Traveling to some parts of the world can sometimes have alarming surprises. For the uninitiated, always prepare for the days(or evenings) toilet trips when you’re away from your comfortable hotel room. If you don’t want to use a public toilet to discard your body’s solid waste, make sure to have your daily BM in a timely fashion. Regulate your body as soon as humanly possible. If you do not, you may find yourself scrambling, especially since it is quite common to have digestive issues while traveling. 

Foreign foods with different spices, meats, vegetables(chili peppers..), sanitary and hygiene conditions, etc. will not always mesh with your system. Sudden urges from your body will signal that time change from jet lag has now morphed into jet leg or jet legs to be more precise.  A panic will overcome you as you realize that you’re now stuck far from your hotel probably in some walk about tour you were convinced to take and there’s a dozen or more people who are all trying to hear the rushed, almost muted voice of the tour guides’ broken accent while that one couple from France silently complaining to themselves that this isn’t anything like Versailles who are constantly getting lost or just plain lollygagging it purposefully trying to spite the loud uncultivated American part-time real estate agent who attends PTA meetings even though her own children are fully grown so she dragged her timid husband into the vacation he really didn’t want to take as you try to ask the oblivious guide for directions to the bathroom but can’t find the break in his rehearsed monotonous speech about inscriptions made in the millennial old walls at the same time there’s a debate in your mind about whether you should use the word ‘WC’ instead of toilet when and if you get the chance all the while time is running out as you feel the sensation of wanting to pass gas but instinctively tighten your sphincter muscle that grips you with what can only be described as absolute dread and terror overtakes you in fear that you may get the unwelcome accompany squirt which will leave you humiliated in front of the entire tour group who will be left with the most unpleasant but at the same time hilarious vacation memory that they will tell their grandkids for generations. Yes. That could be you. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Make sure that in addition to having  some spare tablets of Pepto and Imodium available that you are in tip top shape. The kind of shape that your peers are in from doing yoga poses regularly. Not the simple rudimentary Downward Dog pose. No. We’re talking the Tadasana Chair to Utkatasana Vinyasa. You need to solidify those atrophied quads. Because you’ve seen enough Discovery Channel programming and PBS documentaries showing their intrepid correspondent sitting, mind you, without a chair in some desolate location with ninety year old elders essentially sitting back on their heels and rising effortlessly. So, after the triumph you feel at finding the public toilet area, that light in your mind will click on as you realize that the developing world(you’ve graduated from using the term ‘Third World’) and it’s squatting denizens were not only sitting that way for lack of furniture, but out of absolute necessity in the daily routine of defecating.  

You will not be presented with a porcelain altar chair to comfortably sit on. No. You will see in front of you basically a floor with a hole in it. It may have an enamel inset resembling an empty mini infinity pool but at least you’ll feel one degree better about your situation. If, as I’ve mentioned previously, you are prepared for this then you stand a chance of surviving. If not, you will be in crisis mode. Because that typical Westerner(let’s be honest, we’re talking about Americans), are known for being out of shape. If you’re overweight, mobility compromised (cane, wheelchair), or just frightened at the daunting task ahead of you, this can get ugly fast. I should add to this list drunk people. The dangers are real. It doesn’t help that you’re on vacation(Holiday…sorry Anglosphere), and you may be dressing the part in your Boho pants or Nepalese skirt with flat bottom sandals that right about now are skidding helplessly over the tile  as your body careens toward the mouth of the toilet like that scene in “Jaws” where Robert Shaw desperately slides into the sharks gaping mouth. Fortunately, you steady yourself as you hover over the abyss with the fabric of your hip sheik clothes scrunched up at your ankles soaking up the residual water and whatever fluids already exist on the floor below. Your knees begin to buckle like a beleaguered prize fighter as you concentrate on aiming and then when you have succeeded in hitting the bulls eye, you begin your dismount. This is where it gets crazy. 

Consider yourself lucky to find a slinky metal water hose that will serve as a manual bidet. These are ideal. However, you may not get this luxury. Sometimes, somewhere in this stall, a sink area filled with water with a ladle or cup for scooping is available in order to clean up. This can be like wielding Excaliber with children’s hands and being left handed. The discolored water that you have managed to draw from what could be Lake Karachy is splashing about your nether regions and dripping all over your feet and clothing. But that is nothing because if you’ve got the strength, balance and sobriety about you, you can terminate this operation by pulling up your soiled attire and call it a day. 

There are anecdotal stories of tourists who have found the worst of this experience. Having to find their way back to their hotel whilst covered in their own…well you know, is humbling, to say the least. So, worldly traveler, keep this advice in mind. If you don’t know squat, then learn some squat.