An ancient Venetian saying applied to a luxurious shopping mall - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Look at that fine round toilet bowl...

An old Venetian saying goes: "The weather, your ass and the rich will always do as they please." (Original version: "El tempo, el cul e i siori li fa sempre quel che vol lori".)
And in fact, no longer than ten minutes ago I was surrounded by a crowd of arrogant little assholes on the hunt for christmas presents in the luxury shops of this fancy shopping mall, while a monsoon storm was raging outside. There you have it, you proverb-loving readers: as expected, the weather and the rich are doing their part. Only my ass is missing, I was thinking, but I was underestimating the jet of plutonian atmosphere that was hitting my guts while I was absentmindedly watching those fanatics coming and going. I kept thinking about it while that cold air was working away at my ribs and, most important, at my belly.
And that's probably why I'm conceiving this silly post in a restroom while, seated on a toilet bowl, I'm trying to relax my stiffened bowels. Finally my ass (never before so proverbial) has started to do as he pleases too. Fortunately in these shopping malls even the bathrooms are spotless and luxurious. Moreover, though it might seem paradoxical to someone, the pieces of shit that float in here are less sniffy than the ones that trot out there.

The tap - Burma

Photo by malla_mi (CC)

The last supper in Pagan took place at a restaurant facing a dirt road, in the tourist district. Few customers, no apostles, just some fellow travelers that I recently met. But a Burmese Judas hidden somewhere in the kitchen had already betrayed me.

Fortunately the coach stops at a rudimentary filling station, a few more kilometers and I wouldn't have made it. The passengers are slowly getting off, they light up their cigarettes, stretch their backs, buy something at the small shop. In a downhill position I slide towards the toilet in the back. I shut the door with haste, nervously fiddling with the rusty bolt. I tear my pants away, rip up my boxers and squat over the toilet. I look at the wood of the door in front of me, its wide grains and its ruts polished by the years. It looks like the doors of the stables that I used to see when I was a child, during the weeks of summer holidays at the Southern Apennines. Impromptu thoughts of an uncomfortable position. This state of absent-mindedness is interrupted by a sound: like water gushing out of a tap and falling into a capacious or very deep container, causing an echoing sound. Actually there is a tap: it's supposed to be used to fill the bucket for the flush. But it's tightly closed right now: not even a drop is pouring out of it. How strange. I quickly look around but I cannot spot any other ones: then a very light sensation located somewhere near my lower back raises a surprising doubt. What the hell...the tap is me! This diarrhea is so watery and smooth that I can hardly feel it. The flow keeps going for a while, giving me the impression that I've become a full goatskin and that someone has just opened the nozzle. Then - all of a sudden, without reducing its speed first - it stops. When I stand up I look at the china and I cannot see any trace of the stuff. 

When I go out the drivers have just finished fixing some technical problem (there will be many more later on, and all the foreign passengers will get mad about it, except me, of course, for obvious reasons).

We stop two more times because of some other damage and I punctually open the tap and let go the pressure that is swelling my guts. 

Unfortunately the next attack doesn't match a mechanical failure. I hold on, clench my teeth, as the unwritten traveler's textbook says, but after a while I cannot stand it anymore. I ask the driver if he can stop the bus. He cannot speak English but an old monk helps me out. In a country of devote Buddhists like this, his words sound like an incontrovertible order and the driver stops the bus at the edge of the road. The crowd disperse over a large field, under the shade of some huge tropical trees. While everybody is looking for a trunk or a bush to pee, I find a hidden corner and re-open my valve. 

I've become a celebrity among the passengers, who have seen me talking with the monk. Back on the bus he recommends me to be careful when I choose where and what to eat. I am also approached by a Thai businessman who starts to whispers because he doesn't want to be recognized - the Siamese, even though a few centuries have passed since the devastating Burmese invasions, are still very suspicious - and tells me that some Burmese restaurants can be extremely unhygienic, as if this was actually a secret.

Halfway through the trip - which will last almost ten hours more than expected - all of a sudden I feel well again. I even manage to sleep, waking up in the middle of the night when the bus is parked once again and the driver is hitting some piece of metal with a hammer. The Burmese endure it in religious silence, the other tourists wake up and swear. Finally I can focus on this kind of details without having my attention jerked by my guts every five minutes: I turn towards the window, I look at the moon that light up the rice fields, the palm trees and the desolation of this service station, I lean my greasy forehead against the glass, I mist it up by breathing out a long sigh and then, without being noticed, I start to giggle with extreme pleasure.

