In preparation of the Debconf6 conference in Mexico, the question has to come up how to prepare for the hygienic circumstances in developing countries. While Mexico was also described to be on the top end of the developing countries, certain issues are still left to be addressed. I have travelled to developing countries a bit and have gathered some experience, which I would like to share. However, keep in mind that I am not a doctor, just a globetrotter with a strong interest in pharmaceuticals. Let me address the most common problem first: "Delhi belly", as travellers' diarrhoea is sometimes referred to (because almost no traveller makes it through India without dysentery). I know of three preventative and four reactive treatments. The best preventative in my experience is to stay well above the necessary level of hydration by drinking lots more than you usually do, especially when it's hot. Prefer bottled water and juices, stay away from ice and fresh juices and shakes (as hard as it may be). Hygiene (i.e. hand disinfectant) is important, but you cannot control what's in the pot that way, especially not in restaurants (though upscale ones are generally safer, so don't be greedy). In extreme cases (when you have no other choice), another approach worth a shot is to drink enough high-percent alcohol with anything you take in orally. It's no guarantee and often not a very preferable solution (especially when it's hot), but it's kept me running a bunch of times before. Instead of growing paranoid about it, consider the treatments: the most common two treatments I have seen among other travellers were Loperamide ("Immodium") and Ciprofloxin (or Ciprofloxacin), an antibiotic. Both are suboptimal and to be used as emergency medication only (and many traveller's don't know that). While Loperamide regulates your urge to go to the toilet by blocking and binding that which comes out the behind, it also prevents the body from ejecting the bacteria which caused the digestive system to malfunction. Thus, Loperamide should only be used when you cannot get to a toilet as often as necessary (e.g. on a bus ride), and it must not be used for more thantwo or three days without medical advice from a doctor. Ciprofloxin, the antibiotic, is almost always a sure-fire cure against diarrhoea, but it must be taken for around seven days, usually up to four days after the symptoms faded, or else the body can build up a resistance to the chemical. During this time, you should not consume alcohol (or other drugs), and limit the amount of physical exercise, which makes it not suitable for e.g. hiking or trekking trips. Note that Ciprofloxin is a prescription-only medication. Apart from staying hydrated, my favourite cure is medical coal (tablets at 250mg each; "Kohle Compretten"), which have negligible side-effects and can thus be used on-demand. If I feel my stomach going a little wobbly, I pop two of them 2-4 times a day, and that settles it after 24 hours. If the diarrhoea does come through, double the dosage. It'll help regulate the need, but at the same time won't block it. If you do get unlucky, try to rest, switch to food known to be safe (e.g. packaged food), and drink a lot, ideally electrolyte solution, but a slight salt-sugar solution will also do. I actually like fresh orange juice with sea salt, which will do the trick. I am generally not a big fan of taking pharmaceuticals, but I always have some important ones with me:

• Ibuprofen: mixes well with alcohol and is thus a perfect small-scale pain-killer against pre- or post-party headaches, or headaches that would ruin a nice dinner with friends. Make sure to drink a lot of water, and even more if you also take in alcohol
• Paracetamol: medium-scale pain-killer, helps reduce fever. Does not mix well with alcohol. Primary symptom treatment for malaria and dengue fever, influenza, and colds. Drink lots of water.
• Diclofenac: against swellings and inflammation. Does not mix with alcohol, and the tablets may seriously affect your digestive system. Consider combining with Pantozol, even prophylactically.
• Valium, or preferrably something less strong: on the bus or on the plane, if you cannot sleep because it's too uncomfortable. Make sure to have the dosage right or you won't make it off the bus, even if someone wakes you.
• Ciprofloxin: whether it's diarrhoea or any other sort of infection, or bacterial infestation, it's good to have Ciprofloxin with you. If in any way possible, I recommend calling your doctor back home before you start taking it, just to be sure. Antibiotics are really not suited for experiments.
• Hydrocortisone: insect bytes and sun burns. Use sparingly because it attacks (thins) the skin.
• Loperamide: see above. Try to avoid it unless you really need it.
• Bisacodyl: congestions can be quite painful.

