FlyingUnderTheRadar

How about a train story. While in Japan at a train station that was in two sections (local / regional) I was looking for my connecting train. A woman came up and asked which train I was looking for. I told her and she said I would find it on platform 9 and pointed me in the right direction. I thought that was rather remarkable she would know which platform.

I thanked her and after a minute or so of walking I arrived at the platforms and found my train not on platform 9 but 10. Not any big deal as it was on the opposite side of the platform. As I was standing there waiting for my train the women came back up to me and apologized because she told me the wrong platform and wanted to make sure I got the right train! I thanked her again for her kindness as it went well beyond what most anyone would expect.

StartinSanDiego

I thought of another nice story: Earlier this year I was taking a train in Italy to the hotel. The station was so small, there were no taxis. There were hardly any people, either.

Unfortunately, I did not have my map, and my phone map wasn't working properly, so I stepped away from the station and had to ponder whether I would go left or right. I chose left. I walked a few blocks, and saw no sign of anything. I didn't know what to do. A nice older Italian lady pulled up in a little red car, and I could tell she knew I was lost. She spoke to me in Italian. In English, I told her the hotel. In Italian, she offered me a ride. She was so sweet, I took the ride, of course in the other direction. I never would have found it. She waited until I checked in with the front desk before she drove off. What a sweetheart!

txflyer77

I was in Tokyo during the Fukushima disaster, my second day in the country and my first trip to Asia. After the earthquake struck, I was trying to get from Ebisu, where I was stranded after the trains stopped, back to Kuramae.

Since every cab in the city was taken and traffic wasn't moving anyways, I just started walking. I didn't have a map so I followed street signs from subway station to subway station.

Every couple streets, a local stopped to ask me if I needed help.

On another trip to Japan, this time in Nara, I was walking around when an elderly man approached me desperate to tell me the history of Nara's big iron bell. He spent a good ten minutes showing me around and once he'd finished his tale, wished me a good day and found another tourist to share his joy with. I've met few people more exuberant.

In Ayutthaya (Thailand, north of Bangkok), I was hanging out with a fellow traveler I'd met. We were walking around a temple with a middle-aged Thai couple (who appeared fairly well-off) offered to show us around for the day. We looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and off we went.

Another time in Thailand, same trip, I was making my way from the Hellfire Pass Memorial back to Kanchanaburi. I picked up the highway bus outside the memorial and was dropped off somewhere in Kanchanaburi. I flagged a tuk tuk to take me back to my guesthouse but only had the listing in my copy of Lonely Planet Thailand. We went in circles for a bit before pulling up next to a street food vendor he presumably knew (he spoke almost no English, I speak no Thai). She called the guesthouse and got directions, then hopped in with me and served as navigator all the way back.

Shifting to Europe...

After seeing the American Cemetery at Normandy, I was waiting for the bus off the main road. In torrential rain. Without rain gear. I'd been out there for maybe 20 minutes when a fellow American couple spotted me and offered a lift back to Bayeux.

There are probably other instances that just aren't coming to me right now.

olya

On my first alone overseas trip, as a student, I was trying to board a train in Amsterdam. As I figured out very late which train it was I was boarding right as the whistle blew. Two Dutch ladies helped me yank my suitcases onto the train just as the doors were closing. (I was very unfamiliar with the European train departure precision and spoiled by the subway leisurely door closure). They rescued my entire exchange semester from becoming something marred by losing all of my things. I didn't even have a chance to really say anything, they smiled and walked away into another section of the train right away.

I spent about an hour at approach to and landing, distracting a toddler with some iPhone game after he started losing it on his mom. Quiet and peace for the rest of the place.

Most recently, a kind man saw that I was turned away from the lounge because my flight was flying UA metal and not AC (though ticket was AC-provided) and invited me as a guest. It was so kind. This was early on this year and I still recall and wonder if he was a FT person.

olya

Once in Spain, speaking no Spanish, and finding zero cabs for the last 30 minutes, I stopped in a cafe and gesticulated my way to ask for help in getting a taxi back to my stay. I paid for a glass of wine right away. When taxi arrived, they boarded me into the taxi and communicated to the driver all the information that we spent 10 minutes figuring out. And I got the glass of wine (the literal glass of wine) boarded with me to keep on drinking in the car - it was so sweet and funny and magical.

Low Roller

On the way home from a lovely week in the Cuban sun, I picked up a bad cold. This wouldn't have been too bad for a 4-hour flight, but shortly before landing, we were told that YYG was closed due to a snowstorm and we were being diverted to YHZ. Since all other local airports were also closed, YHZ was inundated with more flights than it could possibly handle, leading to hours of waiting to deplane and hours more to clear customs. All the while, I was hacking up a lung with no access to a store to get any medicine. I must have looked as miserable as I felt, because a fellow passenger approached me and offered a couple of cough drops that she found in her purse. It may sound like a small gesture, but it was the kindest thing anyone could have done and was the one bright spot in an otherwise miserable day.

ramondelapaz

good call, thank you


it is so nice to hear about accounts of kindness of strangers, especially in the often stressful setting of air travel.

chgoeditor

My Mom and Aunt are both in their mid-70s and travel with a group of friends whose ages range from mid-50s to mid-80s. They're adventurous, and their trips often involve the rental of both houses and cars in other countries. On several occasions -- including, I believe, most recently in Morocco -- they had random strangers stop and change a tire for them after getting a flat.

