Carbonated eggs...

So I woke up yesterday morning at around 6am needing to do my usual morning toilet visit. Ok, no problem.

So off i went, stumbling down the hall, wiping the sleep from my eyes, a cavernous yawn issuing from my mouth, shivering all the while in just my jocks till I reach the darkened bathroom. Flipping on the light, I squint my eyes and try to make my way in the shadows to the toilet. Such bright lights! So early in the morning! But I make it safely to the hole in the ground, step up onto the squatter, balance carefully on the slippery side tiles and get down to business. Finishing up I wash myself off with some hastily splashed cold water and a hand and then dry off with, well, you just don’t dry off really.

Another yawn later, a few more shaky sleepy steps and I’m back in bed, arse still dripping but I’m curled up in my warm duvet and ready to doze off once more until a more reasonable time to awaken (say midday) approaches.

10 minutes later and I find myself awake once more. Huh? Do I really need the toilet again? Ah well. Off I head and again go through the same routine. Must have been that all you can eat Thali I had for dinner last night!

5 minutes later and I’m back in bed. I snuggle up once more and try to quiet the mind to sleep again.

10 minutes later and, again, toilet!? Surely I didn’t eat this much? But I duly head off as when nature calls it’s best to answer quickly in these countries. You never really know what’s in store. By now my footsteps are a little more solid and I’m fairly awake and afterwards I wander back to bed thinking quietly to myself that I’ve never used a toilet so much so fast before! There’ll be nothing left of me soon at this rate.

But they say 3 times a day is good for you so it’s not so bad in one way.

Or not bad that is until the three times becomes seven. All in the space of a single hour! And it’s not like I’ve got diarrhea or anything but seven times? Surely that isn’t natural. And by now my thighs are getting shaky as squatting for so long a period is a real work out!

Eventually I get back to the room and wake Jo ready to start a new day. We’re planning on heading off from Nepal today. Maybe back to India?

Jo welcomes me with a lovely morning call of “You ok? You look like shite”. Hmmm, lovely. I was feeling a little weird though I had to admit and every time I burped I found it tasted like carbonated eggs. Unique is a nice way to describe the taste.

So putting it down to the eggs I’d had for breakfast the day before being bad, I reply that my belly is a little gas filled in feeling but that I’m ok.

As the day wears on however it feels like my stomach just keeps on filling, like a balloon being filled with air to bursting point. And to top it off a local orchestra sets up inside, practicing for their next concerto along with a guy playing drums and a local petting zoo whose animals are high on prozac! Lots of noise and movement inside.

I really should have sold tickets to the show…

Luckily (maybe), that afternoon we bump into some American guys we’d met on the circuit and when they hear about my musical stomach they tell me not to worry too much until I get the sulfurous burps.

Huh! I have those! Worry? What’s wrong with me? Is it bad? Is it terminal? Am I going to die? I knew it! I’m going to die! But I’m too young to die? Arrrrghhhhh! What to do with my last few moments?!

“Hmmm” they say. If it’s the sulfurous burps, you need medication. Otherwise it sticks around for ages (they’d both had the same feeling a few days earlier).

So calming down and learning I’m not really about to join the circus in the sky we head to the pharmacy and grab the recommended medicine. I’m definitely ready for the healing to begin – I’d missed lunch already, had a small breakfast and was quite keen to eat once more.

Walking back to the guesthouse we then bump into an English couple who also ask how we are and upon hearing of my ‘illness’ promptly diagnose me with giardia.

Interesting! Haven’t had that one before.

So now I’m two tablets into my carbonated egg tablet course and hoping giardia is not the real cause. No real problem if it is though. Try everything once they say and right now I am feeling pretty good.

We’re about to hire motorbikes again too and head for a week touring around Nepal. A mission to Everest could be on the cards…