Funniest Thing for June

Tell ITN about the funniest thing that ever happened to you while traveling in a foreign country. There are no restrictions on length. (ITN prints no info on destinations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean.) The ITN staff will choose each month’s winner, who will receive a free one-year subscription to ITN. Entries not chosen cannot be acknowledged.

This month’s winner is S. WOOD of Sedona, Arizona:

A few years back but after the British were long gone from Belize, my wife and I were driving through an uninhabited section of dense Belizean jungle when we came to a narrow bridge across a pretty stream. I stopped the car and walked back onto the bridge with my camera, wearing only tourist shorts and sandals.

Suddenly there burst from the jungle a platoon of running soldiers in full battle dress and blackened faces, charging straight at me with fixed bayonets. Having watched my share of war films, I instinctively threw my arms in the air in surrender, spread my legs and stepped to the very edge of the railless bridge, hoping for mercy.

But the platoon simply thundered past me as though I weren’t there, its bayonets missing me by inches, and as they passed I distinctly heard a very British voice say, “Easy, mate. No worries.”