Andy Richardson: I fell flat on my face but lost my heart to a nation

We've all done that, haven't we, eh? And I'm really sorry, Teresa. But it had only been a couple of weeks.

No, I mean falling on your face. You know. Standing on a ledge and letting gravity propel you into the ground. Bone and blood on a hard floor. I'm talking freefall. I'm talking smack-bam-a-loo-bop, a-whack-bam-bam, if Jerry Lee will let me appropriate his Tutti Frutti lyrics for a minute.

It happened to me during a trip to Madagascar. I was waiting for a bus having spent a couple of days looking at lemurs in the Mantadia National Park. I'd done the normal tourist thing: whizzed in then taken hundreds of pictures of the wildlife before making my exit.

I was standing on the side of the road, on a raised kerb, when I felt woozy. And then my teeth were grinding against the Tarmac. They'd taken the full impact of 12-stone falling just over two metres. Somewhere, there's an equation that quantifies the force of my fall. Bash.

I remember lying on the road, wondering why my teeth were kissing gravel and why I was no longer standing on the ledge. I stumbled to my feet as the locals walked past. They turned away, horror spreading across their face. They did that thing that plumbers do when you ask them for the price of a job; sucking the air across their teeth and shaking their head with a sense of foreboding.

I touched my face, just above my teeth. Crimson poured through my fingers. A thick fold of skin between my nose and my lip hung limp.

I was taxied to a hospital in Andasibe. A woman came with me, I didn't ask her name, I was too busy crying silent tears at my permanent disfigurement. The medics inserted six stitches into the wound, literally stitching my face back together. I felt like a fish, the hook going in and out. I felt every motion.

In those stressful moments, something remarkable happened. I was at the mercy of villagers, miles from anywhere, with no language skills, completely vulnerable. And I had one of the most important and profound experiences of my life.

A girl who spoke a little English, Tadesi, was summoned to the hospital. She sat with me, held my hand and told me everything was going to be alright. She took me to her sister's home, gave me a room and bought antibiotics and soup.

Six-thousand miles from home, I surrendered to the comfort of strangers. And when I returned to Antananarivo, a guy befriended me and became my escort-security-guide for two days. I'll never forget him. He was the milkman of human kindness.

Had I not fallen flat on my face my trip would have been all style and no substance. I'd have subconsciously avoided meaningful contact with the locals and simply had a good time looking at lemurs.

But my accident stripped me of my normal defences, my blithe spirit. It made me entrust in the kindness of others. And I'm so glad I did. I discovered real Madagascar, rather than the chocolate box version. And I discovered how kind other people can be, when you let them in. And that's something that no tourist can buy.