Sri Lanka - Who needs fancy facilities?

I am recently back from a cycling holiday in Sri Lanka. I have to say, I had doubts about booking such a trip - how would I cope with Arwel in a tropical country with facilities different to the UK? With worse facilities?

Extremely well, as it turned out! Ok, I took quite a lot of stuff (twice as much as you need, all advice says) but that's true wherever I go on holiday. The facilities? Well there were good and bad points, but mainly good. So now I know. I can go anywhere, I need never worry about coping with Arwel in other countries. 

Here are the good and bad points.

Good points

• All hotel loos, and many other loos, come equipped with a bidet shower. These are standard in Muslim countries and in many other hot countries where their use is preferred to toilet paper (wetness dries quickly in a hot country). For an ostomate, they are better than loo roll by a mile. I like them so much that I have one at home!
• Those loos which do not have a bidet shower usually at least have running water, and a small bucket (which serves as a flushing mechanism). This may sound primitive, but as long as you have a paper handkerchief in your pocket, you can wet this and use it to clean your pouch after emptying. You can then wash your hands under the tap.
• All places where food is served, no matter how primitive, have hand-washing facilities with SOAP. This is because locals eat with their fingers, and wash their hands before and afterwards. So you can wash your hands properly after using the loo.
• All places where food is served have a stand-alone squat loo on the land behind - you get used to them. There is always a working tap within these and they are cleaner than some I've come across in "civilised" countries.
• Some places (those which are extensions of homes) may not have running water, but a couple of buckets of water will be left outside. (Some of these are people's actual homes, they are generous enough to allow you to use their loo without question. I didn't always realise it was their private loo until afterwards).

Bad points

• I couldn't empty my ostomy "in the field" because Sri Lanka is a hot country, and my hands were so sweaty that I couldn't get my surgical gloves on. I use these to wrap my paper so if I couldn't use the gloves I couldn't wrap my paper and take it with me. I never leave anything behind. Fortunately, there were many loos available to me.

• With the heat, the couplings on my flanges became rather pliable, and they were consequently difficult to get on. This was only because I was on a continually moving cycle-tour. if you plan to stay in a hotel for some time, you can take a cool bag to store your flanges and have your ice-packs re-frozen in the hotel freezer. 

To summarise then, I had nothing to fear though I was cycling in a hot country, moving most days, and staying in diverse standards of accommodation. As tests of coping go, it was a pretty good test.

I would really like it if bidet showers became standard in the UK, but I doubt they ever will!