I got typhoid. Then dengue fever. Here’s what it taught me about my love of travel

The trauma of that afternoon comes back to me in three lucid snapshots, each more alarming than the last. First, a cheap hotel room in Hue, central Vietnam. It's dusk, and I'm in the bathroom leaning on the sink, looking in the mirror at a face I don't recognize. Staring back from the mirror is a pair of fretful eyes set deep in a wax mask — clammy, shiny with sweat, a yellow pallor to match the mustard-colored tiling on the walls.