Book Description
International travel is rewarding and a great deal of fun, but sometimes it exacts a price. Activities we take for granted--eating, bathing, and going to the bathroom--can range from challenging to risky in unfamiliar territory. Dr. Jane Wilson-Howarth knows plenty about these quandaries, having spent eleven years running health clinics and doing research in the Himalayas. In
Shitting Pretty, she takes a humorous, sympathetic approach to one of the most basic human activities, interweaving anecdotes from fellow travelers with sensible tips and techniques for how to avoid diarrhea, parasites, and scary diseases such as malaria, typhoid, and hepatitis. Dr. Wilson-Howarth covers the basics of how to eat and drink safely, explains symptoms and cures, and also tells why gastrointestinal diseases--the traveler's most common complaint--occur.
More than just a how-to (though it is that), Shitting Pretty aims to inspire the traveler to be adventurous and unashamed when dealing with foreign toilets, and to heed the fascination cultural lessons to be learned from the simple act of using the bathroom.
Der Autor über sein Buch
Funny but useful tooThe rude title belies the authorititive nature of this book. The author is a British GP who has spent 11 years working in various remote parts of Asia, employed in clinical work, health education and incidentally in looking after ailing travellers and tourists. Perhaps unusually for a doctor, she is interested in avoiding jargon and communicating digestible health-promoting information. This book is a compilation of lay travellers' tales interlaced with good solid, well-formed travel health tips that allow travellers to sort folk-lore from fact and thus protect themselves from the commonest travelller's illness, diarrhoea. It also offers tips on 'going' and bathing in remote places and on how to avoid giving offence. I hope it tickles your fancy. Read it and 'go' in peace.
