When I left Belgium, I washed my hair every two days, I combed it every single day, did not wear my clothes more than two days, maximum 3 if it is a pants. I obviously used a towel and toiletpaper for the toilet visits,… The normal stuff.
When you start traveling you perception changes on everything: what clean and dirty is, what cheap and expensive is, what beautiful and normal is, definitely what kindness means, and what tourism does to those places and peoples. In Kazachstan I used nature as my toilet regularly, mainly because those outdoor toilets on the side of the road are way worse then just squating behind those small buildings. Outdoors means you need to have toiletpaper with you all the time, and some practice to not pee on your own shoes. Things get messy sometimes. As I explained in a Dutch article: Toiletbehendigheid en treinvoorzieningen, toilets on a train are not so easy to use. You try to touch as less as possible, the toilet seat gross you out the most. So again things can get messy if you try to find the rhythm of the movements of the train while you are hanging above the toilet trying to not touch the wall when the train makes a sudden sharp turn. It takes a lot more training to become a pro like those locals, they even get changed and washed in those small dirty cabins. After a couple of dirty ‘normal’ toilets in India, I started to like those squat toilets more and more, I also did not need toiletpaper anymore. It is expensive since only tourist use them and in some places they realized how precious these things are for tourists and ask extreme prices. I am not so much fan of the non hose toilets, wear you only have u bucket of water and a small pot to get your ass cleaned and that toilet flushed. I think you can figure out how that goes. I have soap with me for those who do not even have soap after this kind of toilet visit! You can not give food with your left hand, since it is the toilet-hand. The time wear I saw the most people pooping at once was when I looked out of the window in a train from Bikaner to New Delhi. Over 30 people where shitting on the rail tracks where they live next to. Water is scarce.. We where driving slowly and over 10 minutes time it was one after the other in squat position. In railway stations itself you have toilets, but those poor homeless people who live in the train stations, selling your food and water on the train, are just going on a rail track and do there thing and clime up the platform again. There is water available in the stations, luckily, but I am not sure if they use it to clean their hands enough, and most likely not with soap, but here they can clean your food, wash and cut it in pieces. And not just once I saw kids being lifted above the tracks to do their thing right in front of a you and over hundred people. You can see some brown colored stuff coming out her ass. At least it is not the yellow I poop out after all those curries. I had more days with then without diarrhea in Nepal, and when I was in Panauti, I discovered locals also get that same problem. I asked somewhere if they had a toilet and the only toilet I there was just had a curtain and small hole in the ground. Their was shit everywhere, I had no clue wear to put my feet and how to do it, but body was reacting as if I had taken laxative. But some local guy apparently had curry diarrhea like me. Things get crazy when you travel. Talking about toilets and your constipation, or diarrhea is very normal for the traveler. A kind of special layer of depth to your friendship. Although my sister and Myriam where not ready for those changes. My sister was half traumatized when she saw a small girl wandering in a street and taking a dump where we just walked. After the girl is walking away a dog comes along and go directly after the delicious chocolate the girl just dropped on the ground. In Laos I stayed with a poor tribe family who had a house but no toilet. They just went in the alley in between the houses. And in Vietnam I came across a toilet with no walls or privacy. You squat next to each other, I even had one you had no separate hole you pee in, you pee on the floor and it needs to get al the way to the corner of the room. No idea how to shit in those? Step by step you get used to being dirty. Me and Jeff ended up not washing ourselves for over a week in India, at least we could laugh about it. If you travel a few days and nights in a train and you are not an expert in showering in those toilet cabins, you end up not washing yourself for a while. Also the showers in the rooms can be crazy cold or so disgusting you question if you actually get out cleaner if you showered in that. I was in India in hot season where temperature rise over 40 degrees celsius. Every single thing your body touches is soaking wet. You surprisingly smell less bad though since you already sweat out all your toxins ages ago. I do not sweat much, but at those temperatures the water drips of my face and Jeff even had painful eyes because his salty sweat got in his eyes. One time we both went to the bathroom right after each other and came back out laughing, both for the same reason. We where looking in the mirror and saw our neck was completely white. Is it sand? Rash? My skin is peeling off? Nope, it is salt. You sleep on those beds in a train where everybody was loosing liters of sweat, a kid was being stuffed with food that is now spread over your bed. And the beds probably do not get cleaned very often anyway. My clothes are impossible to clean and have holes in them all over. You shower and come in your extremely hot room and before you made it out of there again you smell. My sister and Myriam checked their beds very carefully, and still slept every night in their liner bag anyway. I am now already happy if their are no mosquitos that will keep me awake and if the cockroach can not get out of the bathroom and crawl over me during the night. Spiders are not allowed in my room. I slept in dirty sheets when I was offered them by a poor family, it does not bother me anymore. I drink out of a disgusting glass or eat from a dirty plate if it is offered to me by a nice guy or sweet girl. Those kitchens are actually more important, but you can also not complain about those. I like the street food where I can actually see how disgusting it is. After a while it does not seem that bad anymore. My stomach can handle it, as long as it is no curry. I not only wear clothes where I can not get those stains out anymore, I also wear less clothes. Who needs a bra? That thing makes my skin itch and give me rash when I am sweating liters of water 24 hours a day. Also that is a problem I share with the locals. When I was in a train in India, in a woman compartment, a lady showed all of us the rash she has on her legs and on her belly. All I could thing of: “Yes! I am not alone, locals have this too!”. I stopped wearing bras. And skip my underwear regularly as well. I also shrinked down my backpack and send my towel back. I now use a scarf as a towel, you do not need it anyway, you are dry in two seconds and wet again in 5. I use a scarf for anything, a rain jacket, towel, skirt, blanket, pillow, anything. Again i am not the only one. Oleg has only one pants for months, and Oleg and Andrii both do not wear underwear most of the time. Traveling is freedom. Being dirty is your right.
1 Reactie
|
Related Articals |