Uncharted Thoughts.

I have travelled over thirty countries and have seen some of the most incredible shows this planet has to offer. From unearthly salt flats of Bolivia to the the protruding spine of the Himalayan mountains.

Yet, there are other incredible sights that most of us don’t get to see, some, we would never want to see.

Here is a list of Travel Urban legends I have heard about on my trips across the world. Some of these may well be true, others perhaps existed a long time ago and some, we hope, are just legends made to scare off tourists.

Mexican Donkey Show.

What is a Donkey show? Well, you don’t have to have much of an imagination to really get to the conclusion of what this is. A donkey show, is much like the sex shows in the Netherlands. Only this one involves a certain four legged mammal with big ears and an ever bigger… let of… hooves?

So the Urban legend states that there are certain places in Mexico, specifically Tijuana, where you can go and watch a woman preform in Donkey Shows, for a very cheap price.

I first cam across this Urban legend two nights ago, I was talking to my partner about the Mexico and our ever evolving trip of 2026. We were joking about visiting Tijuana, so get F**ked up and party, before heading off to somewhere more calm and tranquil. She said “Yeah, I bet you’d end up in a donkey show or something”.

Now, I have never heard of this before, and when she told me what the show involved. I was happy to have never known it before.

So, is this real?

After some research online, it is clear that this was once a practice, or at least it had happened at least once and become an Urban legend. If it is practiced, it would be very hard to come by, as most people online that went looking for it, never managed to find it.

On my scale of Urban Legendness I give this 5/10.

The reality is, I expect, with the right money, and the right questions this can probably still be found in Tijuana. Poor drugged up sex workers will be throwing into a den with a malnourished and abused donkey in some barn or dungeon on some backwater street.

Exploding Cows in Vietnam

I was in Vietnam in 2023. I skooted my way through lush green rice paddies, through large rock structures surrounded by flowing clear rivers, over hills and past large polluted cities that house foods I have never tasted.

I had heard about the exploding cow extravaganza back in school in the early 2010s. I was shocked, and mesmerised by the lawlessness, the sense of adventure, the possibilities of the world and what it had hidden within it. I was young and naive to the world, forgive me. But I wanted to do it.

What is the exploding cow of Vietnam? Well, it’s a experience that travellers are rumoured to have taken part in. Where a person will pay $500 to shoot a cow with a Rocket-propelled Grenade. You know, the Allah Akbar weapon of choice in Hollywood movies.

Now, since doing some research on the subject, the whereabouts of where this can be done varies from article to article. Some state it is in Vietnam, others in Cambodia and one or two say Laos. So, already the lines are blurring on this Urban legend.

Unfortunately for vegans and animal lovers, this is a true legend. One that can still be done today. Be it in Cambodia or in Vietnam, this is a true legend and there are countless accounts of this being so across the internet. Some posts being updated just last year.

On my scale of Urban Legendness I give this 8/10.

There is a sense of adventure and lawlessness that attracts people to do this, and I get that it is a story topping escape from listening to someone talk about playing guitar on a beach in Thailand. But to blow up an animal is not okay. The treatment of animals across the world is harrowing, and be you a blue haired vegan or just a geeza down the pub, this is not something we should invest our tourist money in.

Route 36 Bolivia

Route 36 is a legend I heard about while travelling across South America. The rumour was, if you were in La Paz, and you took a taxi to Route 36, you’d end up in a random part of the city where no travellers have been before. That location? is unknown, it changes every other day. In this bar/shack/house/barn/mineshaft you’d be able to sit and drink as you do in any other bar. Or, you could ordered pure Peruvian marching powder for $4 a gram.

Well, I can tell you from personal experience that this bar is real. Not only is it real, but its not hard to find. Ask any taxi driver and you will be taken there for a small extra free. I was unable to attend the bar as I was in and out of La Paz in 48 hours. But if I was to go back, which I hope to do one day soon. I will go, and I will have many pints.

It has been years now since I was in Bolivia, and perhaps things have changed. But, I doubt it. Bolivia is the wild west of South America. It is both beautiful and lawless, friendly and somewhere to go if you are on the run and never wish to be found.

On my scale of Urban Legendness I give this 10/10.

Thailand sex work is worse than you think.

When I was in Vietnam I met a girl who was from Switzerland. She was travelling for a year and I met her on my last night in Vietnam. We went out for drinks and to walk through the old part of the city. While sat watching the world go by, enjoying a beer for 50p. We discussed our travel horror stories.

She told me a story about a group of lads she had met in Thailand. One of them was so embarrassed about the situation he was leaving the trip early to go back home. The lads, tried to laugh off the situation but when she was told it, she was horrified and so was I.

Turns out one of these boys went to have sex with a prostitute, but upon arriving realised that the brothel was used for falacio rather than sex, or there was some miscommunication. Anyway, he went ahead with it.

He was walked into a small room, that was coated in pornography magazines and he put his genitalia in a hole in the wall.

Apparently the act was so good, he wanted to take the lady out for dinner and potentially hire her for the week. So, the brothel owner obliged, and went to get the poor girl that had just been paid less an hours wage in the UK, to give a strange foreign man a sexual act.

To, the mans horror, the person whom was presented to him by the brothel owner was a young ten year old boy.

This is the horror of sex work and sex tourism.

There is no doubt that this is real. I mean the story may not be, perhaps it is exaggerated or just a rumour started to creep out people and scare them away from using these brothels. But this happens everyday in Thailand, western peadophiles go out to Thailand and abuse their children because its is accessible and legal. Only to return to the west and live a life free from imprisonment.