Pet peeves that come from traveling.

I got the idea for this post after my husband did something really annoying on our last trip. In the month that we were in Peru, every time we were on a bus or train, he would close the window shade. I would open it and then he would close it. I wanted to look out the window, he didn’t want the sun on his phone or laptop. I asked the bus driver about this once on a bus in Bolivia and he said people close the window shades because rural areas in these countries can be rough and people might throw rocks at the bus if they see tourists looking out the window. <br><br>This leads to something else that bothers me. Why do some people put their feet on the back of your chair on a plane or bus? We were on a bus in Ecuador and this guy was totally sleeping with his feet on my husband’s chair and didn’t respond to my jerk reaction of banging against the back of his chair. My husband finally tapped his leg with his cane and said please get your feet off my chair. The guy totally woke up like a bear who had been poked.<br><br>On long bus rides in South America you can pay more for a layback seat which gives you more room. In Ecuador, the man in the layback seat in front of me lay his seat back and then put his feet against the wall above my seat on the other side of the glass separating us and was that way for hours. Thankfully he didn’t smell bad.<br><br>Trains are usually better than buses but we had an overnight sleeper train in Thailand once and the man next to us was smoking in his room. It was coming through the AC and we called the train staff who opened the door to his room and yelled at him but then closed the door and walked away. I don’t know if he continued smoking but the smell was gone after that.<br><br>In the US, you rarely hear anyone yelling at someone on a bus or train for doing something wrong. In other countries, especially Latin America, it is totally common for people to yell at strangers for doing something wrong. I took a city bus in El Salvador and this guy got on drinking a beer. The bus driver yelled at him and told him to get off the bus. He argued but got off the bus at the next stop. I have been on buses where the driver yells at someone for not wearing a mask, or for smoking, or for blasting music. Once a bus driver yelled at me for taking a picture of him at a toll booth.