dribbled out the remains of my piss. By the time my bladder was empty, the miniature turd had reached the back of my knee.
In a crouched, waddling sprint, I charged out of the toilet and upstairs to my bedroom. Having peeled my clothes off and tossed them on to the floor, I got into the shower and scrubbed my entire body. I then plucked a few of the more soiled clothes from the heap, and rinsed them in the shower. Once I had got most of the loose crap down the plug-hole, I hung my stuff up to dry, so that it would look respectable enough to give in as hotel laundry the following morning.
Later that night, I was woken from deep sleep by a man revving up a Formula One racing car inside my bowels. It took me a few seconds to realize what was happening, before I sprinted to the toilet and shat like I have never shat before.
I don’t know if you have ever seen a cricket bowling-machine, but they work by having two small tyres, placed horizontally next to each other, rotating extremely fast in the same direction. A cricket ball rolls towards the two tyres, then becomes gripped between them, and is flung out at up to a hundred miles an hour. Well, imagine what would happen if you set that machine to maximum speed, then poured in a cow-pat. This is the only way I can describe my new experience of shitting.
After this sudden burst of viciously propelled turd, I felt a rancid and acidic stench rise from between my knees. Just as my nose started twitching with revulsion, I noticed that my arsehole was on fire. I couldn’t squat for much longer without my hips objecting, so I hurriedly used the Indian arse-wiping technique – dabbing water from a bucket on to the tenderized flesh of my anus.
Only when I was back in bed, having spent at least ten minutes washing my hands, did I begin to realize that my stomach was in agony. I felt as if someone had mistaken it for a soggy flannel and was trying to wring it dry. After writhing naked on the bed for a while, I felt another emergency alarm-call and ran back to the toilet. From the doorway, I noticed that it now wasn’t possible to get within striking distance of the porcelain without standing in flecks of my own widely scattered turd. There was little time for squeamishness, however, and certainly not enough time to put my shoes on, so I braved the filth, attempting to replace my feet in the footprints I had left behind.
The second I had squatted, I heard a strange sound of rushing water coming from behind me. ‘What’s that?’ I fleetingly wondered, ‘Who could be running a bath at this time of night?’ Then I realized that it was me. My numb arsehole had become a tap.
When the gush of liquid had subsided, I toppled forwards, my forehead pressing into the wall in front of me. Still in squatting position, I let out a few groans and attempted to gauge whether or not my punch-drunk sphincter was now closed. It was hard to tell definitively, but I got the impression that even if it was, it would be about as effective as a cat-flap in the Hoover Dam.
When it became too painful to squat, I hauled myself upright, rinsed my legs and feet in the shower and stumbled back to bed. I knew that it was important not to get dehydrated, and since I had just shat out more water than I could remember drinking in the last fortnight, I made myself swallow the remaining half-litre of mineral water from the bottle I had bought that evening.
I felt the liquid slosh around in my belly and knew instantly that it wasn’t welcome. After a sudden and vicious stomach cramp, I rushed back to the bathroom just in time to projectile-vomit against the wall of the shower. Even when all the water had come out, my stomach continued its contractions, making me gag on an empty throat.
After this, I didn’t have the strength to make it back to my bed. Instead, I turned the shower on, waited for the worst of the vomit to get rinsed away and curled up under the stream of water. I positioned myself so that I wouldn’t have to remain anxious about the feeble state of my cat-flap and could simply let any late seepage get washed down the plug-hole.
I had no real sense of time by this stage, but when I eventually felt sure that my body was fully drained, I crawled back to bed and fell asleep.
I was woken by voices in the corridor. The second my eyes were open, I felt the pain return to my throat, stomach and arsehole, but I knew that these voices represented my only chance of contact with the outside world, so I hauled myself out of bed and scrabbled through my rucksack for a clean pair of trousers. Having pulled on some clothes, I rushed into the corridor.
‘Hello! Hello!’ I croaked, just as the voices disappeared down the stairs. ‘Hello!’
There was silence for a second or so, then I saw a head reappear around the corner of the staircase. ‘Yes, hello?’
‘Please! Come back! I’m sick!’ I said, supporting my weight on the door-frame.
He called something down the stairs, in a language that sounded like it was probably Dutch, then wandered towards me.
‘What’s up?’ he said.
‘I’m sick! I can’t walk! I need some water!’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Everything. Shitting, puking…’
‘The usual, then.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘You want me to buy some water, yes?’
‘Please. Thanks. I’d be so grateful. I’ll get you some money.’
I hobbled back into the room and came back with a few notes. I saw the beginnings of a smile around the edges of his mouth as he watched me try to walk.
‘Does it hurt?’ he said.
‘Yes. My arsehole’s in tatters.’
He laughed and clapped me on the back. ‘Hey! We’ve all been there.’
‘It’s fucking agony.’
‘No, it’s not. You wait. If it’s food poisoning, you have a chance to be better in a few days. If it’s dysentery, you get worse. Then you know what pain feels like. Bacillary dysentery, you have it for a week. Amoebic, and you’re fucked.’
He clapped me on the back again.
‘You’ve had dysentery?’
‘Yeah, sure. Everyone’s had it.’
‘What did it feel like?’
‘Bad, man. Pretty bad.’
‘Which did you have? Amoebic, or… the other one.’
‘I had both at once, which was a big fucker. Still, even that’s not agony. Now malaria, on the other hand. You wait till you get malaria. This is a real bitch. I got it in Nepal and I was so fucked I couldn’t get myself to a doctor, so I just had to take a bunch of my Chloroquine and hope for the best.’
‘Is that what you’re supposed to do? I mean… if I… ‘
‘I don’t know. I’m not expert, but I look on the packet and read that it has quinine in it, so I just experiment.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I took four the first day, then increased the number by one each day until I felt better.’
‘H-h-h-how long did that take?’
Suddenly, I seemed to have forgotten my own pain. I was transfixed.
‘About ten days.’
‘But isn’t that stuff supposed to make your hair fall out, and turn you psychotic?’
He suddenly leaped in the air, kicked his legs, stuck his tongue out, whooped and wobbled his hands above his head. This was a terrifying sight, and I felt myself almost wanting to vomit again.
‘Not me, I’m fine,’ he squeaked, in a manic voice.
With a gasp of relief, I realized that he was joking, and my pulse went back to normal. I forced out a feeble laugh, as a way of indicating to him that he could stop jumping on the spot.
Once he was at rest, he spoke in his normal voice again. ‘Hey – even malaria’s not the end of the world. The locals live with it.’