Other stuff you may want to carry along includes wound disinfectant (Dexapanthenolum; also any high-percent alcohol would do), fruit/grape sugar (Dextro-Energen), stuff against sickness on cars/boats/etc. (Vomex), bandages, Diclofenac gel, ice spray, a fever thermometer, a bunch of wet hygienic towels, single-use eye drops, steroid-based ear drops, and so on. Your pharmacy will have a complete list. Anyway, given the proximity of medical assistance to the conference campus in Mexico, most of the above won't be necessary. Nevertheless, I think it's important that travellers to countries with lesser hygienic standards than their home countries are familiar with the above, and if only to consciously decide for or against a treatment. In general, I think it's always best to try to isolate and treat the cause rather than the symptoms. And surprisingly often, dehydration is (one of) the cause(s), so electrolytes are among the most important to have with you, in my experience. But again, I am not a doctor.

The last 18 hours have been quite eventful, including a mugging, an accident involving first aid, two more confrontations with the military, a visit to the university, and a monk drowning a fly. Fortunately, the heat has gone down quite a bit, the thermometre at the pharmacy now measuring 44 degrees in the shade. When I left the Internet cafe yesterday in the early afternoon, thick clouds covered the sky and it was starting to become quite bearable. Thus, I decided to visit Shwedagon Paya that afternoon, but not before getting a massage (for $3), which was duly necessary after the two hours of almost continuous typing during the hottest hours. I reached the pagoda sometime around 16:00 and almost got into a fight with the ticket office. Admission is $5, and since I am keeping my dollars until all the Kyats are spent, I was asked to pay 8000 Kyats. The current exchange rate (which fluctuates +/- 50 Kyats per day, it's very unstable) is 1450 Kyats to one dollar (it was 850 just one month ago), so I'd have to pay a little more than half a dollar more if I paid in local currency. The lady tried to tell me that she's paying 1550 or 1600 for $1, so I tried to tell her that she better find some other exchange place because she's being ripped off. After ten minutes of a heated discussion, I turned around to leave and she finally settled for 7500 Kyats. You may wonder why I make such a fuzz about 500 Kyats, but the reason is simply that the money goes to the government, which I don't want to support unless I have to. The pagoda itself is quite impressive, rising 100 metres into the sky from atop a sixty metre high. In as such, you can see this pagoda from many places in the city, unless enclosed by tall buildings that usually line the streets. It's said to contain the hairs of Buddha, from when he shaved his head to go and contemplate under the tree in the forest for six years at the age of 29 years, while in Bagan I was told that Buddha threw his hair into the sky, where it hovered and bring luck as long as it remains up there. I suppose he had to shave more than once, so the theories can both hold. I had a guide show me around, but I ended up knowing more about Myanmar history and Buddhism than him, so it was kind of a joke when he asked me for $5 afterwards. I gave him a lecture that he needs to announce his price beforehand and gave him $3, then left him protesting. Again, I am not here to rip people off, but I also won't pay $5 for a half hour tour, when the guide should instead be at home and reading books about the stuff he told. Still, I found the pagoda quite impressive, even though the overcast sky prevented me from seeing the sunset, for which it is famous among tourists. I would come back again at night to watch the supposedly beautiful lighting after dusk, and headed back to the city, with a number of detours thanks mostly to hopping on the wrong busses. As I mentioned before, "yes" apparently means "no" and "yes" and "I don't understand" and "thank you" and almost anything else, if used as a response by a not-so-fluent Burmese. For dinner, I treated myself to a somewhat expensive Sushi dinner, came back to the pagoda to watch the evening life of families and couples strolling clockwise around the stupa (resembling a little the evening family strolls in small Italian cities), found the lighting too bright and still boring, and made my way to the hotel, on foot because I only had a $20 note on me, which is useless when trying to pay for a taxi. ... and then I was mugged; not by some evil Burmese or one of the many muslims living in the city, but by two American rednecks, who apparently ran out of money (and it's very hard to get more without going across the Thai border) and were desperate enough to threaten me with a knife. I really didn't feel like a hero and prepared to hand over the $20 bill, when I saw a military truck drive up the road behind their backs, and remembered the Burmese call for help ("Keh-ba!"), which I shouted just as they were about to pass. The rednecks tried to make a run but had no chance (the military did not even think about using guns, they just called out to a police man at the end of the street, in the direction the rednecks were running). There was not much discussion, the two were loaded onto the truck, and the police officer then explained to me that those guys will be held in prison for two weeks before handed