Laos is kicking the gastrointestinal tract of more travelers than in Vietnam and Cambodia combined. I seem to meet more people here who are recovering from bouts of illness, “felt funny last night”, or has a travel partner who “isn’t feeling well.” It all means one thing…tummy trouble. Either diarrhea, vomiting, or the double whammy of both. I’ve been afflicted in each country so far, thankfully to only very mild degrees which took only hours to pass, but Laos got me the worst. The upside is that a complete lack of any appetite means that I don’t have to spend money on food, and I allow myself to drink as much cola as I want. 

Dealing with gurgly bowels for 12 to 48 hours is annoying and unpleasant, but most travelers recover with no serious consequences, other than perhaps a lingering exhaustion. It could be that some can’t handle the Inferno Grade spiciness of the food – as I write this, a girl in my hostel dorm is telling her mother that she’s having stomach problems, possibly due to the spicy food – but it really mostly comes down to abysmal standards of hygiene and sanitation.  It’s an interesting tangle of issues here that involves access, or lack of access, to clean water, disposal of all the plastic bottles that is the main source of most potable water, and a lack of basic understanding in some areas about the simple importance of personal hygiene and washing one’s hands. Or in some cases, there are no proper facilities in which to wash one’s hands. It all seems so backwards to those of us coming from developed nations, but it’s a dirty reality for a large part of the Lao population. I was trying to write something a little more comprehensive about this, but it started turning into a time-sucking rambling dissertation based largely on observation rather than fact, so I’m abandoning that effort in favor of posting this pic of a cartoon I found in Jhai Coffee House in Paksong. They run projects to install wells and water filtration systems in villages and schools, and to educate the kids on the importance of proper hygiene. 

During one of my scooter tour days I stopped at a tiny village market. It was just a handful of stalls and tables by the roadside, and I initially stopped because some unusual offerings caught my eye. There were a variety of rodents, and more than one exotic bird, including one with all electric blue feathers. It was sad to see something so pretty and small on offer to eat, especially given the sheer number of free-range chickens available. Anyway, I decided to grab a snack, and found a lady selling the rice cooked in bamboo. The plan was to get one to go, but her understanding was that I wanted it right away, and I decided why not. I took a seat and watched with slight concern as she cracked open a couple of pieces. For some reason that I couldn’t fathom, the first three or so were not acceptable, and part of her evaluation process was to give the contents a prod with a finger. Maybe they were too sticky and not peeling properly. When she did find an acceptable section, she peeled the whole thing, extracted the cylinder of rice, and set it on the grill for a few minutes. I sat there eating a slice of watermelon, wondering what to do next. I was only a few days recovered from the last round of illness, and keen to avoid another. When my slightly warmed rice was handed to me…I ate it. I couldn’t not eat it with the vendor right there. And everything was fine. It probably could have very easily not been fine, but I decided that if such was a concern of mine, I shouldn’t be buying snacks at tiny dusty markets of questionable cleanliness in the middle of nowhere. As I was walking back to my scooter, a man started talking to me. I don’t know what he was saying, but he was clearly referencing the fact that I had just eaten something there. Maybe he was giving me credit for it, or maybe he was telling me I was a fool. Either way, it had caught his attention. I like to think it was the former, but I’ll never know.