No laughing matter

Ignorance is no defence for travellers who fall foul of local customs and laws against behaviour that they may assume is as acceptable abroad as it is in their home country, as Robin Gauldie (politely) reports

What may be seen as a merry prank in one country may cause grievous offence in another. For example, in 2009 when a British holidaymaker in Marmaris dropped his pants in front of a statue of Kemal Ataturk, he may have expected, at worst, a stern warning if caught. In actual fact, he was jailed, deported and banned from returning to Turkey – a verdict that some Turks felt was too lenient. “He's lucky it was the police that took him,” one Marmaris resident told a British newspaper. “The local boys wanted to kill him for being so insulting.”