over to their embassy for further prosecution in the US. He asked me if I wanted to press charges against them, in which case they could get sentenced to up to ten years in prison in Myanmar for use of a weapon against civilians (with no right to a lawyer or help from the embassy), but I declined. Curiously, just in the morning, I had read a bit in a doctorate thesis on Myanmar prison life in the bookstore on Merchant Street at the corner of 38th, and it was obvious that the next two weeks for them were going to be hell on earth and enough of a punishment for their misdeed. While handing over my passport, I was assured that the "prisoners" were not going to find out my identity (and I doubt they'll find this blog), and with still somewhat shaky legs and a slight feeling of guilt, I climbed in the back of a police truck to take me to the hotel, wondering a little about how friendly and cool the police were towards foreigners. The next morning, I rose early to confirm my flight reservation and make some arrangements for tomorrow's departure, then headed off to the university by public bus in the hope to talk to the folks at the computer science department about Linux, and to hand over some of the Ubuntu CDs I have left. In Mandalay, it was not possible for me to set foot on the campus, and here in Yangon it would not have been much different, had I not met a zoology professor on the bus, who took me to the campus and refuted everyone's claim that I could not enter. Instead, she called the computer science head professor, who then explained to the officials that she had been waiting for me and would come and pick me up. While waiting, I witnessed a Burmese student just falling to the ground and ran over to help -- nobody else did. With the military folks chasing me (I had not thought about that), I didn't actually have to explain a lot when I knelt down next to the guy, obviously trying to help. The officials just stood close by and watched my every move, as I scrambled to remember my first aid training, diagnosed the guy with a heat stroke, or something in that direction (no sweat, very hot forehead, rapid pulse, white face, mild seizures, uncontrolled movement of the eyes, and delirious lulling), and gave orders to the bystanders to help me carry him to the shade, get water (I had some electrolyte rehydrating solution left), sugar, to have someone fan his head, and someone else call a doctor. Nobody understood anything of what I said until another student with very good English skills translated. Nevertheless, noone wanted to get a doctor because it was too expensive, so I offered to pay the charges and off they went, and I handed over 10'000 Kyats (more than enough) to the translating student with instructions. In the meantime, the computer science professor had arrived, and took me to her office, where I found out that the university is already using Red Hat to teach some of their courses, that she's the vice president of the Myanmar Computer Professionals Association, and that she's also a member of the Myanmar Linux Users' Group. She set up a meeting for me with the founder of this group tomorrow morning, and I proceeded to show off Ubuntu's Live CD to her, and to explain the benefits of Debian over Red Hat, which she understood very well and seemed delighted, because "dependency hell" has been a major problem for them in the past. I left her with half a dozen CDs and information on how she could obtain more, then had lunch with two of the teachers (where I witnessed a monk drowning a fly into his soup while laughing! Imagine that!), who wouldn't let me pay no matter how hard I tried. Upon leaving the campus for the city centre an hour or two later, I was informed that the guy had recovered and was okay, and the officials gave me 3000 Kyats, which I suppose must be the return money from the doctor. Another instance of honesty. I'll spend the afternoon strolling over the market to spend some of my excess Kyats (the rest of which will go to an orphanage), probably get another massage, and finally take in my last Burmese dinner, together with the Burmese white wine I had picked up at the vineyard on the way to Taunggyi, possibly accompanied by the Portuguese traveller I had met before in Bagan and Inle, who's now in Yangon as well... ... which is good, because I found a new argument pro beggars the other day, as I was resting at a street tea shop: I witnessed plenty of Burmese people handing money to a bunch of beggars on the other side of the street. One benefactor then came over to the tea shop, sat down at the table next to me, and answered my question as to why he just gave them money with a simple "because I have some at the moment, and they do not." To me, it could not have been more convincing, and by now, the only argument against supporting beggars is the one raised by the Portuguese: if begging is lucrative, people will give up their self-sufficieny in the countryside and come to live on the streets in the city, in the hope for more money. I'll be looking forward to tonight's discussion. Tomorrow's my day of departure (after meeting the Linux Users' Group founder at the MICT park on the way to the airport), and I'll be in Bangkok for 24 hours before going home. And already the thought of Bangkok makes me sad, because it surely was a great trip in this lovely country, even though I wasn't always happy with how it turned out. I'll be back.

