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Do you think you'll die on the highway in Tunisia? Wondering if your child will survive a trip abroad? I do n't know. Did your child fall down the stairs and break their head? Hello to all travelers. What is your worst travel experience? Because today we're going to talk about the worst trips I've had in decades. And I think when I say the worst, I also mean the scariest. And I would say that one of the scariest things about my travels is driving. Like we were just in Albania. We traveled through Bulgaria and Romania. And I'll tell you, when you're on mountain roads and the locals know their stuff and you don't, and you see them swerving quickly, thinking you're going to
die in a head-on collision, that's a special kind of fear. I've seen a lot of this while traveling through the Balkans in recent weeks. This reminds me of one of those times when I first found myself in a situation where I was afraid we were going to die. It was in Tunisia. We rode in " luages," which are the kind of drivers that take you between cities. Literally, without seat belts, without anything, we're driving in the middle of the road and thinking, "Oh my God, we're going to die right now." Here's the thing, the road situations I've been in around the world have been pretty scary. But to be honest, the scariest thing that happened to me was in high school in Guadalajara, Mexico.
I met people there and we had a great time. And we went for a walk in the evening. At that time, I was thin and had long blonde hair. In the end, we were given a ride around Guadalajara in the back of a pickup truck. And some guys saw us, saw my blonde hair. And they're like, " Oh, pretty girl." They didn't understand, or maybe they understood that I was a guy, I don't know. But the thing is, they literally chased us around Guadalajara, Mexico, for several hours. It was terribly scary. Eventually, the pickup driver dropped us off. And we had to hide behind the wedding party so they would eventually leave us alone. And it was really not a very pleasant experience.
I remember leaving the wedding party and trying to get to where we needed to go. And my friends I was with were like, "Hey, Mark, we're going to the part of town that's not the best." If we start running, you just run too. If someone catches us, you keep running anyway." And it was literally like a movie: everything is lit up, and then there's this stretch of four or five blocks where there's no light at all. I say, " We can take a taxi." We can find something. " They're like, "No, no, no, we don't need to." We don't need it." I say, "No, we can really do it." They say, "No, it'll be fine." Luckily, a taxi pulls up and the driver says, " Hey, kids, you can't be here." He says, "Or," and the kids say, "We don't have any money." I say,
"We have money." I can pay." He says, " No, no, no." We have money. "He says, "It does n't matter. This is a dangerous place." He turned on the lights, we got in a taxi, he took us to a friend's house, and it all ended well. But I remember the first time I realized -- I was about 17 years old -- that traveling is not always the safest and most fun thing to do. So it was really scary. But then, the road situations are often scary. I know that for some people, even driving on the left side of the road in England is scary enough. Well, sometimes it 's much scarier, you know?
Now, the next thing I want to talk about is when I was in Peru in the '90s. It was when the Shining Path was still causing problems in Peru, you know? We were there, I was traveling around South America alone, backpacking, and I was in Lima. I'm in Lima, there's a big street. People are selling things on the side of the road, and I'm just walking by, looking at what they're selling. Suddenly, around the corner, a whole crowd of people. We're talking about, have you ever seen zombie movies where they're fast and they come around the corner to grab everyone, like in World War Z? And I'm like, "Oh my God, what's going on?" I'm backing up
, and all these people are running. I'm like, " I guess I should go too." And this armored personnel carrier comes around the corner, like a military vehicle. And I'm like, "That's it." So I start running, and literally everyone on the street starts running and scattering in different directions. Eventually, I escaped and got back to the hotel, but it was one of those scary moments where you don't know what's going to happen. That's when I learned-it was in college-and that's when I realized, "Hey, always keep an eye on the political situation where you're at, just in case, okay?" So I had scary situations, and I was learning.
I was learning, you know? That's it. Now the next situation on my list is when I was teaching in China. Liam was, I think, only two years old, he just turned two. And Liam got his hand caught in a door. And not the door itself, but the hinge of the metal door, he crushed his hand, you know? That's the situation. I'm in a meeting with other professors and our translators, and I get a call from Jocelyn, and I hear her screaming, and I hear Liam screaming in pain, and I'm in a complete panic. She says, "Mark, Mark, Liam's hand, it's his hand. We have to go. We have to find a hospital." And my translator says, "Hey, we have to go." We run back to the hotel, pick them up.
