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So a friend and I started our travels in Thailand. She’s quite anal, one of these that wouldn’t brush her teeth with the tap water and held her wee if the toilet was mucky. I laughed at her for being so paranoid, I didn’t drink the water but I brushed my teeth with it and I peed and what not in the most disgusting of places. A toilet is a toilet. However, after a week or so of being there I had to keep my bum within 30 seconds of a toilet at all times. I had been struck by travellers’ diarrhoea. It was awful.
Every time I ate my stomach would start churning, I’d start sweating and I knew I had very little time to find a loo
I stopped eating questionable street food, I used bottled water for my teeth, tried diarrhoea medication and in the end I went to a diet of just rice and water. My friend was dying to say “I told you so.”
It wasn’t until I overheard some English travellers discussing the ‘crappy’ hangover from Thai alcohol (‘The ChangOver’) that it dawned on me I’d been drinking regularly throughout my batch of the runs. Not much, but clearly enough. Idiot. It’s easy to forget that travellers’ diarrhoea can be caused by things other than food and water.
I stopped drinking.
About a week later, I had just one Chang beer with my dinner. The next morning I felt fine. I had breakfast with my friend and all was well. It wasn’t until we were in a shop picking snacks for the beach that I felt the familiar panic run through my body telling me I was about to poo my pants.
I had to run, RUN back to the bungalow.
I learnt my lesson: DO NOT drink cheap alcohol in Thailand. It will make you poo. It is not worth the pains of having travellers’ diarrhoea!
Don’t be stingy, just pay a little extra for the stuff that actually has legal regulations on its ingredients.