I guess you could say I am now on the verge of tears, or at least have been for a while (and it's wearing off) -- since I came back from a little expedition on a horse cart around Bagan, visiting some of the poorest villages in the area to drop off a good share of the presents I still have with me (like marbles, balloons (latex ones, so biodegradable), soap bubbles, hair pins, fake jewellery, balls, and pens and paper), as well as a bunch of tubes of toothpaste, bars of soap, and bottles of shampoo, which I had picked up on the way just before. My sadness comes from two aspects of this experience. The first, which is minor because I had expected it, was simply to (once again) witness the conditions under which the poorest of the poor live: in bamboo houses together with their cattle and pigs (everyone here seems well aware of bird flu and have taken the appropriate precautions; the government apparently did a good job in educating its people), with trash and feces all over the place, kids with almost no clothing and the elderly obviously sick from a distance. But I've actually seen worse in Laos and expected it, so that wasn't the main source of my tristesse. What almost made my eyes water was rather the fact that in the first village of the two I managed today, my arrival and obvious wish to give out gifts resulted in fights among the kids, and in dishonest behaviour by some, while the mob was almost ready to run me over as everyone (including grownups) was stretching out the hand and grabbing at whatever I pulled out of my bag. Call me naive, but that part I did not expect. It's understandable, as for these people, anything makes a difference, sometime and existential one, but they are Bhuddist after all, and among the teachings of the Bhudda you can find such lines as "do not be dishonest", and its philosophy (which carries throughout many non-Bhuddist Asian countries) includes the rule to never lose one's face, which covers shouting or fighting. On my first trip to Southeast Asia -- Vietnam -- I reached some remote villages in the Tonkinese Alps in the country's north -- villages which where equally poor, but which were also quite detached from civilisation as found around larger cities. While money still served as the main means of exchange, it appears to have a much lesser meaning to the people, who are mostly self-sufficient to a point of independence from the government as far as you can get (I guess). In these villages, I also passed out presents, but never had an experience such as the one today (nor did we experience something of this sort in some of the villages in Laos, equally removed from the main lines of infrastructure). Rather than fighting for the gifts, the kids would share them. Rather than tears, the gifts brought smiles. It thus seems that civilisation as we know it causes the competition even among kids, and that's the part that fills me with sadness at the same time as it disillusions me quite a bit, because that kind of civilisation will inevitably spread. Going off on a tangent (without the intention to return), I have been thinking a lot about my "mission" in Myanmar, which was to bring clothing and medication, as well as gifts to the poor. While one could interpret this mission -- carrying more than 15 kg of "stuff" through the stifling heat -- as an altruistic act, I also cannot deny the selfish component, because I take great joy in helping people. If you recall, dropping off the clothing I had brought in a village a couple of miles outside of Pyin Oo Lwin didn't fill me with the satisfaction I had hoped to gain, mainly because I was obviously misinformed about Myanmar (btw: I am calling it Myanmar again, which is actually what locals use, unless they speak with tourists). Fortunately, however, I quite easily managed to accept that the mission was still a success for the people undoubtedly were helped quite a lot. If there is one thing I have learnt for sure this time around, then it's that I will return, sooner rather than later, and hopefully with a lot more goods than this time around. This trip has been self-funded, which is why I am also (trying to) spend most time on vacation. I could well imagine that the next time might see me just running the goods there and fly back after only a couple of days. Of course, there are no details, but keep this in the back of your heads (and pass it on), just in case you'd be willing to donate funds to finance the trip. This brings me to another, somewhat related topic, which I have been pondering ever since I arrived in Myanmar, and especially so after I met and talked to a Portuguese globetrotter, last night: the topics of beggars and how to support these countries in effective ways. Let me address those in turn, the second one first as it's more closely related to my braindump you just read (thanks for that), and because I am nowhere near a resolution and can thus sum it up in three sentences: even though individual aid trips, like the one I am on, are helping, I would guess their effectiveness to be quite low, and raising this effectiveness certainly requires a lot of effort and infrastructure. Thus, it may be more beneficial if I were to donate my will to help to an existing organisation already established and connected in the Southeast Asian countries. I am not talking Unicef and other, similar large organisations (some of which I do support already, and if only financially), but rather much smaller endeavours that concentrate