Iguanas for breakfast, disgusted monks and goats in taxis. It could only happen on a gap year or year abroad.
To celebrate the launch of Refreshers Wall, The Student Year Planner from Student Beans, which has a dedicated travel section, we asked students for their most extreme gap year and year abroad stories.
Here are our top ten:
"I lived in High School Musical for a year as a foreign exchange student at an all Girls' Private College in Memphis. No really...the genetics class flashmobbed the canteen one lunchtime, singing a song they had written about the options for lunch. There was dancing with lunch trays and even a solo from the class tutor!"
- Ruth, University of Hull
"I went to Borneo and ate rat, squirrel and frog in the jungle."
- James, University of Aberdeen
"I had to eat iguana broth for breakfast after a night out in rural Mexico. I love iguanas and I was very hungover."
- Kat, Roehampton University
"I went to the University of Granada, and after being in classes for 4 months, I found out 2 lessons before the exam that I had been going to the wrong class! Failed the class."
- Francesca, University of Leicester
"I spent 3 months working on farms in France and Italy where I planted about 1 billion onions, learnt to milk a goat, experienced several drunken car journeys driving literally on the side of a mountain, and hitchhiked with a couple and their (huge) dogs."
- Student at University of Liverpool
"I spent a semester working in France, and realised after 5 months that I'd been pronouncing a word wrong, instead replicating the noise that frogs make in French."
- Rachel, University of Sheffield
"I went on a gap year volunteering in Zambia and on my birthday the Zambian girls I was living with bought me a live chicken and insisted I chopped it's head off to eat for dinner that night! Both myself and the chicken shat ourselves in horror and I still have nightmares."
- Alex, University of Nottingham
"Most unusual taxi journey in Ghana where a man in front of us stopped the taxi and bundled both himself and a live goat into the seat that was pretty random!"
- Student at University of Birmingham
"In India I went to the Golden Temple in Amritsar and ended up being surrounded by Indian women and children who were talking to me and getting very excited. I had no idea what any of them were saying and after taking about 10 photos they waved and said bye. Bizarre."
- Verity, University of Manchester
"Myself and my friend got on an overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. We found our bunks and immediately jumped on to the top bunks and took off our flip flops, letting our feet dangle over the edge and laughing at our near-miss. As the train pulled off we noticed that the men sitting on the beds beneath us were dressed in orange robes. And looked extremely disgusted.
"It wasn't until a steward came into our carriage and started shouting in Thai, that we realised, we were females (who can't be in close proximity to Monks) in a Monks private carriage, sitting above a Monk (which again is disrespectful to be physically higher) and with our feet dangling in their faces (again, disrespectful to have your toes on show). Terribly embarrassing and now quite hilarious to recall!
- Kamil, University of the West of England
What are your most extreme travelling experiences? Give us a tweet @HPUKStudents and we'll publish the best!