Bound (more likely unbound) to happen, tummy upsets and worse are guaranteed to descended upon anyone travelling through the 3rd world. A generalisation about travel in these parts is that you eat what the locals eat – well as much as possible, keep your hands clean and purify your water. These are the keys to staying intact as you pass through places of pretty questionable hygene. But even then there is no guarantee you’ll escape unscathed.
The most common and dreaded afflication is the squirts (uncontrollable bowel blasting), which typically strike just after you’ve had a roadside meal and your guts scream at you to dump it. Depending on the severity of the disagreement within, you can find yourself with precious little time to obey before nature takes over anyway.
Alternatively you may think that you are able to contain the rumblings, maybe relieve the pressure with a discrete gaseous omission or two, and wait until a convenient time to accommodate a more substantial alleviation. This is a high risk strategy – too often that little gaseous intent turns out to be a full blown liquid burn off and you find your motorcycle trou are the unhappy recipient of the exorcism your body just conducted on your lunch. In other words you get to recognise when when you’ve fallen foul of food and once you do time is of essence, you have to know when to hold them, know when to fold them.
I have been on bike expeditions where just after lunch I’ve come around a bend to find two or more bikes standing forlornely at the roadside with their riders either squatting beside them, running full pelt across an adjacent field, or nowhere in sight, as they endeavour to vacate their bowels without messing their own patch.
Even the most experienced 3rd world traveller can get it wrong. So it was last week with one of our members confident he was all-together was only to find that he wished he’d worn nappies. And we’d wish he had too – needless to say he was asked to ride at the rear of the pack for the rest of the day.
Comments are closed.