Liam's hand. he's two years old, he's still very small. His hand has tripled in size, and we end up getting in a taxi. On Luckily, Cherry, our translator and my assistant while we were there, had relatives in Beijing. They said, "Okay, then you need to go to the orthopedic hospital." We go to the orthopedic hospital, and he's screaming the whole way. His arm looks absolutely horrible. We get to the orthopedic hospital. It seriously looks like a field hospital. People are standing in line, there's stuff on the floor, all sorts of stuff around. We finally see a doctor. They're like, "Oh, no, this isn't for you." This is for a child. No, no, you should go to the
children's hospital. We don't treat that." We're like, "What? "And so we had to go to another part of Beijing, we went to the Beijing Children's Hospital, and they see about 10,000 kids a day. And each one of these kids has both parents, and maybe grandparents. So this place is just crazy. There's nowhere for an apple to fall. We finally get inside, and it's just crazy when you're in there with so many people, and he's still screaming through his arm. We're like, 'Oh, man, this isn't good.' And so we end up getting an X-ray of his arm. Well, while we're sitting there waiting for the X-ray, there's a little kid there, and a mom is holding a baby.
The kid is doing his business on the floor. Mom takes a rag, wipes it off the floor, and then throws it away. And we're like, 'Oh, okay, here are the rules.'" Okay, fine." And so we go in for the X-ray, and the doctor is yelling at us, yelling at the assistant, "If your child doesn't calm down, I'm going to give her a sedative." Because he wanted to do it, and I'm like, "Are you going to give your child a sedative to do an X-ray of their hand?" "We were like, 'No, this isn't. No, we're going to go somewhere else.' We heard there was a private hospital, and this private children's hospital was right across from the public children's hospital. So we went there, and we had to buy Liam a lifetime
membership. So Liam now has a lifetime membership to the Beijing Children's Hospital. It was like $400. Best money spent. We go in, the staff was really helpful and really friendly. They took an X-ray. The doctor came out. It turns out the doctor's best friend is a fan of Walter's World. You know, so I was like, 'Hey, that's cool.' So we had a common bond. But by then the swelling had gone down, and the doctor said, ' Look, there's no fracture.' Everything is fine. The good thing is that he's so small, his hand is so tiny, and his bones are like rubber." He's like, "Are they like bubble gum? Rubber?
"I'm like, 'Yeah.' He's like, 'They're like rubber bands, so it's going to be okay, and he's going to be okay.' That day was really scary because we didn't know what was going on. I was on the phone, hearing screams that were just breaking my heart, and trying to find everything he needed for him. There was that. And then the scariest day came. Honestly, the scariest day of my entire trip. I get goosebumps just thinking about that day. Johnston was 20 or 21 weeks pregnant with Liam. We had just arrived home. We were living in Portugal at the time. We went home to the States,
had a 3D scan to see the baby, and Liam was like, ' Hey, I'm a boy.' Because his little [__] was so wide open. He even gave us his middle finger on that ultrasound. We were ecstatic, went home for a few weeks, and then flew back. Johnston went for a regular ultrasound, you know, on 22-20 weeks. And in Portugal, where we were, only the mother could go in. No one else, because there was no room. So Johnston went in, came out, and she was in tears. I ask, " What happened?" What is happening? "And she can't talk. She just sobs and says, 'The baby's going to be born now.' Like, 'The baby's coming.'" He.He's not even half ready." I say, "What? " Then the nurse comes out and says, " Listen, the doctor who did the examination, he didn't
speak English well." He just said, " Listen, you need to sit down right away." The baby is coming right now." And he basically said, " You need to lie down, or the baby is going to come out right now." We were in a very difficult situation, and we went to Joslin Obstetrician-Gynecologist. And the doctor, Dr. Patricia, was wonderful. She was fantastic. I can't say enough good things about Dr. Patricia Kufedtesco Barrattis and Leisman. She said, " Listen, your cervix is in the condition that you're going to give birth tomorrow." So you have to lie down and not get up. " And Jocelyn spent 4 months on bed rest. And about two and a half months later, we're like, "Hey, maybe things are getting better." We talked to specialists, we
studied everything we could, we looked for things to do, but it turned out that nothing was helping. And on Valentine's Day, before Liam was even born, we went to the appointment thinking, "Oh, maybe they'll let her out of bed and we can go have a romantic dinner for Valentine's Day." So, she went to the doctor, I was waiting outside, and then they're like, "Oh, Mark, can you come in?" "I went in, and the doctor said, 'Well, Jocelyn, do you want to tell him or me?'" "And then Jocelyn says, 'You tell him, Dr. Patricia.' And Dr. Patricia says, 'We'll leave Jocelyn here.'" So if you can go home and get her some clothes, we 'll keep her here until she's born." And that was still. I mean, Liam was probably two months away. Yeah, it was a new scare,
