Limmony Snickets and a Very Unfortunate Series of Events

I'm surprised I've never heard the phrase 'back-shadowing'. Back-shadowing would be a sweet sister word to forshadowing. It would mean when an event happens and you can trace the origins of that event back to 3 or 4 other obvious events that should have foreshadowed that something big was going to happen, but you didn't pay attention. That was a pretty sloppy description, so let me just get right to the story to explain.


The final product was the following situation:

1. Stranded in a Chinese Airport with a canceled flight due to the protests in Bangkok


2. Stranded by myself with no friends in sight


3. No credit cards or ATM cards


4. Less than $10 on my person (not enough for cab fare to Yangshau, 1.5 hours away)


5. No one that spoke English to help me


6. I didn't have any phone numbers to call someone for help

These are the moments in traveling where you really have to buck up, or at the very least wait it out. I guess you could cry yourself to sleep in a corner and someone would come and help you eventually. Before I get to how I got out of it though, here the the moments of back-shadowing that led up to this.

1. Stranded from protests: We have been discussing at length over the last few months the deteriorating political climate in Thailand. After rioting and coups and re-re-elections, this was bound to happen.


2. Stranded by myself: I came over travelling with 3 friends. They all wanted to go back on the 22nd. That wasn't enough climbing for me, I had to stay 4 more days til the 26th. The 26th happens to be the day that the airports in Bangkok shutdown. My friends got home just fine on the 22nd.



3. No credit cards/ATM cards: So a week before I came to China I had my wallet stolen in Thailand. Right out of the glove compartment of my friends car while we were climbing. They got all my cards, driver's liscense, video rental card, subway punch card, etc.



4. No money: So after my credit cards and ATMs were stolen, I figured I would just travel with cash. Except for the exchange rate between Thai Baht and Chinese Yuan buys and sells at about a 28% loss to me. So I decided to just have my friend that I was traveling with use his ATM and then I would repay him when I got back to Thailand. The $10 I had left when i got to the airport would have been perfect had I not been stranded


5. No way to communicate: I clearly remember standing in a book store in Yangshuo that morning and picking up a Mandarin phrase book and thinking, "I'm not going to need this now, maybe next time."


6. No phone numbers- I should know better by now. Always have atleast 1 business card of a hotel or a business or something. I had all the contact info for the place I was staying on my mobile phone. Unfortunately, that got stolen with my wallet.

So I'm sitting outside of the airport trying to figure out what I'm possible going to do. The airport in Guillin is about the size of the Jackson airport and probably just about as far from town. Then a couple of Chinese people walked past me and for I could understand what they were saying, because it turns out that they were speaking (and were) Thai. Turns out that they were on the same canceled flight. Neither of them spoke English, but they could speak fluent Chinese. So we went back inside, talked to the ticket counter, they pulled up the website for China Climb (my friends in Yangshao), got their phone number, called them, China Climb sent out a taxi, and the rest is history. They helped me with all the money stuff until I could get some money wired from Thailand.

I'm stuck in China now until I can fly back, but there are much worse places to be stuck in the world. I had a feeling I was tempting fate with the Limmony Snickets haircut; it was really only a matter of time.