bladder issues

It appears that 3 hours is the official timespan to accomodate the Lao bladder. Take a bus and after 3 hours, we stop for a pee break. No matter where we happen to be. Sometimes it is at a restaurant and the women line up at the back of the resto. A wooden door, the squat toilet, the big barrel brimming with water, plastic dipper floating on top, waste basket with pink crumpled toilet paper. Then again it could be on the curve of a road, no shoulder, the drop off on one side, the mountain on the other. The men line up facing the precipice. I see one Western woman trying to find a hiding place in the bushes. I see the Lao women squatting in the ditch, somehow staying covered as they pee. I too squat in the ditch. I have no shawl to cover my buttocks. As I rise, I see the Westerner's bare bum on the other side of the road.