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.

I'll get sick for this

I went to Egypt about 6 weeks before the revolution began in January 2011, and I read all the health warnings that are pretty universal for any developing country - don’t drink the water, don’t touch ice cubes with a 10-foot pole, don’t eat any raw fruits or vegetables, etc.  But despite following all these health guidelines, it is still very easy to fall ill, and that is exactly what I did in Egypt.

After 9 full days of running around the country, my traveling companions and I had just one day left in Cairo with our expat friends that live there.  We had grand plans to eat a nice lunch, to go the Khan el-Khalili bazaar, and perhaps hit up another museum.  

I was feeling rather odd after breakfast, and soon my stomach rejected the notion of food completely.  But I was not about to let that stop me.  I rallied after a bit of a rest, and we went out in search of lunch before meeting up with Seth who was going to cab with us to the bazaar.

Once outside, I realized that my energy was simply gone.  Walking at a snail’s pace was all I could muster.  At lunch, my stomach gave me ample warning that food was not a welcome guest.  I took a piece of bread and stuck it in my purse with hopes that my stomach might embrace it later.  We got on the subway to meet Seth in Tahrir Square.  About halfway there, I nearly passed out.  Steve and Lynette shoved me out of the train at the next stop, where I just sat on the platform and attracted more than the usual amount of stares from the locals.  

I regained enough strength to board the next train.  When we reached our stop, It took me a whole 5 minutes to walk up the stairs where Seth was waiting for us.  But I was determined to make it to the Khan.  Well, I was until Seth pulled me aside and said, “It’s easy to get you into the Khan.  But if something happens to you while we’re there, it is not going to be easy to get you back out.”

&*$%.  I gave in.  Seth, Steve, and Lynette hopped in a cab, and I teetered my way back down the stairs to take the train back to the apartment.  Just two stops from my destination, I nearly passed out again.  

I finally made it after getting lost on the walk back, which again, was slow and laborious.  I stayed mostly in bed the rest of the day.  I was scheduled to fly back home late that night.  When it was time to go to the airport, I couldn’t even carry my own backpack down the stairs to the hired car.  How was I going to navigate the chaos of the Cairo airport like this?

Well, somehow I made it to the plane.  The 13 hour flight to JFK was beyond miserable - we hit pockets of turbulence every 15 minutes like clockwork, and the Egyptian man next to me simply couldn’t get over the fact that I didn’t have children and didn’t smoke.  

I was sick for over a week after I made it home.  I actually lost weight over Thanksgiving.  My mother was worried sick and thought that going to Egypt was the worst idea I’d ever had.  But I totally disagree.  As miserable as I was, I would go through it all over again to have the experience that I had on that trip.  In a traveling lifestyle, getting bizarrely sick is inevitable.  There are some precautions that can and should be taken, but they only do so much.  I think it’s worth putting up with to experience other parts of the world, so I’ll continue to travel, and I’ll continue to get sick.  I’ll just pack some extra meds and be as prepared as possible. 

Pass the Pepto, please.

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.