Earlier this week they flew home after visiting me in Chicago. Because it was rush hour, they proposed taking the L from downtown to O'Hare. I helped them carry their luggage down to the station and then paid their fares using my transit card. It wasn't a station I've used before, and an attendant quickly jumped in to tell them exactly which platform they should head to and then carried their luggage down from the ticketing level to the tracks. (There was no escalator.) I thought that was a very generous gesture -- particularly since I've had more than my fair share of encounters with rude, lazy CTA employees.

savonarola

I few years ago, I arrived in Paris on a Saturday evening for a month stay. Early Sunday I wanted to attend mass at Notre Dame and, still figuring out the metro, could not find ithe cathedral and was about to miss it (I guess I had left at a wrong station). A kind old lady walked out of her way and guided me to one of the bridges to île de la Cité and the cathedral.

A month later, on my last Sunday there , I wanted to attend mass at the same time and had already learnt the way. As I sat in the metro, someone approaches me: "Have you already found the Notre Dame?" I paid little attention, thinking it was some pushy religious offer, until I realised it was the same lady. We chatted and she was interested to hear how my stay went.
That is why I never bought the whole "rude parisian" myth!

Cat Man Do

First day in Morocco.

In the Marrakesh medina, I had an overly persistent 'guide' decide that I owed him 30 euro or so for his unwanted help. He declined the 3-4 euro that I had in cash, and insisted I go to an ATM. He even offered to take a taxi, of course belonging to a friend. Then he added his other "friend" into the mix, who followed along behind, apparently to thwart escape attempts.

I bailed out of the convoy as we passed an apparently non-involved taxi. The guide ran up to my taxi driver and began berating him, presumably with the "this one is my mark" speech.

A man standing nearby saw and overheard this, and flagged down his friend. They both said they were police officers. They chased after the guide and his accomplice, berating them, presumably the "what the heck are you doing" speech.

After a few minutes of these two police officers taking down ID and statements from myself and the taxi driver, officer number two asked where I was staying. I told him.

He invited me to hop on the back of his motor scooter, and thus began an adrenalin-inducing ride through the medina after dark. He wasn't sure where my riad was, so stopped and asked a friend. Thus continued the medina slalom, this time on two motor scooters.

Turns out the friend wasn't sure, so he stopped to ask a kid, maybe 10 years old. That kid hopped on the friend's scooter, and we were off again.

Five minutes later, I'm home, and the officer waves off my thanks, then barks at the kid when he starts asking for a tip.

Proudelitist

About 20 years ago my girlfriend and I went to Italy to stay at a colleague's villa. The villa was just outside of Florence in the hills, a tiny hamlet called "Caldine".

Because it was rural there was really no proper address, and due to the landscape from the main road you couldn't see the property. The cabbie was irked about having to go to there and couldn't find the property, so he basically dumped us in the center of the village and left.

We were standing there with our luggage, jet lagged, looking completely lost, and it started to rain/hail.

We went into a local bar but nobody spoke english, and when we showed the address many didn't even know where the place was. Finally two local men..farmer types, through pigeon English, offered to take us there..(hard to get over my American paranoia of strangers) and after much searching, they managed to find it.

Grateful, we asked them to stay for a drink and we had a good time for several hours despite the language barrier. The following day they brought over some food from their farms.

One thing I love about Italy is the Italians....they are very welcoming of visitors and tourists, unlike much of the rest of Europe, and they appreciate a good glass of wine with strangers. They are very welcoming. One thing I don't like about Italy is the way rural Italians really travel outside of their own villages, and couldn't tell you to save their lives where a place in the next town 4 miles down the road is.

ysolde

We were heading from our hotel in Barcelona to the train station at the end of our Europe trip in October, about to begin a day-long trip back to FRA via Paris. When the cab driver dropped us off at Sants, he was kind enough to park and push me in my wheelchair all the way into the special services/disability assistance office, while my husband followed with the luggage. The cab driver's help was greatly appreciated.

OTD

Not long after my wife and I were married, we were driving in Boston, where the streets could try the patience of any navigator. We were looking for a specific place in Cambridge; my wife was reading the map and I was driving. Well, we got pretty lost and my wife and I starting yelling at each other (yes, it WAS probably my fault) and it got pretty heated. We were at a traffic light, arguing loudly, when a passenger in a work van next to us at the light asked in a quiet voice where we needed to go. I told him and he said "Follow us, we'll take you there."
They did. Those guys may or may not have known it, but it's likely they saved our marriage (our argument was becoming quite bitter). 30-plus years later, we're still married. I'd love to be able to buy those guys a drink or two.

Efrem

Coming to Quito, first time in Ecuador, about six weeks ago. My flight, DL 673, was scheduled in at 10:17 pm. The weather in Quito was nasty and we didn't have enough fuel to circle until it was expected to clear up. We were rerouted to Guayaquil to refuel, after which we came back to Quito and landed without incident at about 1 am.

I took a taxi from UIO to my small hotel, El Relicario del Carmen. It's supposed to have the desk staffed 24/7, for which I was grateful. Unfortunately, it was all locked up. No amount of ringing the bell and banging on the door got the slightest response. Calls to the phone number on their Web site went over to voice mail. There I was, at 2 am in a new city with only rudimentary command of the language, away from any other hotels, with no place to stay.

The cab driver stayed with me. He somehow found another phone number for the hotel. The night clerk, who had been sound asleep, answered that number and unlocked the door. (At least he was decent enough not to complain about having his sleep interrupted.) From there on everything went smoothly; I enjoyed my visit 100 percent.

Thanks, anonymous Quito taxi driver. (Yes, I gave him a nice tip.)

NYTA

About 18 years ago I had to drive from Jerusalem to Amman to do some business at the US Embassy there. I got lost driving in Amman and flagged down a cab driver - asked him to put on the meter and drive to the US Embassy so I could follow him. I tried to give him a tip but he wouldn't allow it.