Very Sick in China: The Yangshuo People’s Hospital

I wasn’t feeling fully myself on the day we went climbing. Tired, I lay in a bamboo stand and watched others climb the juggy rocks after only a few routes. On the next day, when we went to beautiful Xingping for hiking, my body felt even more strange. The hikes were not very intense, and I’m usually game for any mountain, but I struggled. I wore a mask in air filled with firecracker smoke and blamed it for my fast-beating heart. We tried to hike to a fishing village over a nearby hill, but eventually I lay down by the roadside while Jia explored onward.

By the time we got back to Yangshuo and our hostel, my body was so achy and tired that I crawled into my bed, foregoing the idea of dinner.

The next day, I never left our room.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t seek out a cement-walled room with no outside window, but the light stayed dim, the cement insulated against sound, and the damp was somewhat pleasant in the warm weather. Jia brought me steamed buns and fruit to eat in between her bicycle adventures. I slept a lot and took my temperature.

I had a fever, climbing: 99, 100. Also dysentery.

“If I still have a fever in the morning, we should go find a hospital,” I agreed to Jia.

In the morning, I hit 101.3 and so Jia looked up a place while I found a blog post on what to expect.

The Yangshuo People’s Hospital was only a ten minute walk away. But I was pretty lightheaded, so sought…