Burma, September 2002

This post is part of the of the Saga of the runs, the other episodes can be found here

Trapped - Malaysia

Sign in a Thai tourist coach, by Fabio

I detected the first signal when I was strolling in the terminal. The jerking of a muscle, a small wave, nothing much. I ignored it like one does with the sudden pulsation of a vein, a nerve of an arm that goes off by itself. Or one of those thoughts that leave behind a sensation but not a clear memory. I probably brought it to the surface from the bottom of the Sea of Conscience by association of ideas, connecting events. The events, precisely, let's see how they unfold.

An hour later, when I was already trapped between the seats of a freezing bus, that first movement has started to reproduce: waves and jerkings now follow one another like bubbles in the water inside a pot. Unfortunately though, the pot is my belly and the boiling water is a stabbing bout of diarrhea. At first you try to keep the situation under control, tactfully releasing a little pressure, breathing deeply, contracting and relaxing in a continuous cycle. You can try to keep it under control as much as you like though, it's not going to help when you're crossing Malaysia lengthwise. In a few minutes you run out of degrees of freedom. 

I walk along the corridor, I approach the driver and ask him if he can stop the bus, but he doesn't seem to hear me. I say it again, nothing, I beg him but he looks like a mustached Sphinx perched on the steering wheel. He can hear me alright but he doesn't care: he just wants to reach his trusted gas station, where he'll get a commission for each unloaded passenger.

I would love to be like the hero of a legend of India's backpackers. In a similar situation this mythological traveler went to talk with the driver, the Indian guy smiled and stopped the bus. Then he got a second bout and asked for another break. This time the driver snorted but stopped again. The third time, though, he didn't listen to his request anymore. The foreigner mournfully took his shirt off, spread it out on his seat and then unloaded on it three good minutes of cramps, among heat, flies and the disgusted looks of the other passengers. Then he picked it up, like a picnic bundle, glanced outside and finally threw it out of the window. 
But I don't have the stuff legendary heroes are made of and this is not India, where the unlikely takes place. I have to wade through the twinges of pain, counting the contractions. I do it at the entrance, next to my torturer, so that some sense of guilt can erode his arrogance. When we get to the station I elbow my way to the toilet and then I feel well. After the initial disbandment my antibodies reorganized and mindful of the Asian months of hard training they quickly reunited to drive back the assault. 
But sure enough for a while I did fear the worst.

Malaysia, September 2003

P.S. As my regular readers will have surely noticed, for some unfathomable reason various anecdotes with a common topic keep coming back to my mind lately. It seems that I'm writing a sort of Saga of the runs. The other episodes can be found here.

Never the same again, Bangkok - Thailand

Cockroach, by Rizalis (CC)

It used to be one of my favorite Isan places and I won't be able to eat there again. The husband of a friend of mine got a serious form of food poisoning and according to the doctors the bacteria that transmit it usually proliferate in cockroach feces. Feces that he is supposed to have come in contact with at that same restaurant. 

Unfortunately the consequences of this event are way more devastating and I'm not only talking about that poor guy's intestine. Since the day I heard about the infection, when I am eating at a simple restaurant I often imagine some cockroaches sitting on a mini-toilet bowl fixed to the edge of my plate. Little reddish-brown multi-limb creatures in unnatural postures browsing micro-glossy magazines featuring stars and actresses with feelers on the front pages, while they make efforts and almost human-like grimaces in order to expel dark specks of feces, ready to wipe their bottoms and throw the soiled toilet paper on my plate. 

Damned cockroaches, it will never be the same again: my passion for street food is seriously compromised!

Strictly based in Chengdu - China

Sunday at the park, Chengdu. By Fabio

Our taxi - that metallic green Volkswagen sedan that is only manufactured and distributed in China - clatters and smokes on the elevated roads that cut across the center of Chengdu. We absentmindedly look at the squares, the parks, the giant screens and billboards. There is also a boat-restaurant, moored along the bank of what can be either an agonizing river or a filthy canal. To be a Chinese metropolis this city is not bad at all though: you can stroll around, people are nice and friendly, prices are reasonable and the cuisine is good, as long as some chili doesn't blow your tongue out.

It's weekend and we are headed for one of those areas where the authorities of every Chinese town love to confine (in accordance with some party guidelines?) the majority of nightclubs and bars. As these places are basically supermarkets of fun they usually belong to chains and big corporations and therefore have the same names everywhere: you can change province, hear new languages, see different faces or customs but you will find a Babyface, a Mix or something like that wherever you go.

"Guess where Luca is right now."