Was at a seedy bar with my mate, in a bad area, in a dangerous country. My mate told me we should leave because things were looking sketchy, and we had run out of money. Both of us reasonably drunk. I was starting to get the feeling of panic. We managed to get outside and i ordered a taxi. My mate ran back inside to piss after I had told him don’t fucking go back inside. After waiting ages I went back in and found the bar owner pushing drugs onto my mate. This was very very illegal in this country, like jail for foreigners, and my mate was trying to play it cool but whispered to me that it was a very bad situation because he couldn’t say no to this guy but he had no cash. Luckily, I had a spare emergency note of the biggest denomination in my pocket which was just enough to cover the drugs. We finally got outside.

The bar owner offered to call us a taxi and when I told him I already had, he seemed very irritated. I don’t know what would have happened if we had taken his taxi.

I’ve ommitted many details so this may seem less scary than it was at the time. But to this day it haunts me, and I wonder how close I came to being kidnapped and ransomed, or blackmailed, or worse.

When you’re in foreign countries, don’t be stupid. Stay in the safe places. Stay the fuck away from anything sketchy.