Hi Y'all, Some of you might remember Jean Philippe Soule of CASKE 2000 fame. He written an entertaining story about how other cultures deal with disposing of human waste. Sorry, it's a bit long, but it's good reading. Here it is: When Nature Calls in Foreign Lands 8/25/99 by Jean-Philippe Soule Thailand is famous for its white sand beaches, plunging cliffs of limestone surrounded by lush rainforests and warm turquoise water. The bay of Phang Nga has quickly become a kayaker’s paradise. Your best friends invited you to join them in their paddling trip around the bay. You’re on your longest stretch from the resort of Krabi to the famous island of Koh Phi Phi. The day breaks with the sun reflecting its orange beams of light in the water. The only ripples are the ones from your paddle strokes. You think you’re in paradise when you start feeling strange movements in your bowels. You shut your mind to it but soon after stomach cramps alter your paddling. You remember the delicious spicy food of the previous night and have no choice but to jump in the water… It isn’t difficult to imagine this scenario. Most travelers and adventurers have experiences that can relate to this. People often ask me: "What do you do when you need to go to the bathroom?" Or, " How do you keep your toilet paper dry in your kayak?" Or even, "How much paper do you pack for a month in the wilderness?" I would think that famous explorers such as Livingston or large crews such the one of Captain Cook must have dealt with a lot of "----", yet none of the classic or modern travel writers have ever treated the subject. If it isn’t from lack of public interest it must be due to a taboo which I am about to break here. But I wonder if people who are curious enough to ask are ready to accept the answers? Are people who never asked ready to understand? Education and cultural habits are hard to let go of. During one of my first travels I met a young British couple in Thailand. They had spent a year touring India and recounted to me fantastic tales. Somehow our discussion moved toward the subject of daily necessities. Shocked and horrified, I listened to this charming woman saying: "Now I’m so used to using my left hand that I don’t want to use toilet paper anymore. You feel so much cleaner with water". Even though more than half of the world population has never used any toilet paper, my upbringing and closed mind forbade me from conceiving how she could be right. My subsequent travels took me through various places around the world and what I learned is that a taboo in one culture is a norm in another. A delicacy in one country is considered inedible somewhere else. We all think differently but we usually are strongly influenced by our education and social habits. It is hard if not impossible to judge the good from the bad. None of the cultures are right or wrong per say, they just are different, still sometimes you wonder which is more absurd, our hang-ups or their habits. Education starts at an early age. In Nepal the Sherpa children are dressed with pants with the crotch seam left unsewn. When kids stand up the pants are naturally closed. When they squat down they automatically split open and the young child doesn’t need any help. Of course Sherpa children spend most of their time outside and house floors are made of packed earth which are easier to clean than a Persian carpet. In modern countries toddlers benefit from the latest technological research in the field of diapers. The most recent products ensure a nice hermetic seal that lets the toddler stew in its excretion for hours. Which is cleaner I wonder? (But at least we westerners have gone a long way into hiding natural disasters as long as possible!). Perhaps it is a reaction to experiences at an early age that we develop a phobia to feces. It’s understandable that after sitting and playing in it daily for years as babies while wrapped in a diaper, adults have developed a hypersensitivity to the matter. This would explain the use of scented three ply toilet paper and I wouldn’t be surprised to find a new five ply with tropical fruit scent in the twenty first century. As little puppies grow up, they are trained to be clean; people too are trained to hold on until they reach a special place. Most languages describe the place as a hygienic toilet, but some do not always appear clean to the eyes of others. In small Indonesian fishing villages, a narrow dock over the sea takes you to a small space surrounded by boards. When you look down, crabs and fish are all waiting to be fed. On the side you notice some old coconut shells. Although I have never tried the coconut shells, I can imagine that it would be similar to using sandpaper. In China you squat down in a communal room looking down at a tube from which a strange snorting sound comes out. A closer examination reveals to you the moving snout of a pig impatiently waiting at the other end. In African villages the streets are cleaned by vultures who sometimes come too close to your hind flesh before you even finish your business. If you take a taxi through the poorest part of Katmandu, the capital of Nepal, you will be blessed with the sight of dozens of butts squatting over the ditch by the road. In other places people use stones, sometimes leaves from various plants, but most people still use water. Toilet Paper commonly referred to as TP is a modern invention that is always evolving. You can choose from single, double or triple ply with a full array of colors, patterns, and softness. Scents varies from rose to violet. I’m not sure if such large selection is supposed to make you feel better or if it is just to match your mood of the day, but maybe it should be marketed to Latin America. There, TP is commonly used, but the toilet plumbing can’t handle it so you are provided with a small plastic garbage container in which you dump the used paper for the visual and olfactory pleasure of your successor. Of course TP also needs to be disposed of which you might need to remind your hotel host a few times. All the above makes me think that after all maybe the British lady wasn’t entirely wrong. The most absurd thing I’ve seen on the subject was a few years ago in San Francisco. I was jogging early on a winter morning when I saw an old lady walking her little poodle that was dressed in a hand woven wool jacket. After the dog defecated on the side walk the lady picked her dog up under one arm and opened her handbag. I expected her like all good Americans to pull out a ziploc bag to clean up. Instead she pulled out some tissue, lifted the tail and very thoroughly wiped her dog. She repeated the operation two more times, put the dog back on its feet and nonchalantly threw the used tissues on the street before resuming her morning walk. Shocked, I stood there staring and wondering if she made that dog the cleanest or the dirtiest of San Francisco. The modern toilets like all amenities are built upon complex specifications. In the USA, thin disposable plastified paper seat covers were recently replaced by