settled in Malta when they left Libya but that coincided with the rise of Dom Mintoff and the Malta Labour Party and they thought better of it.

Oh, and if I could afford it, which I cannot, Hong Kong is my favourite place.

The causeway between Sau'di and Bahrain was similar, smashed up luxury cars were abandoned on every trip - Rollers, Ferrari's etc...