Pooping Abroad

I recently relayed some rather personal details about getting sick in Egypt.  But why stop there?  Let’s talk about poop.

My friend and fellow fabulous blogger Betsy recently admitted that her digestive system is not a fan of travel.  Flitting around the world can and will wreak havoc with your intestines at some point.  If this hasn’t happened to you, don’t worry - your time is coming.  

Going to a foreign country with water and food contamination issues means getting your “Os” ready - Pepto and Cipro.  I’ve carried prescription Cipro with me on trips for years, but I never had to use it until I hit India last year.  Talk about a country that bitch-slaps your stomach.  Bacteria and funk reign supreme in India, and my extreme care in choosing my food and washing my hands did me no good.  Delhi Belly came right on in and set up shop - just after it had a heyday with my friend and forced her to puke in the bushes of the Italian Embassy.  I became good friends with every western toilet in New Dehli.  The guest bath in our friend’s Delhi apartment started to feel like home.  After three days, I finally gave in and started popping Cipro.  By the time I made it to Thailand, I realized I had stopped constantly keeping an eye out for toilets in public areas.  Drugs are a wonderful thing.

Hooray for drugs!

I’ve heard that China is similar to India in terms of the intestinal reaction to the country.  While I haven’t been to China (don’t worry, I’ll get there), a friend of mine that went with a group swore that he and his buddies truly became best friends when they all got sick at the same time and had to use some primitive, not-so-private toilets on a very regular basis.  Nothing says “let’s bond” like having to poop together, right?

One way to kick all this fun up a notch is to throw in squat toilets.  That’s a whole extra barrel of pooping fun.  First of all, if you’re in a country that favors squat toilets to western sit-down toilets (think Vietnam, Cambodia, and even Bulgaria), you’re probably also going to need to carry your own toilet paper.  Take a moment and add that to your packing list.  Also, start doing squats - now.  The leg power will come in handy when you’re perched over a slab of concrete with a hole cut out of it.  

So gather your Pepto, Cipro, toilet paper, and leg stamina, and go forth and travel (and poop) with pride.

A stamp-happy country

India is all about some stamps.  Not the postage variety, not tramp stamps, but ink-on-paper stamps.  Apparently, it makes everything legitimate.  And for some odd reason, this completely fascinates me.  The best example I have of this is my domestic flight experience this past weekend where we flew from Delhi to Aurangabad.  I'll compare the domestic US flight experience with the domestic India flight experience:

1.  Online check-in

• US:  Got your boarding pass already?  Great - go straight to security so fewer people have to deal with you.
• India:  Got your boarding pass already?  *Golf clap*  You still have to come to the ticket counter because we have to stamp it.  If we don't stamp it, it's not a real boarding pass.

2.  Security checkpoint and carry-on items

• US:  Take your shoes off or we'll whisk you aside and strip search you.  Take your 3-oz liquids out of your luggage because we enjoy watching you get pissed off.  And now that we've looked at your luggage and a grainy image of your body, put your clothes back on and get out of our way.
• India:  We don't care to look carefully at your shoes or your bag of liquids.  Shoot, you can keep your giant bottle of water for all we care.  BUT - you have to put these paper tags on each piece of carry on luggage, and we have to stamp them when they come out of the x-ray machine.  If you don't have the tag with a stamp, you might be a terrorist.

3.  Boarding at the gate

• US:  You have a boarding pass with the right flight number?  Good.  Get out of my way and go sit in your seat.  And don't you dare put your jacket in the overhead bin.
•  India:  You have a boarding pass with the right flight number?  Ok, that's a start.  Wait - is it stamped...?  Oh, there it is, ok.  Now give me your ID - ok, the names match.  Let me check that boarding pass stamp one more time - ok, it's still there.  Now show me your luggage tags - do they have the Security Stamp of Approval?  Good.  But you still need another stamp.  Go over to this table so these nice people can halfheartedly hand-search your carry-ons and put yet another stamp on the luggage tags.  Great.  You may now wander all over the tarmac in the general direction of that plane over there.  Once you are done with your tour of the tarmac, please proceed to the bottom of the staircase leading up to the door of the plane so that yet one more person can check your boarding pass to make sure it's stamped.  You may now get on the plane and find your seat.

