This isn't as bad as many of your stories about loved ones dying, but here's mine.

I was in Kashmir, on a houseboat. I had been bed-ridden for the past 5 days with what I was quickly realizing was dysentery (I ate local ice cream after my host father insisted) my host father knocked on my door and told me the jeep was ready. I was going to get in a jeep and ride from Srinagar to Leh in Kashmir, over some of the highest roads in the world. Of course, going from anywhere to anywhere in Kashmir takes 14 hours by jeep, 2 days by bus, and the roads are terrible. When I say terrible, I mean fucking terrible. They're routinely washed out, they're tiny and have to be shared by giant diesel trucks going both ways driven by truckers who are on speed, cars and trucks regularly plummet off the sides of the roads and fall thousands of feet to their doom. Ok, fine, I know the risks, I was just hoping to not have dysentery while making this trip.

Well, as I'm getting up, I realize it's a Monday and, therefore, malaria pill day. I was taking malaria pills that you need to take once a week, but often give you unpredictable mental side effects. It's different for everyone, but hallucinations and anxiety are common. It's possible for you to also fall victim to sudden amnesia and essentially "wake up" without knowing who you are, where you are, or why you are there. Oh, and this pill makes you feel like shit for the entire day that you take it. So I pop that in and swallow it.

Then I get to the jeep. I swing my bag in to the window seat to make sure I at least have a view so I don't feel any MORE shitty than I already do during the 14 hour rocky trip east. However, I spent my last rupee getting on this jeep, so I need to find an ATM. Luckily for me, there's one somewhat nearby. So I leave my bag with the jeep driver in the window seat and run off to grab some cash. I get it and come back. My bag has been moved to the middle seat and my window seat was invaded by an Israeli like it was the Gaza strip.

The Israeli looks at me like nothing is wrong and he has nothing to feel bad about. I told him that my bag was on that seat and I was expecting to sit there, he says too bad, now you sit in the middle. I'm thinking, "fuck this fucking fuck", but I also have dysentery and I'm preparing for hallucinations soon, so it's best not to start shit with him considering we're going to be next to each other for 14 hours either way. So I take my middle seat while thinking, "how bad can the back middle seat really be?" As it turns out, it's fucking horrible. Not only can you not see anything, but because you're at the back, you get the worst of the bumps and jolts.

Ok, so I strap myself in tight and try to use my sheer will to ward off dysentery for the next 14 hours. For the first hour, it works, surprisingly. Each second ticks by like a minute, every minute like an hour, etc, but I'm managing to keep it together. Then, we stop at a security forces road block. Everyone has to get out and give over their identification papers to some soldiers. For foreigners, the Israeli and I, we have to fill out some longer forms that take about 10 minutes to complete. As soon as I'm done with that, I run behind a boulder and release the kraken. I instantly feel 1000% better, having temporarily relieved the pain and pressure that I had been fighting for about 2 hours. We get back in the jeep and press on.

The roads are getting worse as we ascend into the Himalayas, the jolts and shaking make it extremely hard for me to keep my concentration on holding back the tide of dysentery. It feels like a boxer is constantly punching the base of your spine and the back of your neck as the jeep whips you from side to side without rest. After another few hours, another security roadblock. We follow the same procedure as before, forms, passports, signature, done. I don't see much of anything to hide behind on this tiny road outpost on the edge of a cliff, so I ask the officer in charge if there's a bathroom I can use. He says I can use the "officer's bathroom". I get a little excited and imagine a place with plumbing and relatively clean running water. I follow his directions into the tiny police station, then out the back door, then to what I can only describe as a stone shack perched over the cliff face. I open the door and it's just a hole that immediately breaks away to a 1000 foot drop below. I take off my belt and wrap it around a metal stake in the ground and use that to lower myself backwards, over this hole. Again, kraken is released, feels good man. I come back to the jeep and we head off again.

