Last month, I hit my four year anniversary for living abroad in China and attempting to travel through the rest of Asia. To say I’d love my adventure over here would be an understatement, but it hasn’t all been roses and sunshine. Here, for your enjoyment, or horror, are some of the times things didn’t go according to plan.
Trigger warning – You are about to read stories of upset stomachs, rank bathroom conditions, and explosive diarrhea. So… enjoy!
Luang Prabang, Laos
On February 1, 2018, I set off on what was to be six weeks of backpacking around Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. The first leg of the trip started in Luang Prabang, Laos, a cozy city nested on the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan Rives in northern Laos.
Nicknamed “The Heart of Laos”, Luang Prabang is the country’s ancient capital and boasts beautiful surroundings. Picturesque mountains loaded with ancient temples and flowing waterfalls are all a short trip from the city. Coming into Laos, however, I felt exhausted from a long month of work, as I was just finishing up my tenure at my first school, and all I wanted to do in Luang Prabang was catch my breath for the first few days.
So instead of jumping on buses to the nearby jungle, I spent those first days just walking around the city, which is really more like a village. The locals were some of the nicest and most welcoming people I’d encountered. Most of their cuisine was similar to northern Vietnam, a variety of noodle soups infused with some French influences, and I was having a good time just meandering about, chatting up locals, and stopping in at a cafe whenever I got hungry.
On one of my walks, I passed the Manda de Laos, rated as the best restaurant in Luang Prabang in just about any guide book you see. A good reason for the rating is because of the pure beauty of the dining area, most of which is outside on the perimeter of a majestic pond filled with countless lily pads. The restaurant had posted their lunch menu and I noted that the highest priced items were the equivalent of $10 US. Definitely expensive for Laos, but for me it was too good to pass up.
They sat me in a lovely area, at a table surrounded by the pond on three sides. I could look down and count the colorful fish that flocked to diners for scraps. I ordered my lunch, of all things, a burger. And I also asked for a glass of ice water. The day was already stuffy and I thought an ice-cold glass of water would cool me down a bit. The server gave me a strange look and asked me, “Are you sure?” I thought this was odd, and it definitely should have triggered me, but I nodded my head yes and went back to counting fish.
She brought out my dish and iced water and I enjoyed my lunch in the serene atmosphere. On the way back to my hostel, I started to feel it; something definitely wasn’t sitting well. I hurried my pace and barely made it back in time to hit the bathroom and evacuate my bowels. I had been drinking water every day since I’d been in Laos and it hadn’t been a problem. Why now? As it turns out, they filter their drinking water but not the water they use to make ice cubes! Apparently, the locals have a strong enough gut to handle the ice and the foreigners aren’t stupid enough to ask for ice. Well, most of the foreigners.
The rest of my stay in Luang Prabang was filled with the agony of food poisoning. For three days, I was confined to my hostel. Unfortunately, the hostel did not feature private bathrooms and so whenever I had to vomit or had another spell of diarrhea, which was at least a dozen times each day, I had to pull myself up off my sweat-soaked bed, make my way through the common areas, and, hopefully, be able to find one of the four outdoor stalls unoccupied. Also, when I stay stalls, I really mean the Asian squatting toilet with no seats, where you just have to hover over and pray for good aim. It was a relief to know that while 99% of my body felt like it was dying an agonizing death, at least I was getting some good quad work in while holding a squat position between 10-20 times a day.
At some point that second day, I made my way to a clinic nearby, where they prescribed me some charcoal tablets but said there was little else they could do for me. For three days my diet consisted of charcoal pills, Sprite, and a handful of Ritz crackers. When I had finally kicked it, my time in Luang Prabang was coming to an end and I was happy to move on to Thailand, where they filter their ice cubes!
Kyoto, Japan
While Luang Prabang was definitely the worst attack of food poisoning I’ve had, unfortunately, it wasn’t the only time I’ve had a situation where I had to hurry to the bathroom. I visited Kyoto with my friend, Austin, in the fall of 2017. On our first full day in the city, we decided to have a traditional Japanese breakfast before visiting the famous Fushimi Inari Shrine.
Our breakfast consisted of mackerel, pickled veggies, miso soup, and tamago kake gohan, a Japanese breakfast staple of white rice topped with a raw egg and soy sauce. Ironically, I had recently had an allergy test done in Qingdao because I had constantly felt stuffed up. The only thing that came back positive, however, was eggs, and my allergy to them was extremely slight. So slight, in fact, that the doctor said most people with such a small egg allergy often only have problems with soft-boiled eggs. I’d never had a problem with soft-boiled eggs before, though, so I eagerly gobbled up the delicious rice and raw egg combo.
After breakfast, we made our way to the Fushimi Inari Shrine. Kyoto is another ancient capital and there are incredibly beautiful temples and shrines scattered all over the city. Fushimi Inari is located on a mountain in the southeastern part of the city. As you walk up the mountain, you pass through a series of red gates, some right on top of each other, some spread apart. There are several temples and shrines along the way and, as one of the most famous shrines in all of Japan, there are often hordes of tourists.
We were about 3/4 of the way up the mountain when I felt my stomach begin to stir. That raw egg wasn’t sitting too well. I realized very quickly that I needed to find the closest restroom. I found someone emptying a trash can and asked them where the closest bathroom was and, of course, they told me the only bathroom was back down the mountain, near the entrance. I double-timed it back down, all the while crossing my fingers and holding my knees together.
Ordinarily, Japan is far and away the best place for bathrooms that I have seen. Even if they don’t have one of their famous high-tech toilets that offer heated seats, a bidet, and often musical accompaniment, they are still usually kept immaculately clean, stock plenty of toilet paper, and occasionally will even offer wet wipes. Unfortunately, this bathroom was the exception. A lone squatty toilet that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in months awaited me. I crammed myself into the tiny stall, drenched in sweat at this point, and released everything in my gut.
I finished, relieved that I’d made it without an accident, only to realize that there was no toilet paper. I ducked my head out of the stall to scan the rest of the bathroom, no luck. The first thing to go was a brochure that I picked up about the shrine on my way in. Not the most comfortable but it did the trick to start. After that, I had to repurpose my boxers. I finally finished cleaning up as best I could before coming out and telling Austin that I was heading back to the Air BnB to take a shower. I learned an important lesson that day and ever since when I go out anywhere in Asia, I always keep a small package of toilet paper with me, just in case.
Coda: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
One lesson that I apparently didn’t learn, however, was to stay away from raw eggs. I would suffer another bout of upset stomach in HCMC in 2019, on the eve of Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. Ca phe trung, coffee mixed with condensed milk and a raw egg yolk, is one of my favorite Vietnamese treats. Despite the raw egg, I’d never had a problem before.
Ca phe trung originated in Hanoi and is usually associated with northern Vietnam. Now I was in southern Vietnam but it was on the menu of the coffee shop I had stepped in. I eagerly ordered it and downed it quickly. I was barely out the door when I realized the error of my ways. I rang in the Tet celebrations listening to the fireworks while getting familiar with my Air BnB bathroom.
