about: worst-case scenarios

by - 10:35

What is actually the worst thing, that can happen to you, while traveling alone? You get robbed, loose your passport and all your money, may get hurt or lost.
Of course these things can happen to you as well, when you are with friends, but then it does not feel as bad, since there is someone supporting you.
Be aware of these scenarios and already think about, what you would do in case these things happen. If you get robbed, loose all your money, you will definitly find some other traveler that borrows you a phone.

Also you can minimize the risk of course in not putting yourself in dangerous situations. Don't go out late on your own, unless you know it's a safe area and you are in a public place.
So i don't go partying or getting drunk in my vacation, because even if you met people, you never know what they are really up to. Nevertheless i am anyway not a party person -haha.
I was totally fine during my trip on Bali, until some really shitty things happened to me. And i promise in those 2 weeks more accidents happened to me, than in a whole year back at home.
Be aware that traveling does indeed mean a specific higher risk, than staying at home. Don't pretend that these are not existing.
When these things happened to me, my first intention was actually to ring my mother and cry, but obviously that would not really help me. Since she was so far away and if i would have told her, she would freak out even more than me. She was so strictly against me traveling alone, so i did not want to give her the satisfaction, that i am not capable on my own. Also my phone did not work on Bali, i don't know why, but i never had connection and the only thing possible was emergency calls, at least one thing working. Anyway you have wifi in most spots, so contacting your beloved ones home via whatsapp is possible.
First thing happening to me was that i burned my leg on the very hot exhaust pipe of my rented scooter in Ubud. Not just a tiny bit, but a few layers of skin just shrinkled away. Back home, that's not a super big deal. It hurts as hell, but at least one has proper medication and treatment.
When i go on vacation i always pack essential medication, for diarrhea, a cold and some plasters, as well as my emergency allergy medication.
That burn, that i got, was bigger than any plasters i had with me, and the wound was sipping all time. Most dangerous in tropic spaces is, that they can get infected very easily, because they don't close in the humid air. You might have heard of meat eating bacteria, that comes from flies that sit on your open wound, pretty scary. Luckily, it happened to me in Ubud and there was actually some kind of pharmacy, selling bigger plasters and some iodine cream. Normally you would always let a wound heal in fresh air, not in this place! I bought all plasters in big size in stock of that pharmacy, since you always need to change them as well and some alcohol pats, since this was the only bacteria killing thing available. So cleaning the wound with an alcohol pat needed some will.
Fine, i got through this and got more positive! When i went to Gili Air after Ubud, there came some new challenges for me. My wound was not healed, the plasters all got lost while swimming in the amazing sea and the sun burned my wound even worse. I had some plasters from home with me, that were water resistent, so i cut those and put 3 next to each other to cover my wound and they stayed for a while. Not enough pain yet.
During my first swim on Gili Air i stepped into a black sea urchin, with the left foot. I did not realise until i came out of the water and felt a more than horrible pain. So i turned and looked at my foot, that was all sparkled with black spots of poison. First thought was: now i really will die! Maybe a bit overreacting, but on this island there is no proper medical care!
So i went to the first person i saw, a bartender of a small hut nearby the beach and showed him my foot, covered in tears. He laughed at me and told me to sit down and said he will help me.
When he took a stone, i was a bit concerned what he might do now, but then he started slapping my footsole with it and explained, that he needs to crash the end of the spikes under the skin, otherwise it will get infected. After half an hour of knocking, my pain was finally gone and the black spots with them. Lucky me!
When i went home that evening, i felt super strong and more capable then ever. Next morning i woke up with a pain in the other foot. I had actually also cut myself in the sea, but did not realise, since the other foot was more in pain. So while walking home and over night, some sand did came in the wound and it got infected. So first thing in the morning i had to do was a little operation, with a nail scissor and pincette, to get the sand out my skin. By then, i did take it more casually, since i got used to treating wounds every day.
On top of all this, i got an allergy attack  2 days later, because of some peanut butter in a smoothie. I ordered it without and the waitress repeated my words "yes, no peanuts". After the first sip of it i directly realised that there was something wrong. My mouth and throat had swollen, i could not proper breathe any longer. I started panicking like crazy, since my epipen was in the bamboo hut to stay cold, and even if you take those, you need to go to hospital immediatly after. And you never really know if these hospitals are really good. So the owner of the cafe came to me and they started massaging me and calming me down, bringing cold towels and everything. I took 2 cortison pills by that time and used a spray to widen my air passages, but that did not really help since it had gotten too warm. In that moment, i wished more than ever to have company. I had wifi and texted my mum desperateley, because that was finally too much for me on my own. This was at least some little comfort, because she said it's going to be alright.
So i tried to breath slowly and calm down a bit, not able to move at all, since i was so weak. A few minutes later i felt that all my food would come up again. After throwing up for half an hour, my whole body got sprinkled with nettle rash and swelling up like a baloon. I am not exaggerating. I was supposed to go diving on that day, in half an hour from that moment and did not have any way to contact the diving school. So the owner Suki brought me with a scooter to the diving school, so i could tell them to go without me that day. Luckily they had some proper tropical allergic medication there, so the cortison spray of them finally worked and i could breathe again. Anyway my whole body was itching and swollen, so after lying for 2hours i thought a bath in the sea would calm my skin. But when i took off my dress and saw the real extent of my rash, i just ran into the water, stayed in for 30min and went home super quick afterwards. The rest of the day i spent lying naked on my bed with the fan on highest level to cool my skin. It wore off after 5h in total and then i was more than grateful of me and my body.
I survived!
All those things happening to me did make me angry and sad of course and in those times i really wished to not be alone. But looking at it afterwards, it feels even more brave and i am proud of handling these things on my own. Do believe in yourself and also in the good of the people. As you can see i got a lot of help and support from totally strangers.
This vacation has been so amazing and i paid the price for that as well, with blood, sweat and tears! I tend to always remember the bad things, because this is how our mind works, but this really challenged me, to see only the good in it as well.
Those scars do not remind me, of the bad things happening to me, but of how strong i actually am!

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