I neglected to mention that the rest of the jeep is filled with Kashmiris and Kashmiris love to smoke hashish. All the passengers, except for me, are blazing as we ride. They keep the windows rolled down to let air circulate until a diesel truck comes barreling down the road, then they quickly roll the windows up to avoid catching a blast of diesel fumes to the face as the exhaust pile is always window-height and shoots a thick plume every time the driver shifts gears, which they do a couple times while maneuvering around a jeep. This would be fine except for the fuckface Israeli guy who got incredibly high and can't handle it so he doesn't know when to roll up his window and I can't exactly reach over him to get at it myself, so he and I catch a facefull of the smoke monster from Lost about once every minute or two. This is also when the malaria pill's side effects start to kick in and I get "day terrors". Meaning, I feel this strong sensation that something is rushing towards my face at random intervals over the next few hours. It's similar to that sudden falling feeling some people get just as they're about to fall asleep. I get that, but with my eyes open and instead of falling, something is flying at my face.

As we get even higher, altitude becomes a factor. We're approaching 17,000 ft on these roads and with that comes early signs of AMS. Although, at this point it's hard to separate them from all the other shit I'm going through. I get nauseous and have a pounding headache to go along with the day terrors, dysentery, and road smashing my spine up.

Eventually we stop at an outpost that serves curry and water for a break. I find a place to release the kraken again and then just lay in the dust, staring at the mountains, zombified. We're so high up that I can feel the sun burning me within minutes due to the lack of atmospheric protection that you could expect at lower altitudes. However, a sunburn is nothing compared to all the other crap that's going on with my body, so I just continue to lay there.

After about 20 minutes, the driver comes back and we press on. We're only halfway there. What follows is more of the same, rocky roads, diesel bukkake, and intense concentration on not exploding from dysentery. The Israeli is also starting to be more of an asshole than normal, now. He starts telling me about how he's so much more experienced in life and how he's such a badass and how "you'll never understand". He's still high as fuck, so his arguments aren't making a ton of sense, but he still sounds like a dick because he's only 22 and also fuck him. We also pass more roadblocks, one every hour or two, filling out forms and checking IDs is normal by now. The sun goes down and what little view I had of the outside of the jeep is replaced by inky blackness.

Finally, Leh comes into view and we make it to the bus depot there. We thank the driver and tumble out of the jeep. The Israeli says he knows where a cheap hotel is, so I begrudgingly follow him. Leh isn't a big place, so you take what you can get when it comes to taxis at night. There is only 1 taxi at the bus depot and the Israeli says it's a mile uphill to the hotel area. We walk over to the taxi driver and the Israeli just says, "do you know where the blah blah hotel is?" The taxi driver obviously doesn't speak English that well, so he leans his ear in and says, "what?" This, for some reason, infuriates the Israeli and he slams the taxi door and yells, "fucking idiot, we'll walk, then!" The taxi driver seems confused, but angered and drives away. Well great, now I have to walk a mile uphill in the dark. So we do and I stay silent about the whole affair. About three quarters of the way up, we pass a cafe full of Israelis who recognize the guy I'm with and shout at him. He turns and looks at them and happily shouts back. The Israelis all come running down to greet him. One of his friends looks at me and, with a disturbed expression, says, "your friend, he doesn't look so good". The Israeli shrugs it off and says, "he's fine, let's get some dinner". His friend isn't too sure and asks me if I know where I'm going, I tell him I just want to find a hotel that has running water for the night, tomorrow I'll get a cheaper one, but for tonight I need a place to wash myself and get a good nights sleep. He brings me to the only hotel that has electricity at the moment, I walk in and the receptionist looks at me like some sort of mountain ghost had just wandered in. He says, "sick?" I nod, he shows me the price of their room and says, "ok?" I nod again. He takes my back pack and helps me upstairs and into the room. He says, "wait... 1 minute" and gestures for me to sit down in the room while he goes and gets something. He comes back with some packets of this salty solution and a 1L bottle of water. He mixes them together and says, "drink all water". As I drink it, it tastes like salty syrup that's filled with sand. It's pretty awful. I finish the entire thing, hit the bathroom and enjoy an amazing shower with hot water, then pass out on my bed. I wake up the next morning feeling fine, meaning, by comparison, I felt like a billion dollars.

So that's my long story about the longest and worst day of my life, physically speaking. I can't compare to these other stories on an emotional level.