but we were like, "Hey, we've come this far, so it's all going to work out." Like, "You, you'll keep an eye on things." Like, "Oh, well, I'm in bed." He was like a candle. And he was like, "Okay." Okay. Okay. So I went home and packed Jocelyn's bag and brought her back. And so, for the next month, Caleb and I, little Caleb, would go to work, carry him to school on my shoulders, and tell him "The Hobbit." So he always thought I wrote "The Hobbit." I'm like, "No, it's not me." He's like, "It's not you? "I'm like, 'No, that's a different author's story.' He's like, 'Oh.' But I would take him to school every day, drop him off, go to work, then pick him up, and we'd take the subway. Well, sometimes we'd take a taxi,
but most of the time it was too expensive because I was a grad student and we didn't have much money. So I would literally take the subway, and we'd go visit her at the designated times, and then we'd go home. And we did that for a month. The thing is, we drove and drove, and eventually it got to the point where we were like, ' Hey, you know what? You seem to be 32 weeks already. It's already 33 weeks. Maybe you can stay home for a while." But they didn't want to let her go home until there was someone to look after her. Then my mom was coming to visit for a few weeks, and the doctor said, "Okay, you can go home because your mother-in-law will be there." I'm like, " How is my mother-in-law going to help my mom?" " Well, my mom doesn't
speak Portuguese. She doesn't even know what the emergency number is in Portugal, by the way, it's 112. You see, that's why I say, 'That doesn't make sense.' But they said, 'Everything will be fine.'" Everything will be fine." So Jocelyn was allowed to go home, but she still needed bed rest. So she spent about another month on bed rest at home, and then they said, "Hey, you know what? It seems like it's been 36 weeks. Hey, now you can walk, you can stand up again." So Jocelyn only enjoyed her pregnancy in Portugal for one week because there are so few babies there. I was like, "Oh my god, a baby!" "So she only had one week to sit around with coffee, holding her belly, and walking around saying, 'Oh, there's
going to be a baby soon.'" Hooray! "So she only had a week of normal pregnancy, and then we went for our 38 -week checkup, and the doctor said, 'He's going to be born tomorrow, but I'm not working at this hospital tomorrow.'" " That's why we're having the baby now, because we've worked so hard to make sure he's born safe and sound." And that night we had to find someone to pick Liam up because he couldn't stay with us. So Liam was sent out on an errand, and we were like, "Okay, let's go do this." And the doctor said, "Okay, I'll go get the nurses." And so, literally, the doctor comes out, and Jocelyn says, "Mark, go get her." The baby is coming." I'm like, "Well, she'll be back." She's like, " No, go now." So I had to catch up with her and
bring her back. They're like, "Okay." They're taking her down the hall, and months ago, when she was in the hospital in recovery, they showed me where to change. I go in there; I wasn't as big as I am now, but I was still a pretty big guy. And they didn't tell me where the large sizes were, or the extra large, or the "X-X -Large" -- the hospital gowns or the patient shirts. So I found the "ES-K" (medium size). And somehow I got into this medium size shirt that barely covered my belly button, trying to figure out where the hell they were all. I did n't want to be late because I was afraid I'd miss the baby being born, you know? I go in, I see them there, I open the door, and it turns out Jocelyn was asking, "Where's my husband?" " The door opens and
everyone starts laughing because I walk in and this shirt is squeezing my arms and barely reaches my belly button. And we have a camera, you know, this old Nikon Coolpix, and they're like, ' Wait, stop.' We need to get a picture of this." They stopped and took a picture of me with my wife and the baby before they even started because, "Dude, this is too funny." And Liam, being such a good boy, knew that mom was already in enough pain. So I remember starting to press the record button on the birth camera. It was literally 4 minutes from when they said, "Okay, recording started." Let's get started." By the time they cut the cord and weighed it-3 kilograms-it was about 4 minutes. That's it. So she was in the recovery room for a long time,
we were very worried, but Liam was very gentle with her, giving birth in just 4 minutes, even less than 4 minutes of effort. So, uh, yeah. I'm glad all these horror stories have a happy ending, but I want to say one thing: if you're going to travel while pregnant, make sure you get travel insurance, because you never know what might happen. We had one subscriber who had a baby-the baby was born prematurely when they were living in Finland, and it was really scary. They were like, "Oh, these insurance issues and visas and all that." Thank God it ended well, but now I always say, "Hey, never take a chance." Get travel insurance before you go, because You never know what might happen, right? So yeah. Those were some of the scariest things
that have happened to me while traveling. Luckily, nothing too terrible happened. I know other people have had really terrible things happen to them. I've talked to a lot of people over the years who have had bad experiences on their travels, although some of them have had nothing bad happen to them. So I just want to wish everyone a very safe and happy travel season, wherever you're headed. But I wanted to share some of my scary stories so you know that yes, scary things happen, but you can keep traveling. Anyway, I wish you all the best. I'll say goodbye to you here in Kotor, Montenegro.
