Los Angeles

On arrival in LA, our cab driver took us to our hotel, where we couldn't get in because there was no-one at the front desk.  Thank god the driver waited for us, because if we had hung around, our possessions would undoubtedly have been picked clean by the various shady individuals hanging about.  I'm not exaggerating, LA is a scary place.  

You walk one block away from your hotel - your oasis of safety - into The Badlands.  Windows boarded up, weirdos demanding change, and deserted streets.  Scary for a small person with loose bowels.

Now look, you may be saying, this is what you get for trying to do the budget thing.  You are absolutely right of course, and here as I sit typing this I could quite happily kick Econo-Me up the arse for being such a prize idiot.  

Nevertheless, we had only just arrived in the USA, and it seemed our holiday fund was disappearing at an alarming rate.  And just think of all the money we would have saved on hotels if I should have been shot and killed at this point in our holiday!  So from a financial point of view, my plan made perfect sense.

Our taxi driver took us to a place called The Saharan Motel, a vaguely decripit place that looked like several trailer homes welded together.  We checked in, looked around the room and decided to check out again as soon as we could.  But we ordered room service (you thought we would go OUT THERE???  are you INSANE??) and hung out until the next day when we checked into a Ramada.  

It was okay, but the neighbourhood felt terribly unfriendly.  I went to the shops a couple of times to pick up groceries and what-not, and got ATTITUDE from everybody.  

It's probably the first time I've encountered reverse-racism and while to a degree, you can understand resentment of dumb white tourists, my feeling is this: an *rsehole is an *rsehole no matter what race they are.