Undergraduate / "my vacation to India last year" - Evaluating a significant experience and its impact [5]

Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.

If there was one experience in my life that truly changed me it would have to be my vacation to India last year. Picture it, the beautiful Himalayan Mountains during July, they are serene and calm. The air is still and peaceful; a stark contrast to the hustle and noise ordinarily found in the boisterous streets of India. I visited this area in the summer of 2009 on a lovely family vacation. My relatives in India live in New Delhi so we went by car, driving twenty-three hours to a place called Kullu-Manalli a popular tourist spot in the Himalayas. Here one can expect to see honeymooning couples, as well as a rich mountain heritage. It is fairly unknown in the Western world but it is the place that divides Hindu and Buddhist culture. This was one of the many places I traveled to last summer, a summer that had an everlasting impact on me. I had never done this much traveling before, therefore I was not prepared. I became ill at one point during this journey; a stomach infection, most likely something in the water. The basic symptoms just seemed to include nausea, exhaustion and diarrhea, but I felt that this was probably just because of the sudden change from country to country as I had arrived from the U.S. 2 days before. My illness had been undetected to me until a few hours before we were set to leave for the Himalayas. I shrugged it off and it only worsened as the altitude increased. It didn't help that India had been having a great pollution problem for the last few years and that the air quality was absolutely horrible. The road going up the mountain was carved into the side of it; this created a valley trapping the smoke from all of the cars going up. We were forced to leave our windows open due to the lack of air conditioning. We breathed in filthy air that caused everyone in the car to feel sick and nauseous- it certainly didn't help that the road was bumpy. Yet I never once told my mother I wanted to go back. No matter how sick I felt or how filthy the toilets were, which was is an understatement considering that most toilets in India are just a hole in the ground. I survived and struggled through the pain and made it to the top of Rohtang pass, the highest peak of the mountain. I saw something that only a few people will ever get to see, the Himalayas. Those clean, pristine beautiful snowcapped mountains; I even got to touch a glacier in the middle of July! Before this had happened to me I had never experienced much personal hardship. Of course life is full of problems, family issues, financial issues, etc. but nothing like this. Eventually I received the proper medical treatment though it did take me a year before I fully recovered. After living through this I realized something, I can survive through anything. Even though I was sick and suffering for most of last year I still endured the rigor and difficulty of my junior year. Based on the past year, I feel as though I can take on the future with a positive outlook and look forward to the challenges ahead.

Does this fit the prompt? I originally wrote it for another prompt but I think it might fit for this one, if it doesn't then I'll write another or if possible just tweak this one based on the comments. Also if there are another improvements I could make that would be good too. Please be honest but not mean, thank you!