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In February 2013, a group of us made a short tour of 5 days and 4

nights to central Vietnam. There were 28 of us, mostly from my
hometown Teluk Intan and a few from Ipoh. The tour was quite
interesting and educational. We learnt a lot about Vietnamese
culture, history and the people’s way of life. The places we visited
were Danang, Hue and Hoi An. Sightseeing tours were made to
some beaches, museums, hills, gardens, parks, pagodas, Buddhist
shrines, and markets. We also had a relaxing boat ride. And there
were the shopping sprees to the shopping areas, and the
opportunity to try the many types of delicious Vietnamese food.
In our tour group there was this lady who looked so familiar to
me. She resembled a Miss Tan, a family friend who once worked
with my sister at a local company in the late 1970s or early 80s.
Later on she switched to a job at one of the local banks, a job she
held for quite a number of years.
In this tour, her roommate was a lady, a Miss Lee who had
traveled with us in a number of tours locally and overseas. Miss
Lee had been working in a local legal firm for quite some time.
The resemblance of Miss Lee’s roommate to my family friend
Miss Tan was unbelievable. “It cannot be Miss Tan,” I thought to
myself, “Miss Tan works at a bank while Miss Lee is at a legal
firm. How can they be roommates in this tour when they do not
know each other?” In her many other tours with us, Miss Lee used
to travel with a colleague of hers as roommate.
It was on the second day of the tour that I approached this
‘mysterious’ lady and struck a conversation with her.
“You know, you resemble so very closely one of our family friends,
a Miss Tan. She used to be a working colleague with my sister
more than 30 years ago. I haven’t seen this Miss Tan for quite
some time.”
“Mr. Oh, I am that Miss Tan lah!” Miss Tan said.
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“Sure lah you cannot recognize me now that I have grown so

old already!” Imagine my embarrassment! My face must have
turned red. “So sorry Miss Tan,” I apologized. “Alzheimer's
disease must have struck me! I thought it could not be you with
Miss Lee as a roommate.”
“I left the bank some years ago on a VSO (Voluntary Separation
Option). I am now working in the same legal firm as Miss Lee.”
***************
People going on trips can sometimes encounter very funny or at
times most embarrassing situations. I remember a family trip
we made to Penang more than 30 years ago. Two of my
brothers and I brought along our parents for a short holiday in
Penang. One of my brothers drove the car and we visited a
number of tourist places in Penang. It was at the Penang
Botanical Garden that the unexpected incident took place. It
was evening around 4.30 pm when we arrived at the garden.
We went around admiring the plants, flowers, trees and
greenery of the place. There were many monkeys on the ground
some of them up in the trees and some coming down to the
ground to try to get the groundnuts and bananas from the
tourists. We had to be very careful because there were some
monkeys that were very bold in their attempts to snatch the
things in our hands. There were a few monkeys performing
their antics and tricks, scratching their bodies all over,
somersaulting and fighting with other monkeys. My father in
particular enjoyed the ‘performances’ of these monkeys.
After an hour or so walking all over the garden, my father said
that he wanted to rest on a bench in the garden. We found a
suitable seat for him and left some snacks for him to munch
while we continued to explore a few more spots nearby. We told
him we would come back to fetch him about half an hour later.
It was a little past 6 pm when we came back to the bench where
we left my father.
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I noticed that his face was contorted like one in suffering and he
was scratching his buttocks and private parts. “Hey, father!” one
of my brothers said in jest, “Are you trying to imitate the
monkeys’ scratching habits?” I knew something had happened to
my father and things were not right. I asked him, “What
happened? Are you not well?”
“Aiyoh!” my father exclaimed. “I think something got into my
underwear and bit my parts. I am feeling itchy all over. Cannot
tahan (stand) it anymore!” Naturally we could not ask him to strip
in the garden to let us examine his bitten parts. The sight of my
father scratching like a monkey was really funny and
embarrassing. My two brothers could not help but laughed. “We
have to immediately drive him to a clinic in town,” I said. So we all
left immediately to look for a clinic in Penang town. The doctor
diagnosed his problem as an allergic reaction probably due to
some plant material, crawlies or some insect bites. An injection
was given and a lotion was prescribed. Fortunately the following
morning my father recovered from his allergy affliction and was
back to his normal cheery self.
******************
In one of the tours to a foreign country sometime in the turn of the
century, my room mate experienced a most awkward and
embarrassing situation. In the morning and afternoon we visited a
number of interesting tourist places. Among them was a visit to a
farm in the rural area. After this visit in the evening we went back
to the hotel. It was then that my roommate confided in me and a
couple of close friends what had happened to him on his journey
back to the hotel. Something went into his underwear and bit his
vital organs. Upon reaching the hotel he went to the washroom to
examine the injury he had sustained. “It’s pretty bad,” he told us.
“There is redness and my organ has become swollen.” “Is there
any pain or itch?” I asked.
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“Yes,” he replied. “Please keep this a secret. Once the rest of the
tour members come to know of it, I’ll be the butt of the greatest
joke.” We accompanied him to the reception to request for a
medical doctor to come to his room to treat his medical condition.
All this was done in a hush-hush manner to prevent the secret
from leaking out. Before long the doctor arrived and he was led to
the room where my roommate was waiting. The doctor said that it
was probably due to the sting of a small insect like a wasp. An
injection was given and some medication prescribed. He said my
roommate would recover quickly. My roommate had to hide his
awkward walk when he went for dinner later. He had to put on a
front as if nothing happened. I suppose he felt most embarrassed
about the whole incident. The following day he made a very
speedy recovery.
***************
In the many travel trips both locally and abroad we have made, we
have encountered many interesting situations during the moments
of answering nature’s calls. In many places in Malaysia the
conditions of toilets leave much to be desired. I remember there
were times when the ladies in our tour groups had to wait in a long
queue because of insufficient toilets. Some went into the Gents’
when they saw that there wasn’t any man at the urinals. In most of
our tours, ladies outnumber the men.
Talking about toilet experiences, the most unforgettable ones we
ever had were in Nepal and India when a group of us went for a
15-Day pilgrimage in Nepal and northern India at the end of 1996.
There were a number of internal trips by road where distances
between places were long and took many hours of travel on the
bus. Most of the journeys were through the rural areas of north India
and there were no public toilets along the way. Answering nature’s calls
had to be done the natural way … behind trees, shrubs, bushes, tall
grasses or whatever spot you liked in the greenery of the countryside!
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We had all been briefed earlier before the tour and so nearly all
the ladies came well-prepared with their ‘shielding’ items like
umbrellas, sarongs, and some improvised screens. By virtue of our
anatomy, we men were more lucky…it was easier to do our ‘small
business’! It would involve just standing against a tree and that
was it!
There was a journey by bus (I think it was from Bodhgaya to
Varanasi) covering a distance of almost 250 km over very poor
road conditions. We were told that the journey would take
perhaps more than 9 hours because of the trying road conditions
and the traffic congestion at various points along the roads were
real bad and narrow. I think it was about 2 hours before reaching
our destination when many of us had to answer the call of nature.
I could hear some ladies shouting to the bus driver, “Stop! Stop!”
One or two uttered loudly, “Cannot ‘tahan’ (meaning ‘stand it’)
anymore! Bladder bursting already!” Unfortunately the bus could
not stop. The tourist guide pointed out the traffic congestion.
Moreover there was no suitable greenery with trees and bushes
around. One lady shouted in reply, “Never mind lah! Let people
see lah!” She had so many laughing. “You’d better stop laughing,”
I warned them. “Otherwise the floor may get wet and we have to
mop!” More laughed. Imagine the relief when we reached our
destination. I had never seen such a mad rush to the toilets!
There was another occasion when I personally had a most
embarrassing experience. We were on the bus traveling from
Kathmandu and heading towards Lumbini at the border between
Nepal and India. At one stage when it was past 7 pm and the area was
already quite dark, many of us requested the driver to stop for
‘Nature’s Call’. The bus stopped by the road side and the tour
members went searching around for their ‘favorite spots’ to do ‘their
business’. I walked a little distance way up the hilly road to a spot near
a bend of the road. There was nobody or any vehicle around. So I stood
at the roadside and unzipped my trousers ready to relieve myself.
Horror of horrors!
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Just as I was half-way through my ‘business’, a lorry came