on this area only -- surely the need for help exists in all developing countries, but I am most interested in helping Southeast Asia, for the people here have taught me so many valuable things that have changed my life. On the first topic -- beggars -- let me say this much: if you've been to developing countries, you know what I am talking about. If you have not, just imagine all sorts of people (but mostly poor-looking) coming up to you with their hand stretched out, saying "money, money" repeatedly and not respecting a "no" in any way. Any guide book advises you not to give any money, because it will increase the "nuisance" these beggars are to future tourists. But at one point during my time here, I was as far as giving a small amount to everyone who came up (unless there were more around, at which point it would just get out of control too fast) by reason that it doesn't hurt me a bit, and that despite the syndicates and other arguments against it, if you are actually helping one out of ten beggars, that's one more than zero. Since then, however, I've found some more compelling arguments, and the one that's been the most persuasive so far is that a beggar's success attracts more beggars, and while the guide books call that a "nuisance", the real problem is that these people come from villages to cities, from places where they are self-sufficient (at least in Myanmar with its vast resources) to places where they'll end up sleeping on the streets. Enough of that for now, you can be sure there will be more another time; on to something completely different: This is the first time I am travelling Southeast Asia while blogging, and I have very mixed feelings about it. First of all, Myanmar isn't the place for easy Internet access, so it's been quite painful to keep publishing (which was only possible thanks to the help of Hanspeter back at home; thanks), nor is it the place where you'd be inclined to spend a couple of pensive hours in front of the screen while serialising your thoughts into writing -- the power keeps coming and going every couple of minutes, and frequently the battery-backed power supplies most people have cannot bridge the downtime. But that's not the reason why I am not really too satisfied with my blog entries so far. I have found it difficult to write even in Thailand, where Internet access was excellent, and I guess it's mainly due to two reasons: first, there is too much going on outside and the fear of losing a minute of "street action" to these godaweful computers just keeps me from taking the time to think before writing. The second reason is related: impressions need time to settle, and I guess in some ways I do prefer very much to just "be", rather than experiencing with the objective to blog about it in the back of your head at all times (I am a geek after all, don't forget that). I guess I'll try it another time since having Aline along for the first part, and then being subjected to Myanmar's suboptimal information infrastructure, may be factors of larger value than I see them right now. By the way: this blog does not contain all of my writings while I am here, for obvious reasons, so there is more to come if you are interested, but not via this channel. I'll let you know. Now, on the boring side: I returned to the temples in the late afternoon yesterday and saw another three or four, before sprawling out on top of another in aspiration of the sunset to be Obscured By Clouds (which is when I talked to the aforementioned globetrotter for an hour or so). I did find that after all, Bagan didn't have much in store for me, having seen some of the temples at Angkor. The scenery is breathtaking, and some temples are really astonishing views, but as soon as you get on the inside, they are mostly walls and Bhuddas, one similar to the others, and thus quite unlike to what I'd seen in Angkor last year. Since I am also not the type of guy to go off meditating for a day in a remote location, or take my book far away to read in peace, I think that this one day between the temples was enough for me. Maybe the temperature did play a role too, but there was no question for me: I was to do something else the next day (which is today), rather than go out again on that horse cart. I thus joined up with some Australian travellers on their overland way to their new home, London, and hired a taxi to Mount Popa, home of the 37 Nats (spirits) which are closely knit into the Burmese culture. After a 25 minute climb up steep stairs, I found myself again disappointed by a somewhat dirty and absolutely non-pretty stupa on the top of the hill. The view (and temperature) was great though, so no hard feelings, but also no time lost to head back to the hotel, to get on with the village hopping I had planned for the afternoon. Tomorrow morning I am leaving for Hohe and Inle Lake, where it'll be much cooler (or so they say). Stay tuned. PS: And of course, Murakami's novel is not called "Kafka at the Beach", as I wrote in yesterday's entry, but "Kafka on the Shore". I guess it must have been yesterday's intense heat causing that Freudian slip. Anyway, the book is truly captivating and I am afraid I'll zoom through those 600 pages faster than I'd like, given that it's the last of the books I brought. Hopefully I'll find something to pick up on the way that's not Agatha Christie, Dan Brown, Jane Austen, or the other wonderful writers of entertainment fiction, which I'd rather not read even if you paid me for it.