Backpacker Insurance
Apologies in advance to any philatelists reading this, but the topic of backpacker insurance is about as exciting as collecting stamps. So rather than using boring insurance policy summaries to convince you that you need to shell out quite a bit of money for something that the odds say you’re unlikely to actually ever use, I’m going to tell you a real-life true story of a harmless backpacking trip to South East Asia which took a turn for the worse.
A few years ago I traipsed round South East Asia with a female companion I’d met on the road. We traversed Thailand together, travelled the length of Vietnam and sailed the magnificent Mekong River into Laos by boat. We got on brilliantly, both having the same kind of lazy slow-travel, take-each-day-as-it-comes mindset and a similarly childish sense of humour. It was perfect. Until one day, that is, when we decided it would be a good idea to have a swim in the river Mekong.
The Mekong looked harmless to us. We’d sensibly established that there were no dangerous beasties in the area likely to rip our limbs off, no dangerous currents to carry us off to Cambodia, and no hidden waterfalls over which to tumble. It was warm, if slightly murky water to lark about in without any visible danger. Our little swimming session seemingly passed without incident and we retired to our guesthouse to eat and sleep.
The next day, my companion awoke to a shock; her left eye was an evil blood-red colour and she could hardly see out of it. Alarmed, we rushed down the local “hospital”, which in this rural area of Laos was a little shack with a red cross sign outside that sold, amongst other things, cigarettes.
The “doctor” gave her some cream for her eye, but we were concerned about his knowledge and decided to immediately relocate back to Bangkok for a professional consultation in a private hospital. In the meantime, I had started to develop a fever, nausea, a hugely-bloated stomach, diarrhoea and felt the absolute sickest I had ever felt in my life.
Our evacuation to Bangkok and our subsequent visit to the five-star Bumrumgrad hospital down in Sukumvit thankfully brought our horror-stories to a happy conclusion. My companion was given treatment for her eye and within days her full sight returned. It was surmised that she had somehow scratched her eyeball sometime before her innocent paddle in the River Mekong and something in the river water had infected it. Likewise, my bacterial infection – identified as the nasty parasite giardia and picked up from accidentally swallowing a mouthful of river water – was eliminated with a course of antibiotics. The combined bill for our successful treatments? US$500 – and here’s the point of my tale – an amount later reimbursed completely by our respective backpacker travel insurance policies.
In all likelihood, something like this probably won’t happen to you. On subsequent trips abroad, both to South East Asia and other places, I’ve had nothing at all bad happen to me. But after my experience in Laos, I always have taken out – and always will take out – a comprehensive backpacker insurance policy. It’s not just the financial remuneration; it’s for complete peace of mind that if I get ill when out in the sticks, I’m a phonecall away from the best quality of medical help for which money is no object.
