This cartoon (click to enlarge) was inspired by what Magda from Destination World wrote here: I love tea but not the Mongolian one
Of course with the stupid sense of humour I have, I left a comment regarding the situation she had been in (about how salty the tea was).
Wouldn’t it be funny if it wasn’t a tradition but they like to pull this one off with the people they guide so they can have a good laugh that night.
Mongolian wife: Did you see that she actually drank 4 cups of that crap (hysterical laughter ensues).
Mongolian husband: Yeah, I almost fell off my yak thinking about it on the way back.
Then it got me thinking… I wonder if this ever really happens.
You know, like the local guide saying:
This is the cave where Christopher Columbus fried a kangaroo. OR
You must pay the village tax for our nightly drinking binges a new donkey the community needs to buy.
Once I was on a free mini tour they used to do in the centre of Santiago with some other foreigners that didn’t speak Spanish. The tour was in English and I was the only one that spoke Spanish, though I never mentioned this fact. Along the way, the guide said to his trainee guide something in Spanish along the lines of “You can say that Pedro de Valdivia* stood on that little rock (pointing to a random irrelevant rock) or did anything and these guys (referring to the tourists) will believe anything you say.” Both Chuckled.
* Pedro de Valdivia “founded” Santiago and is famous for having a main street named after him. 
Yes, randomly useless information that you didn’t need to know but I thought I’d share with you anyway.
I didn’t say anything immediately. I was more interested in what else they might say.
The trainee learnt that he had to go into graphic detail of how a local Indian (Caupolicán) go impaled upon a spike… by sitting on it (nasty Spanish entertainment at the time). This fact WAS true but the detail was necessary to get better tips at the end for sharing their “vast” knowledge.
It wasn’t until the very end when I thanked them in Spanish for all of their enlightening stories.
Do you think locals ever make fun of the tourists like this?
Can YOU think of ways to make fun of tourists?
Disclaimer:
This is my first attempt at a comic and as you can see I have A LOT TO LEARN.
I have never been good at art, (I can’t draw to save myself) and on top of that it was a great challenge teaching myself how to use Adobe Illustrator to try and produce it. But I love learning so you’ll see me making a fool of myself more often here.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Love the comic, it’s hilarious. I’ve tried a lot of weird things that locals admitted to me they didn’t really ever eat now or even like.
It’s funny when they make you eat or drink something they themselves don’t like, especially when it comes to bugs or insects.
That’s brilliant!
I have to say, it’s hard not to make fun of tourists. Cardiff is the capital of my homecountry and we always see the little tour groups wandering around, taking pictures of the castle, desperate to go down the bay (where they film Doctor Who and Torchwood, of course.
)
I used to work in a couple of shops in Cardiff and it was hilarious to see their reactions when you’d say things like, “Oh, they were filming Doctor Who around the corner this morning. You just missed them.”
I know someone who used to tell tourists that the “Welsh Dragon sausages” that quite a few local pubs and restaurants sold were made from REAL red dragon (like the one on the flag). It must have caught on and caused a lot of disappointment because, as of today, all the menus read “Welsh Dragon Pork Sausages”.
Love it!
What? You mean it wasn’t real dragon meat?
So does that also mean that the leather jacket I bought is not dragon hide either?
Lol, that comic is great. And I’m positive that happens all the time!
Fun comic- Do more!
I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to take a tour guide’s advice about eating or drinking anything again without thinking about this post!
Just have to make sure they try it first!
Love the comic
I think that happens more often than people think. I mean, locals telling them some “interesting detail” that may not be true. Wasn’t there something in the news a while ago about some priest making fun of a couple at a wedding ceremony in his native language while pretending to marry them? Oh, where was that again?! That’s a little too mean I think. But the dragon sausages? Hilarious!!
once i went with my boyfriend and a foreign friend to a party in chile, he was having a lot of fun talking to everybody, he did not know any Spanish at that time… on our way home he told my boyfriend… ” quieren tener sexo conmigo” we turned around and ask him ” what are you talking about” and he answered ” es que me pica el hoyo y lo necesito”… (translate it in google)
he though he was saying:
” are we going home?” ” i am really tired”…. he asked to somebody on the party, he just wanted to surprise us…
don’t trust everything they tell you…
Me pica el hoyo… ha ha ha ha!
I have heard of so many different cases of that same thing where someone “translates” a supposedly common thing into something vulgar or rude.
Be careful if they laugh while giving you the translation.