round the band. Its headlights shone right at me directed at my
‘unmentionable’ parts. How embarrassing! I closed my eyes
and let the lorry pass to end the ordeal! Upon finishing my
‘business’ I went back to our bus. When I narrated my
embarrassing moments, the whole bus shook with laughter!
One of the most unforgettable incidents with regard to
answering nature’s calls in India, involved one of my good
friends, a lady in her fifties whom I shall just refer to as Jenny.
Jenny, a very pleasant and jovial lady would entertain us with
her many spontaneous jokes in Hokkien and English. She was
of good health still active in a lot of voluntary welfare and other
outreach work.
On one of the long journeys between 2 places in our pilgrimage
trail, Jenny had a stomachache after about 3 hours of travel.
The bus was going along the countryside of northern India.
Suddenly Jenny shouted to the driver, “Please stop. I have a
terrible stomach upset. I need to go to the toilet now.”
Everybody in the bus was a bit concerned for Jenny and her
impending diarrhea. Fortunately the bus could stop quick
enough by the roadside flanked on both sides by trees, bushes
and undergrowth. Jenny made a quick dash down the bus to
get to one of the bushes to do her ‘business’. “Hey Jenny!”
someone shouted at her. “Did you bring with you an umbrella
or a sarong?” “No need lah!” Jenny shouted back.
(It was only for the first few days that the bashful ladies ‘armed’
themselves with umbrellas or sarongs every time they wanted to
ease themselves behind the trees and bushes. By the 4th day of our
pilgrimage the ladies had become ‘bold’ and had got rid of their
shyness. They did not use a sarong or an umbrella to shield
themselves anymore!)
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About 10 minutes or so after Jenny had finished clearing her

bowels, she started to walk back to the bus. Someone upon
seeing her shouted excitedly, “Jenny, your feet are covered with
shit!” In her rush to pass motion, Jenny had unmindfully
stepped on some fresh human feces and the stool covered parts
of her feet. “Don’t get into the bus,” one lady said loudly. “We
will all suffer!” So many broke into a big laugh. Poor Jenny!
She was so embarrassed. A group of us helped her clean her
slippers and feet with lots of tissue paper and bottles of water.
Only when her slippers and feet were ‘certified’ to be clean was
she allowed back into the bus to continue the journey.
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REFLECTIONS
* The environment around us and the circumstances prevailing
are such we will at times encounter trying or tough times.
* How much we suffer in facing adverse conditions depends on
our mind states, our attitude and the way we see things. If we
react negatively out of habit or conditioning, our physical and
mental suffering will be greater.
* If we can accept or embrace negative things and trying
situations more positively, we can be more peaceful and calm in
our minds. Then the challenges or problems can be better
resolved.
* May we train our minds so that they become more calm, patient
and understanding. With this stronger and more firm mind, then
we can definitely handle problematic situations more wisely and
effectively.