Whenever I write or read about travel, I focus on adventure, learning, beauty, maybe even making a difference. But whenever I talk about travel, whether with global trekkers or homebodies, at some point we end up giggling and gasping over the same subject: bathrooms. So, here’s the straight poop on three of my overseas toilet tales, which didn’t make the final cut of my travel memoir, They Only Eat Their Husbands. Please excuse the potty humor. It comes with the territory.

I wasn’t about to let a little killer diarrhea stop me from seeing the Taj Mahal.

IN THE TRENCHES
Kunming, China

For the night, I’ve checked into a large hostel, a dim, dank, dismal place that’s not enticing at all. When I grabbed my backpacking towel and walked down the hall to the showers, I took one look and decided not to perform any ablutions until I arrive in Lijiang tomorrow. The stench from the trench toilet was foul, and the showers were parked right next to it, with suspicious pools of yellowish-brown water on the floor. Unfortunately, my bowels could not wait.

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On every journey, I pick new things up and leave old things behind: belongings, attitudes, friendships. I love Alaska so much that it wasn’t until after my talk in Bellingham, Washington that I realized something had dislodged inside me on my last visit to the Last Frontier.

I had fun talking with the small but enthusiastic group at Village Books.

I had fun talking with the small but enthusiastic group at Village Books, yet my insides felt chaotic. I wondered why. Part of it was due to something I normally wouldn’t talk about here, but then, I suppose this is the perfect place to talk about it…

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The thing that has excited me most about the controversy over the Transportation Security Administration’s new enhanced screening is that it has found people on both ends of the political spectrum agreeing on something. It turns out a lot of people, liberal or conservative, don’t want the TSA looking at or fondling their naughty bits.

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“In Pattaya, it is hookers. Here, it is treks,” a stranger said to me in a restaurant in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It was an unusual pick-up line, but factually right on the money. Just as the beach-town of Pattaya was known for prostitution, the mountain town of Chiang Mai had become a mecca for travelers who want to “trek” through the hill tribe villages of northern Thailand. Trekkers claim to want to get a feel for indigenous people like the Hmong, Karen and Mien by sleeping in villages they get to by foot, elephant and raft.

I was one of them.

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When I tell people I’m an avid traveler, I say so with both pride and shame. Pride: because world travelers tend to be among the most environmentally conscious, culturally sensitive, socially progressive people you’ll ever meet. Shame: because, as a traveler, I cause more damage to the environment, and more disruption in the lives others, than people who stay home.

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