A fellow stranger in need

by Sebastian Howell (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

I didn't expect to find Myanmar

Oscar and Felix, the two jovial German chefs, were busy telling a story to Veronica, a Spanish backpacker. Maja, a Slovenian travel tour scout, peppered the discussion with her own recollections. Eleanor, an Australian hotelier, sipped her Myanmar beer, the overhead fan sending eddies of smoke from her cigarette over us, half an ear to the conversation. I listened, relaxed from my first full day at Paradise Beach, the penultimate beach on Myanmar’s stunning Dawei Peninsula. My gaze was drawn to the garish green lights of the squid boats at the edge of the bay, their dazzling beacons attracting that evening’s catch. The sharp glow illuminated the determined scuttling and digging of nocturnal crabs on the damp sand. Most of the other guests had gone to bed when Miguel, who had retired to his and his partner’s bungalow after the communal dinner earlier, rushed in, panic etched over his features. “Please help – Elena, she collapsed, I cannot wake her!” he exclaimed, in a mix of English and Spanish. It took a moment for the conversation to stop as the tranquillity of the evening broke. Everyone spoke at once, nearly knocking over that evening’s empty beer bottles as we all but jumped out of our seats. “Where is she?” “What’s happened?” “Did she take anything?” “Is anyone a doctor?” The balcony restaurant emptied as we followed Miguel along the sandy path to their bungalow, lit only by the muted lights through the shuttered windows of the other cabins along the way. Miguel did his best in his minimal English to explain before Veronica stepped in to translate between him and the rest of us. “She was feeling dizzy, and then she just collapsed on the floor, and now she won’t wake up,” she translated for us, as we reached their bungalow. Miguel had placed a pillow under Elena’s head before he had rushed out for help. Elena lay where he had left her moments ago, her eyes closed, pale, sweat glistening on her forehead in the glare of the fluorescent strip light overhead. While the rest of us took in the scene, Maja knelt down and examined her. “She’s burning up,” she muttered, the back of her hand to Elena’s brow. “Elena, can you hear me? We are going to try to help you, but you need to tell us what is wrong.” Elena did not answer at first. After a few more attempts to get her to speak, she moved her hand to her stomach and groaned through chapped lips. “She looks dehydrated – do you have water?” I asked Miguel, as Maja carried on speaking to Elena. Miguel lifted her head to try to get her to take sips of the water. “I’m going to go and find the owners – I think I know which cabin they stay in,” Caroline said, dashing back out. “I’ll go too, I don’t speak Spanish and I am no doctor, so I’m more help finding help,” I said, following her. “We’ll come with you,” said the German chefs. It did not take us long to find the owners, who had the only phone that worked on this isolated beach, a landline as there was no mobile reception. The narrow path to the bungalows from the neighbouring village was only big enough to let through mopeds, so there was no ambulance coming. Miguel got on his hired moped, and we helped get Elena up and awake enough to tie her to his back with sarongs, so he could carefully follow the owner on his motorbike through the palm trees to the village and an awaiting ambulance. Shaken, we stayed up for a bit longer, calming each other down and trying to make sense of what had happened. The next morning the owners came back to say she had a very bad case of food poisoning, but she would be fine. Miguel and Elena came back the next day. None of us had expected to be in a medical emergency, but this group of strangers on an isolated beach banded together to help fellow travellers. The experience gave us all renewed faith that people still look out for each other on the road, wherever they are.