4.  Stopping at another city enroute to final destination (i.e., a direct flight, but not a non-stop flight)

• US:  Whatever.  Just stay on the plane and don't bother us.  Get up, go to the stinky pantry-sized bathroom, do anything you like except exit the aircraft.
• India:  You must wait for everyone getting off at this city to deplane.  Now you must stay in the general area of your seat until you confirm which carry-on items are yours because we have to put an "In Transit" sticker on each item.  No, you cannot use the bathroom until you have the official "In Transit" stickers on all your items.  Do not pass go.  Do not collect 200 rupees.  WAIT FOR THE STICKER GUY.

5.  Deplaning at destination

• US:  Whatever.  Just get out of here.
• India:  Wait!  You are not allowed off the aircraft until we check your boarding pass - again - and make sure that you have the appropriate stamp on it - again.  Ok, you're good to go.  You may exit the aircraft now.  

By the time we landed, I was in possession of one boarding pass stamp, 2 carry-on luggage security stamps (really, 4 stamps since I had 2 small bags), and one in-transit sticker. My boarding pass was checked 6 times.  I am SO legit!

Avoiding "Delhi belly"

Travel wreaks havoc on the body.  First you stress about the details of leaving and packing.  Then you sandwich yourself onto a pressurized jet-powered tin can and hang out at 35,000 feet for a few hours with 300 or so of your new best friends.  After that, you end up in totally different time zone.  And you haven't even begun to subject yourself to the local cuisine.

Unless you are traveling to Canada or Europe, chances are pretty good that you'll end up in a place with questionable tap water.  If the water isn't safe, that generally means avoiding it for drinking (and likely for brushing your teeth), never drinking anything with ice in it, and staying away from raw fruits and vegetables unless you are absolutely sure they've been washed in iodine solution or the like.  Otherwise, you'll get to say hello to your little porcelain friend and hang out for a while:

O hai!

I've been mostly successful in not getting sick while traveling to countries lacking decent water supplies (we'll have a little talk about my fun time in Egypt one of these days), but my upcoming time in India will take this to a whole new level.  Honestly, India takes everything to a whole new level.  Here is the advice that I've been given and/or read in order to avoid spending a few days chained to a toilet:

1.  Only drink and brush your teeth with bottled water from a country other than India
2.  Check the seal on each bottle of water (remember that scene from Slumdog Millionaire?)
3.  Wash you hands and use hand sanitizer
4.  Don't eat any raw, unpeeled food
5.  Stay away from dairy
6.  Wash your hands and use hand sanitizer
7.  Only eat food that has been well-cooked
8.  Only eat vegetarian in order to avoid contaminated meat
9.  Only eat meat/starches in order to avoid contaminated fruits and vegetables
10.  Avoid sweets
11.  Wash your hands and use hand sanitizer
12.  Gorge on probiotics (like yogurt) before the trip
13.  Drink whiskey after a meal
14.  Take 2 Pepto-Bismol tablets twice a day to coat the stomach (apparently this also turns the tongue black after a few days)
15.  Only eat at busy restaurants and food stalls
16.  Use grapefruit seed extract

If I took all this advice, I would consume nothing in India but rice, water, and whiskey, my tongue would turn black, and my hands would be VERY clean.  Now what fun is that?  If I my ultimate goal was to keep my body feeling near-perfect, I wouldn't be taking this trip.  Fatigue, weakness, and sickness are often simply a part of the travel package.  And though I will be taking some of the precautions listed above, I'm not going to obsess over the issue.

But I think I just might try that Pepto-Bismol thing...  mainly because I want to see if my tongue really will turn black.