The Kindness of Strangers (Tales of Fate and Fortune on the Road) ed. Don George

This book is a collection of short travel stories from different travel writers and how they received kindness from strangers on their trips, planned and unplanned. 

One Night in the Sahara was Amanda Jones' account of how she was brought to safety when she accidentally wondered away from her friends in the Sahara desert. She was vulnerable and elft to the elements until a nomad man took her in for the night but spared her the inevitable but unwanted sexual advances.

In Highland Remedy, Fran Palumbo went off to the Scottish Highlands to recover from a failed romance and experienced twice the kindness of an old man who was recovering from his own personal tragedy.

In Looking for Abdelati, Tanya Shaffer and her male traveling companion went to Morocco to look for their friend. And as fate has it, they went directed to the family of another person with the same name. After experiencing the hospitality of almost the entire clan only were they to realise that they were with the wrong family. Their new Moroccan hosts brought them to their friend happily and graciously brought them to their friend, without demand for anything in return.

In Special Delivery,Lindsy Van Gelder hand delivered a postcard  from the Galapogos to Bassano del Grappa, Italy because it was her next destination. The postcard was one of unimportance but the grateful recipients made fast friends with her and became her hosts in Italy.

In Damascus by Teatime, Don Meredith met a kindly stranger who took upon himself to show Don around Deera, Syria until he gets on the train to his next destination to Damascus, all the while skirting on difficult topic of the pain Lawrence of Arabia caused to the Arab.

Perhaps the essay that took my attention was the unintentionally hilarious story in My Beirut hostage Crisis by Rolk Potts. While in West Beirut, an extrovert and rich stranger decided to play host to the writer and his overbearing manner became a sort of hostage situation for the writer.

In Losing it in London, Douglas Cruickshank took a London Cab driven by an amateur fiction writer and hobbyist moth collector. Douglas lost his money in the cab thinking that he would never see it again. While ruminating over his ill fortune at a pub, he came upon a couple of moth enthusiasts. In a convoluted twist to the situation, the guys knew that the moth enthusiast and mystery writer cabbie has to be their friend. To cut the story short, Douglas' lost money was reunited with him after the cabbie's daughter delivered it to him. 

In It Might be your Lucky Day by Jeff Greenwald, the writer and his sick girlfriend hitched a ride to San Francisco. Jeff struck a cord with his new driver friend and did some dangerous stunts on their road trip. While helping his sick girlfriend at a rest stop, their new friends drove off with all their belongings. Jeff's girlfriend was near death when they reached SF with the help of kind strangers and he almost forgot the incident of the theft until police reached his family. The thieves stole their identities using their VISA and library card and after them, can killed more than one hitchhikers. Jeff's genuine friendship with the driver saved his skin and spared them from a horrible death.

The overall theme is the kindness of turn of fate for the better while traveling dangerously and without a proper plan. Most of the story tellers ended well to tell the tale of a safe return while tempting fate. But the many who encountered a bitter end did not return because little was planned and there was too much trust of strangers. This attitude is alien to the Asian who is more cynical of those not known to them. A good read but I would not try any of the antics by the writers unless in dire situations.