Toilet Tabu 29.03.10

I’m going back to some earlier notes. . The two blogs I have ‘in the can’ are a bit raunchy so bear with me and we’ll see if we can find the road back to fun and funniness. I do try to amuse... is that evident? My brother says I have knocked out some Colinisms, I like that word. I make up a LOT of words of course. I think I should include a dictionary or my own vocab. I never use a thesaurus or dictionary or, with the exception of the name of some crazy ass curveball pitcher, gone to Google for factoids. I keep hoping that my sister Nancy will volunteer to clean up my writing but, ?Nancy? Got enough on your plate?

This instalment is a bit ripe. If you are of a sensitive nature please pass this one by as it is about a subject that is all too common to travelers – but it will be difficult to be delicate. I will endeavour.

Of late I am oft reminded of that Etta James classic; ‘What a Difference a Bidet Makes’ she really says it all when she sings ‘How I adore the little showers’. So that is the launching point for these thoughts. All through Vietnam, Laos and Thailand we have found wonderful little hoses with spigots next to the toilet (except with public toilets that are usually squatters with a bucket and a pail without a handle). Wow! What a thrill those puppies are. I have vowed to install one the second I get home. Terrifically useful.

Digestion and its corollaries are always top of mind when one is travelling. On the input side we are warned about tapwater, lettuce, fruit and vegetables that touch the ground etc. Ok. Who can live that way? Failure to maintain the strictest hygienic code will result in terrible things so we are told. But if one is travelling on a budget that is less than Midas-like one will soon have to make a decision. It starts so simply – the waiter touched the neck of the purified water bottle – yes or no. C’mon, grow a pair.

Today’s topics include: Woeful Washrooms, The Telltale Fart – a Po classic, Irresistible Objection, Tom Trot and His Friends, The Joke of the Butt and 4 Decrees of Preparation. Anyone who has travelled outside of their own hometown will have experienced one or more of these.

Woeful Washrooms

There is a sort of ratcheting up of anticipation when one approaches a new WC. One feels a tightening in the temples akin to MSG poisoning. It is a given that one will have to drop into a public facility more than once a day when one is on the road. Will it stink, will it have toilet paper, will it flush, will I slip and fall down the hole, will i be able to hover above the battlefield and still hit the target with my ordnance? If you weren’t feeling any intestinal distress when contemplating the use of the facility you certainly will just before you turn that grimy knob. Dirty hands down - Vietnam was easily the worst so far; from an olfactory perspective I have experienced more ‘colours’ in the 4 weeks that I was in Vietnam than in my entire life thus far. From whiff of vestigial four-day-old corpse to 2x4 across the brow Who Flung Poo, I have discovered an entirely new lexicon of grossitude. Laos probably doesn’t count because I was in a sort of yuppie Mecca called Luang Prabang – and the Laotians are reputed to have extremely high standards in that regard – but I didn’t really dig into the countryside so we’ll have to call that a wash. I have seen extremely high standards in Thailand and some faintly nauseating – so Vietnam is to be avoided by the squeamish and weak-of-heart. I have already submitted my report on the WC on the sleeper train and I am pleased to add that I was able, on a subsequent trip from Ninh Binh to Hanoi, to record an exact duplicate of that original hellhole on my camera. In order to do it justice I will have to create a Hockney-esque composite because my wide-angle lens couldn’t get the whole thing in one shot. I don’t have the time or software to do it correctly here.

The Telltale Fart

Sometimes it is just a fart and sometimes it isn’t. When one is at home and everything is finely tuned and in excellent order it is usually quite safe to roll the dice. But when all your money is down at the craps table you’d better have said your prayers the night before. I am sure there are prophylactic ablatives one might employ to guard against the shame but the prospect of valving off a little methane when the engine is running fairly hot is always a risky gamble. Extra pair of undies? Without a doubt.

Irresistible Objection

It can happen anywhere and at any time but the feared and familiar wrench of gut that pre-empts all thought processes is one of the most daunting features of travel. Suddenly the landscape shifts, through the miasma of confusing signage and traffic one must locate a depository. Failure to locate same will lead to discomfiture, embarrassment, possibly exile by your partner(s). Likely triggers are Vietnamese Coffee, what looked like a red pepper but was in fact a thermonuclear chilli, the waiter handled that damn water bottle – should have gone for door number 3. Once familiar with the experience you will be able to anticipate the launch date of your package. 3 minutes, 10, 20 seconds – what do they call Kegels of the hind?

