Dangers & Annoyances

When I was at medical school and third year studying microbiology this was my favourite microbe, it just looked so friendly and smiley and I liked the lilac hue. In fact I like it so much I photocopied this very image and had it on my wall, sad I know but 3rd MB was a tough time for me, anything to make it through to the other side!

The Lonely Planet was until this trip my travel bible but secret Santa last Christmas converted me to the Rough Guide for Cambodia. LP always has a section on Dangers and Annoyances and as the honeymoon period is over for me in Cambodia, I thought it might be worth exploring some my own. In fairness there aren't many dangers here and I'm not really that annoyed either, so in no particular order...

1) Lets start with the friendly microbe above Giardia Lamblia, the Queen of traveler's diarrhoea (the King being Amoebic dysentery of course). Now it may be easy to avoid ingesting contaminated water for a short period whilst on holiday but I can't envisage that I'll get through 26 months without succumbing. In fact I've had a pretty ropey 24 hours and I'm secretly hoping the Cambodian weight loss plan will be starting soon in earnest. Sonia informed me that in Canada they call it 'Beaver Fever', I really need to grow up. 

To brush your teeth in tap water or to not brush your teeth in tap water, that is the question, whether it is better to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous toilets or just get a course of ciprofloxacin.

2) There are ants living in my laptop, little, non-biting ones but never the less insects in my computer. I'm no IT expert but surely this can not be a good thing?!

3) The hotel staff are becoming increasingly reluctant to give us toilet roll (cross-reference with point 1). Even when you leave the roll-holder bare and conspicuous it remains naked and then you have to go up to request more from reception whilst being humiliated by the reception staff who refuse to understand ANY of our spoken Khmer. I quote miserable man in reception "I have told you the word for this in Khmer once you should know it now" Louise with a big clenched forced grin, "Lets see how well you'd remember something in Irish if I'd only told you once." The quest for toilet roll continues......

4) If there are rules of the road in Cambodia they are not followed and although a psychic ability to predict every other road users intentions seems to be essential I have found myself severely lacking. Apparently stopping/screaming/throwing oneself off your bicycle and out of the path of on coming vehicle are all unacceptable. Hey I'm an EM doctor, I can handle a bit of chaos just not when I'm on a bicycle.

5) Sweat - This one really is quite annoying. Now I am loving living in the tropics, I like feeling warm ALL the time, not having to wear shoes and building a newly found and deep respect for the humble air fan but the human bodies techniques for thermoregulation need some refinement. It's getting hotter all the time and will continue to do so until we all melt and as Louise would phrase it we are all a little 'dewy'. In the market yesterday buying cotton for appropriate work tops and PJ's for Lou's Birthday I found myself turning into a human river. I had sweat cascading down my back, my hair was so wet I thought I was going to drown. I looked like the before of a before & after antiperspirant advert, I think the stall holders were really quite alarmed.

Jill was reading a book that had the perfect description of our predicament and I'm going to throw it out there then walk away from this particular annoyance..."summer crotch".

Toxicity versus Prophylaxis:

6) That big ball of gas, 90% of our solar systems mass, giving us both vitamin D & huge surges of serotonin - the sun. As I evolved to live under a cloud, sun-block and covering up are both recommended. However my eyebrows are not fulfilling their job description and a combination of sweat (see point 5) and sunblock is blinding me. Also unlike the locals the hotter it gets the less I want to wear or cover up, I do not want to put on long sleeves and trousers and hats which all make me overheat. So how I am currently dealing with the sun is with 'shade', this seems to be working for now. 

The slow progress towards a rich chocolaty brown tan continues hampered only by the inability to buy any body cream/lotion that isn't also a whitening agent.

7) DEET - we are told it is safe but I've seen what it has done to Wendy's glasses. Also it doesn't appear to be that much of a repellant or maybe my animal magnetism is just too great. Of course the other option is covering up and points 5 & 6 have already addressed this.

8)RAID - death to all insects but also a crippling 24 hours of headache and nausea every time I've used it despite adequate ventilation. Neil thinks it smells of Impulse and maybe it would be safer (but probably less effective) if we got a couple of cans of that instead. Even Geoff the Gecko was effected by the RAID attack and took 4 days to come back to my room. I've decided to leave it to Geoff and the spiders to keep the flying, creeping and crawling, disease carrying, insects down to safe levels.

9) This one is Sonia's suggestion, the combination of sunscreen, DEET and particulate matter. This is of course only specific to the dry season and in a few months we will be dealing with mud instead (Mud = particulate matter + a lot of rain). But I'll give it to Sonia that it is rather dusty at the moment and she wears caked on particulate matter cemented with DEET and sunscreen very elegantly. 

10) I've spoken about the mee-dom routine, lovely beef noodle soup from the restaurant near our language class. Well last time I went there was a earwig in my soup, that was a little bit annoying but mainly just disappointing.

11) Wet rooms, slippery when wet. Louise belly slammed her wet room floor yesterday ironically she had been trying to spare her dignity. My biggest fear is to slip whilst showering knocking myself out on the toilet rim and then drowning in the toilet bowl. Not the most dignified may to exit from this mortal coil.

12) Not being fluent in Khmer yet, now that is really very annoying!

It's not a big list and the Joys & Delights of Cambodia list is certainly a lot longer...