rotating plastic wrapping operated by an electrical engine and a conveniently positioned button. People don’t have to touch anything that has ever been touched by another human before. In France, public pay -toilets are self-cleaning. Make sure you quickly get out before you close the door a second time or you might be disinfected and cleaned up yourself. After use when you close the door, in addition to standard flushing, the full cabin is washed with pressure jets. If you happen upon a strong smell of urine in Paris subway, don’t worry it isn’t a leak from the modern toilets. The homeless simply can’t afford to pay the fees. Japanese public toilets show the technology at its best and their use is free. The seats are heated in cold areas. Toilets come with a full console. You have to read Japanese to make sense of all the possibilities or you could have fun experimenting a little on your own. One of the most used features is the sound track. On the push of a button, a flushing sound conveniently covers the sound of your excretions. This feature is important, without it people might know what your business it all about. It seems like the more modern the country, the more self-conscious its people are about the most natural thing. Self-consciousness again is linked to education and social habits and it isn ’t easy to break. When you travel, sometimes things happen that will shake the most unfazed person. On a solo trek into the wilderness of Irian Jaya, I was more of a novelty to the small Papuans than they were to me. Dressed with their boar tusks through their noses and their penis gourds they followed every move I made. I ate and went to sleep under the gaze of hundreds of eyes. After a couple of weeks I got used to it but once I was in a village where nobody spoke a word of Indonesian. Half of the village was following me so close they were giving me claustrophobia. When nature called, I tried to communicate my desire to be left alone but nothing worked. After trying to escape for an hour I resigned myself to squatting behind a small bush with all the people surrounding me to see if excrement from the white giant were similar to theirs. I remembered feeling humiliated, but at least I wasn’t sick. Maybe it would have destroyed their image of a strong bearded spirit. Being sick is something most travelers worry about, for good reason, as most of us get sick eventually. It varies from small diarrheas to dangerous bloody or watery dysentery. In Katmandu I lost twenty pounds in two weeks. Another time in Indonesia again, my self-consciousness was strongly exposed. I was on a local bus crossing the long island of Flores driving through roads in terrible shapes. The bus was hours late. I was sitting in the last row, holding my stomach as best as I could. Cramps became unbearable and when I felt like I couldn’t hold any longer, I discretely told my neighbor to immediately stop the bus. His behavior wasn’t the one I was hoping for. stop the bus". Before the driver could even touch the brake, the fifty heads were turned back and staring at me. The bus stopped, the rear door opened, and I wasn’t able to go farther than two steps out before abandoning decorum and going right on the road. All people came out of the bus to urinate, forming a half circle all around me as I was relieving myself. To me it was another shameful experience, but to them it didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary. I was learning to fight my hang-ups the hard way. These experiences don’t always happen in front of perfect strangers. More recently when my expedition partner Luke and I were paddling from the border of Belize to Guatemala, I had to hastily throw myself in the water three times. Because we were paddling through a storm on rough seas, I needed Luke ’s help to stabilize my kayak while I was holding it with one hand from the water. Do you think I asked him for some toilet paper? To better understand the sanitary conditions of a long expedition, one needs to have a better understanding of multi-cultural differences. What you need to pack depends on your needs and ability to adapt. You might want to trade some TP for insect repellent. Sometimes when nature calls, you have to expose some flesh to painful bites. One day you might run out of paper or your TP might be wet. You might be forced into trying something you would have never considered otherwise. You might realize that you were wrong about one of the most natural things. You may even come to the conclusion that the British lady was right. WATER IS JUST MUCH CLEANER. <><><><><><><><><><> Check out his website at http://www.caske2000.org/caske.htm Cheers, Dave Dave Williams paddler_at_loxinfo.co.th http://paddleasia.com Phuket, Thailand *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
At 10:21 AM 08/25/1999 +0700, Dave Williams wrote: >Some of you might remember Jean Philippe Soule of CASKE 2000 fame. He >written an entertaining story about how other cultures deal with disposing >of human waste. > >One day you might run out of paper or your TP might be wet. You might be >forced into trying something you would have never considered otherwise. Hi All! This brings to mind a sad/funny non-paddling story. As a result of dedicated over-indulgence at a local Mexican food restaurant the night before, my visiting rock climbing partner was overcome with "the need" about 300ft. off of the deck on a fairly challenging (at least for us) route in Eldorado Canyon, CO. I was on the sharp end of the rope, and thankfully had just whined and sniveled my way past a frightening crux when my partner communicated his desire to take me off of belay. I managed to wedge myself a little tighter into the crack I had been ascending and place a reasonably secure nut, then told him to go ahead and take care of business. Several long minutes later, a much happier voice from below informed me that I could resume. At the next belay, I jokingly asked my bud if he had finally found a good use for his trademark bandana. With a satisfied grin he replied that he'd considered it, but had found a sacrificial shrub just around the corner. I couldn't recall seeing much of anything growing on this particular bit of verticality, aside from an occasional piney tree and infrequent patches of . . . OH NO! "Um, say dude, this bush, did it have like shiny green leaves, perhaps a kinda woody stem?" "Well, yea, pretty much like that." "And you used it to wipe yer butt." "So what?!? It was better than my fingers! Don't worry, it'll grow back, I only took a handful of leaves! Sheesh, I never would've figured you for a tree hugger . . ." Guess they don't get much poison ivy in Texas. ByeBye! S. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
> Guess they don't get much poison ivy in Texas. > ByeBye! S. Yup, there's plenty. Poison oak, too. But you'd be surprised at how many people can't identify it. At least, not until it's too late :-) Cheers, Jackie *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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