I spent last night being the type of bunk mate that everyone in a hostel dreads.

Up and down through the night, struggling to quietly close the ill-fitting door, spilling water and, because I’m on the top bunk, the girl in the lower bed was well aware of Every. Single. Time I got up.

Why?

I spent the night throwing up.

Was it something I ate, I genuinely don’t think so but I do suspect the culprit might have been a bottle of water I was given.

It had an odd taste but because I had to break the seal, I didn’t give this a lot of thought.

And frankly, being ill in shared accommodation with shared toilets is no fun.

Apart from the last hostel I stayed in, which DID have a private bathroom, there probably isn’t a way of avoiding this AND keeping the travelling costs low.

Thankfully, I haven’t been ill every week so far and this is just “one of those things”.

Advice for avoiding food poisoning? The usual and these have been tried and tested over the years for me:

• Piping hot food is usually fine – that’s why I’ve been enjoying street food.
• Bottled water but, this time I’m using a LifeStraw to keep my plastic footprint down. I dread to think how many bottles I would have bought if I hadn’t been refilling my Lifestraw.
• Caution with the salad unless I spot a food standards/hygiene poster. I’ve seen a few at the hostels I’ve stayed in. If restaurants are used to cooking for tourists, I’d hope they would be familiar with the required food hygiene issues, but I am careful.
• So far I’ve eaten fruit I can’t peel but there will be areas where I will be eating peelable fruit only. That’s going to be a lot of bananas because I am lazy about citrus fruits.
• In India, I followed the advice of a good friend and only ate hot vegetarian food. That has not been an option so far… meat featured in everything.
• Hand washing! With soap.
• And finally, I don’t eat anything I don’t like the look of or have doubts about the premises. “OK, there is no queue but why is there nobody here when everywhere else is queuing around the block?”

Oh well, tomorrow is another day and I really don’t want to waste another day in this fabulous city.

What did you mean: “Not many pictures in this post?” Are you surprised?

Featured Photo: My toilet at home. It doesn’t usually have candles lit around it… I was annoying friends who were at Glastonbury, with the sanitation facilities there, when I didn’t get tickets.