My two favorite health items.

Loosecat

1. A length of garden hose that you can coil up and put in your pack.
It sounds strange but I found a length of hose with a universal rubber tap adapter on one end makes a great instant pressure bum cleaner. If you prefer not using toliet paper, attach it to the tap thats normally there to fill the small buckets with and if theres enough water pressure you dont even have to touch your butt. Remember that hot waters not always around when you need it and by using this you minimise bacteria contact.
2. Anti bacterial baby wipes.
These are the wipes that are used to wipe babys bums etc.... Great for trips on trains etc.. use to give your hands a good wipe, there tough, nice and wet and you can get under your nails and give yours hands and face a good scrub when theres no where else to do so ie road side dharbas etc..
Cheers.

picklepak

Where on earth do you store your garden hose? In your daypack and carry it with you everywhere you go? I like your idea and have never thought of it before but for me it might be one of those very useful things that still gets left beind.

Many of the places I stayed in had water that only trickled out at times. Not much of a bum wash.

The throw-away towelettes are a good idea but again, you go through those quickly and then run out. I was thinking I might take one of those funky (okay, girly) washcloths/puffs to wash with when I just have no running water to shower with...

Loosecat

need about 1.5 metre length, it coils up flat so I used to stuff it down the back of the inside of my pack no worries. As for the wipes when u run out of the ones from home, you can buy them in most good sized Indian cities. You are right though, the hose only worked with good pressure and I didnt bother lugging it around in my day pack. Wouldnt go without one again though. Makes it that little bit more more comfortable being sick and miserable in a cheap hotel.
Cheers.

-m2-

New answers to the perennial Asian traveller's toilet concerns. My usual hotel in Penang (the Eng Aun in Georgetown) has this very solution -- a metre or so of garden-sized hose in every stall, which, along with adequate water pressure, certainly does the job -- albeit at the risk of water soaked trousers until one 'gets the hang of it'.

mike

jamz

Yeah, the baby wipes are a must! don't leave home without them, they're good for cleaning your hands with as well. As for the length of hose? mmm... still not convinced!

tra-la-la

I don't have a problem touching my butt ... but the hosepipe sounds more like colonic irrigation than simple hygiene to me!