One of the strange phenomena I have observed with respect to this is the body’s uncanny reflex to give a green light to evacuation once the goal is within view as opposed to the eminently more desirable moment when one is in fact in conjunction with the porcelain receptacle. One of the perversities of the human species I suppose. In my experience, without putting too fine a point on it, It has led to minor disaster resulting from an activated release aperture pre-firing

Tom Trot

Travelers diarrhoea – damn that’s a tough word to spell, but you can be illiterate and still get it. In fact, it’s all too common at the outset of many peregrinations to foreign lands. There’s not too much to say about this affliction except that it tends to keep one close to quarters until it has been resolved and it can be dangerous if not treated. Fortunately we have Azithromycin – an amazing drug that works a charm as they say. Old Monteczuma probably had a bathroom cupboard full of those babies for visiting dignitaries. I don’t know what my intestinal flora look like these days but I suspect they resemble the blackened, smouldering slash and burn hillsides we see hereabouts. Yogurt is fairly common in Southeast Asia. One might be well-advised to bring a small vial of probiotic capsules just to give the chute the old leg up.

I have never experienced this next one so I’ll tuck it into Tom Trot. It is, in fact, the opposite. I was once travelling with a young woman who had not had a BM of any kind for three weeks! She reported this uncomfortable fact to a native physician; he spoke Greek and a little French, she spoke English and French. If memory serves the conversation went something like. Dr: ‘Trois semaines? Impossible, Trois
jours!’. She: ‘Oui, trois semaines!’. Dr: ‘IM-POSS-IBLE!’. She was successful in convincing him that she was a tad stuffed up and he prescribed for her the most powerful suppository ever invented. It had to be handled with lead gloves and molybdenum tongs. After administering same – and I assure you this is all second-hand information – she waited patiently for the magic. With great anticipation she felt the urge but to her bitter disappointment and frustration, produced a turd the size of a rabbit pellet. Luckily the rabbit pellet was the mass and density of a neutron star and it chipped the squatter going down.

The Joke of the Butt
For the youngsters at home I thought I should write a short preamble about how, as one ages, the integrity and tensility of one’s nether tissues becomes more and more paramount. What one took for granted in the halcyon days of youth become a fixation among many as they enter their later years.

I am here today to sing praise in honour of St. Bidet, a clever 16th century hotelier whose incalculably valuable contribution to mankind was a valved hose with sufficient pressure to gently Karcher one’s exhaust manifold free of all offending material. Blessings be upon him and his progeny.

When delicately showered, the article under discussion remains happy and healthy – greatly improving one’s disposition and sense of well-being.

From a Service-to-Mankind perspective Bill Gates could steal a page or two from M. Bidet’s book; though Mr. Microsoft has no prospects for future hagiography as his station will probably be somewhere on the third or fourth level of Mr. Dante’s terrain.

Four Decrees of Preparation

I only write this last because there may be one or two readers who have not yet worn out a sandal on the cobbled road of discovery. It is always important to expect the unexpected but it has been too many years since I launched my ship on the seas without a wrangler or a fixer so it took a few days to get my gear together.

1. Toilet paper – shockingly few public facilities have it. Even the user-pay ones. Be prepared to put the used stuff into a little bin with a swinging lid so practice scrunching it at home to keep the good faces facing out for aesthetics. Learn origami with one hand. Also, if you like good quality stuff (they sell 80 grade sandpaper here) then buy it at home and pack an extra suitcase. You can sell it at great profit at TP Black Markets everywhere. And do remember, because the call of duty can happen at any time you will appreciate it if you are off-roading and the trumpets blare.
2. Hand Soap – sure, just take the little chips from your guesthouses and hotels but they vanish faster than a holy wafer on Satan’s tongue so maybe pack a little liquid soap as well. Ditto shampoo. In the cheaper guesthouses the proprietors refill their liquid containers so have a heart and pack your own shampoo. Besides, who knows what scalp-scorching fluid is in those vials.
3. Moist towelettes – right now all the males are thinking I am a complete pussy. Guilty as charged - but I can tell you that there have been several bus trips where these guys have paid major dividends. So don’t take ‘em, but be prepared to eat with questionable organisms clinging to your fingertips. I recently cleaned a restaurant menu with one – it was so unspeakably grimy that I couldn’t stand to think of the next diner contemplating the kitchen of the establishment based on the plasticized menu. The food was quite good and fresh. Spread the love, not the contagion.
4. Hand sanitizer – kind of second-best to #3, just another possible protection against narsty stuff. On airplanes where there is stuff floating around that would make an Ebola germ weep you might as well improve your chances.

I’m not a squeamish man, nor am I ultra-fastidious in my hygiene. I would suggest that my Constitution Index resides near the ‘moderate’ level. I can no longer stay out all night drinking and carousing but I generally do see a star or two peep out and I may veer towards the reckless when making a decision to starve or to eat because it is 8.30 PM and all the fracking restos are closed up. Please take my advice. Be Prepared. You will have a better experience for it.