Humiliation Station

Let's talk about toilets, shall we? This entry is strictly for the ladies. Boys, just skip down to the Bangkok talk, k?

So far in Cambodia we've had great success finding clean bathrooms with actual toilets. Most of them even have actual toilet paper in them. And most of those are flushable, too. The ones that don't have buckets of water and scoop for one to fill the bowl and let gravity whisk your business away. It's a bit different and at first, but you adjust like a good little traveler. When you are a female traveler and your Aunt Flo has followed you on vacation, however, things can get a little more complicated.

Crossing into Thailand was the first time we encountered the squatter toilet. Krista has NOT been very proactive about issues down here (points to area). It might be the heat, or being slightly dehydrated or just all the adjustments in general but my period has been weird this month. I keep thinking it's over, like, clean tampon after clean tampon but the second I don't have one in, like when crossing the border, my body decides THAT'S the time to clean house. You can see where this is going, right? I know it's gross and I probably shouldn't be sharing, but it's the reality of traveling when you're a woman.

Hot, sweaty, with my giant backpack, hungry, tired, thirsty, travel weary and in desperate need of a bathroom break, I start to panic. OH, GOD. This is going to go everywhere. I can feel it. We get across the border and find that there is a public toilet but you have to pay for it. We haven't exchanged any baht yet, so Gwenn runs off to do that while I wait trying to stand as still as possible... just in case. I run to the potty as soon as she's back only to find it's a squatter. And no toilet paper. All I can do is look from where I want the toilet to be to where I want the toilet paper to be and back again. This does not make them appear. I check the damage. I have, sadly, soaked through my underwear and blood is everywhere. Curses. I dig through my bag looking for any paper I can use. All I have is my budget sheet, a receipt from the Starbucks in the Korean airport and the post it I wrote our hotel info on.

Humiliated, I have to go back out and ask Gwenn for her wet wipes. I go back to the squatter and try to clean up. All it's doing is making my underwear pink. And wet. And disgusting. I have to throw my undies out which means I have to take another trip out to dig through my bag for some clean underwear. Then walk back to the bathroom again, face flushed with embarrassment. They were my favorite pair, too. I hate that. At least I am an avid skirt-wearer, so no worries about having to tie a sweatshirt around my waist. So sad. So middle school! Sigh.

And scene.