When you travel, things are awesome, but they can also get bad. You get sick alone in a town where few people talk in English or your languages, you may get injured, miss a train, get robbed, and more.
The important thing is to stay focused in the fact that all of this are still experiences, and there´s always something good you can take from them.
For example, when I was in Sapa, Vietnam, I started feeling bad from my stomach, but like really bad.
First a girl from Australia I had met that day borrowed me her hotel room, as I was supposed to do a trek and sleep in a village house. When I felt better I got my own room.
After a few hours laying alone in the hotel room, I started feeling that I had fever. The north of Vietnam is a Malaria zone, so I knew I had to get up and go to a Hospital, but I was feeling so bad that it was hard to do so.
When I was finally able to get up from bed, I went down to the hotel lobby and asked for the nearest Hospital. People there told me there was one, but that no one knew English there.
I sat down and a tear came down my cheek as I thought what to do. Going back to Hanoi meant a night bus, a lot of hours, hours you shouldn´t waste if you suspect you have a chance of having Malaria.
A woman approached me, she worked in the Hotel. She told me she was coming with me, called a cab and took me to the Hospital. She translated everything and was really sweet, cheering me up while waiting for the results of the test.
That day was kinda crappy, cause I felt really bad, but it was so awesome at the same time. That woman, she didn´t even knew my name, took two hours of her life to be there for me, to selflessly help me when I really needed it. We couldn´t communicate very well, as her English was very basic, but just looking at her eyes and connecting in such a way was comforting and it sort of gave me back faith in humanity.
And, I didn´t have Malaria,so everything turned out just fine!
From a potential bad moment, I lived a really interesting experience, that included seeing a Hospital in a town in the north of Vietnam, see Doctors work in such a different culture, and share all of this with a local.
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