Thursday, May 09, 2013 1:07 AM

Cambodia is a beautiful place, isn't it?

Traveller's Diarrhea.
One of the "highlights" of the trip had to be how everyone came down with travellers' diarrhea.

For the uninitiated, travellers' diarrhea usually affects people travelling from resource-rich to resource-poor regions of the world. It can be accompanied by fever, nausea, vomitting, abdominal pain or cramps, or blood in stool. They are usually caused by bacteria, but can also be due to viruses or parasitic organisms found in food and water. (Uptodate.com)

Well, we tried to avoid this as much as we could by not buying meat from the Prey Veng market (if you can recall this). We only bought staples such as rice, vegetables, and fruits from the market for our self-cooked meals, and we figured we would be fine.

I think we made the mistake when it came to washing our utensils with our tap water hahaha.
In rural Cambodia, villagers use groundwater for everything. They drink it, bathe in it, wash their clothes in it and... you get the idea. It's a far cry from Singapore where even the tap water is potable (which I do think we should be very proud of!).

In Hope Training Center (HTC), we were told never to drink the tap water, even when boiled. The staff there stocked multiple jerry cans filled with distilled water processed in Hope Village for our use each day.

For them, living and playing in the padi fields and swampy water is a part of everyday, normal life

Either way, the whole team soon came down with all these terrible symptoms. I wasn't spared. I was lucky never to have encountered any vomitting or nausea, but my diarrhea was the worst (yup, still the worst) I had ever experienced in my life. It was as good as water coming out of my ass, if you don't mind me being crude! I was also hit with possibly the highest fever in my life; the highest I recorded was around 38.5 deg C and going to 39. Yikes. I was so feverish I actually laughed because I could feel THE HEAT on my face... and we all ended up sleeping our entire day away because we were so sick.

Silly us, back then we hadn't taken Pharmacy Practice II yet, otherwise we would have known how to better use the medications we had on hand!

They ended up sending a few of us to one of the English-speaking doctors in the main town... and I was included. By the time we got there I was pretty much fine already though, given that I was able to smack plenty of mosquitoes to death while we were waiting there. With some antibiotics, we were sent back and all of us recovered with time.

Is it something I would want to experience ever again? Well, no. But you turned back time and told me before I went for my trip that this would happen, after which you gave me the choice to change my mind... I WOULD STILL GO.

Before you panic and start thinking twice about going to any developing country in the world, please don't.

Take note, that we were in rural Prey Veng when it happened. Our meals in Phnom Penh on our first day didn't affect most of us, and nothing after that bothered us either no matter how dubious they looked (but you could say that our gastrointestinal systems had acclimatized to the resident bacteria by then heh).

The staff of HTC also suspected that it could be because of how we prepared our food, because we were fine with purchased roadside food!

Well, if you're the kind who has a sensitive stomach, or you're a cleanliness freak (e.g. picking something off the table after the 3-second rule and eating it is absolutely disgusting to you)... then yes, I don't think any developing country will make you happy. Things just work differently there, and hygiene may not be high up on everyone's agenda.

But if you would still like to explore the developing world and the wonders it has to offer, don't let this deter you. As the appeal for tourism in developing countries broadens, you will be amazed by how developed some cities have become. Siem Reap and Phnom Penh are great examples, and I daresay that most people will be fine there.

Let's say you want to do similar volunteer work in rural regions or backpack on less-travelled routes. I do think there is a higher risk of getting a severe case of travellers' diarrhea (like ours). That's where prevention and treatment comes in.
Prevent it by being as careful as you can, but not to the extent that you can't even enjoy your trip. Treat it once it begins by knowing what are the symptoms, and how you can use an arsenal of medication to deal with it appropriately.

After 4-years of pharmacy education, I'm glad that I will be well-prepared for any sort of travel in the world in the future! For the rest of you who are not medical professionals, feel free to approach your neighborhood pharmacist--who will surely be happy to teach you some basics behind self-medication and what are some essentials you can consider bringing along for your trip.

You should also visit a travellers' clinic at least 2 weeks prior to your trip to get any necessary vaccinations and medicines that may require a prescription (e.g. acetalzolamide for altitude sickness).

For this trip, all of us were on anti-malarials and we also took vaccinations for typhoid fever and tetanus (because we were working with tools at the work-site).

Either way, I'm glad that nothing serious happened, and it really brought the team close together as we watched out for each other's welfare.

I'll just let the rest of the pictures do the talking!

Last snippets of the village we spent so much time in

Our last lorry ride back to HTC after finishing the house... AND DEFINITELY THE MOST EPIC

Usually only the last few guys at the back of the lorry would be covered by sand. This time round... as though it was meant to be a grand finale, ALL of us ended up being caked in sand. The first aid box was kept all the way in the deep end of the lorry!

Good morning! We're ready to go!

This sweety went into the pond to pick the lotus for me because she knew we really liked it :')

Now this is gorgeous. It was only when I got back home that I realized it's an INVASIVE SPECIES.

Preparing the ribbon-cutting ceremony for our finished house!

Cannot... resist...all...these...cute...animals!!!

First time catching an insect in my hand. Not sure if I want to do the same for Bruce Lee (the GIANT praying mantis types in HTC)

Beautiful temple and prayer grounds in the village

Credits: Nic Wong

The girls love to braid our hair, and they are very, very good at it!

Apart from spending time at the Hope Village Prey Veng with the children, we also got to see how some of the locals lead their lives.

Such as how they processed their kiam chye... Have I mentioned how much I LOVE their salted vegetables???

All squashed into the mini-van now

DELICIOUS MEAT. After our gut systems recovered, we felt like we were ready to eat anything.

But not this. The eggs come with chicks inside. Guoyong had one though. And he eventually ate spider too.

Visiting the padi fields just opposite HTC!

The ducks are hilarious. They have a real herd mentality. This little bugger somehow got himself separated from the flock... we put him back where he belonged right after this shot.

Reaching the end of our journey in HTC was exciting, but also rather poignant.

Life in Prey Veng offered us a simple and peaceful lifestyle that we can never ever achieve in busy Singapore.

There's just... something special about waking up and being able to sit out on the front porch with your friends as you sing wildly along to Taylor Swift. Or spitting mandarin orange seeds down from the second floor while waiting for dinner to be cooked, and hoping a mandarin orange tree might grow at your door step one day. Or sitting out under the open stars with a cup of hot Milo in your hand, only for your friend to suddenly run indoors at the sight of a Bruce Lee... resting on the ledge of the house OPPOSITE yours.

I didn't miss home while I was there, because it was a different home in a different land.

Preparing our finale for the children of the orphanage We have no washing machines... But we still have electricity to watch movies! And there is always FOOD! ALWAYS! Credits: Nic Wong And with that, I end my third post on my trip in Cambodia. Next up, I'll be sharing about our departure from Prey Veng... and our first day of R&R in Siem Reap!

Labels: cambodia, dispense-a-dream, prey veng, travel, travelers' diarrhea