Another bit of authentic excitement for us tourists: northern Vietnam is having a cholera outbreak. The hotel is sliding elaborate warnings under our doors about twice a day:
Cholera is an intestinal infection. The bacterium is spread through food or water that has been contimated by the feces of an infected person. One to five days after infection, patients develop severe, painless, watery diarrhea, often called "rice-water" stools. Vomiting also occurs in most patients.Usually, the symptoms are relatively mild and respond to oral rehydration. Severe cases of cholera (10-20%) can cause life-threatening dehydration. . .
All travellers to Vietnam should pay strict attention to hygeine and be vigilant in their choice of food and water.
Drink only boiled or bottled water, water that has been treated with chlorine or iodine, or carbonated beverages.
Aboid ice, as it may have been made with unsafe water.
Choose food that has been thoroughly cooked while fresh and is served hot.
Avoid street vendors, pre-peeled fruit or salad, fish and shellfish.
I was halfway through my salad at lunch today when I remembered this injunction. I kept eating on the theory that if I'd gotten cholera, I already had it, so I might as well enjoy it.
The food in Vietnam, incidentally, has the highest average quality of any place I've ever travelled*. Even the rubber chicken meals at the press club are actually worth eating.
*Some friends may recall my rhapsodies over Vienna, but this does not count. Since I am no longer able, for various reasons, to spend four solid days eating nothing but pastry, the comparison is not fair.
The sad thing is that bacteriophage therapy is an effective, cheap cure for chollera without the downsides of antibiotics which clear out the good intestinal bacteria.
Unfortunately, it's been slow to catch on after the old USSR collapsed and the major lab in Tsibli was left without a ready market (the old Soviet army)
Are you telling us that you went to SouthEast Asia without getting a cholera shot beforehand? I vividly remember that shot, as for some reason it was very painful.
I was halfway through my salad at lunch today
Salad? Not a wise choice. Didn't you do any checking with the CDC website (for example) on your travel destinations before departure? BTW. salads or other uncooked foods is probably not a good idea in Cambodia either. This isn't a trip to Paris or London. Hygiene standards definitely are different as is the definition of what can be used as fertilizer.
Didn't you do any checking with the CDC website (for example) on your travel destinations before departure?
Well...perhaps she did, but she wanted to experience a local, uh, culture?
I take it you've rarely traveled to emerging countries...
That's where the food is the best. Simply because it's more natural and, let's face it, the health norms are more relaxed. The produce is better, and the cooks don't have to make their food as tasteless as possible to cater to the soft underbelly of their customer base.
But yeah, the salad, big no no.
The food in Vietnam, incidentally, has the highest average quality of any place I've ever travelled.
Vietnam is now the "must-visit" place for high end chefs. I've heard Mario Batali, Tony Bourdain, and others extol the virtues of the food they found in Vietnam. Just avoid salad.
Of course, for his TV show, Tony ate a fresh cobra heart. I don't expect you to do so. But enjoy the food.
I looked at the CDC website a few weeks ago and specific about Vietnam. I saw no warning about cholera for travelers. The Vietnamese Health Department, up to today, still refuse to declare there is a cholera outbreak even thousands of people are infected with deadly bacterium. Hospitals are running out of beds. Doctors and nurses have had to work day and night to treat patients infected with cholera. Strangely, we haven't heard any word from WHO representative in Vietnam. Is there some kind of cover up just like SARS incident?