To PEE or NOT to PEE?

I have been on the road ever since I can remember. My dad was in the armed forces and every time he got posted, he would pile us all in the car with the plants, water camper and some tape recorders and drive till our next home. So at age 4, we did Ooty to Gangtok in a red Maruti 800(more than 3,000 KM), which must have been quite an epic drive since there was me and my brother (age 9) either puking our guts out or tearing each other apart! At age 8, we did Dehra Dun to Chennai in a white Maruti Omni ( about 2,500 KM), which was quite a lot of fun too, because we had just one tape in the car and we heard that one tape over and over again for 10 days!  This has been going on and this month I finished a nearly 3,000KM drive from India to Nepal to Bhutan (this story for later)!

I LOVE road trips but my only predicament with road travel is the number of times I need a Bio Break or in my crass way...PEE!

I have a hyperactive bladder system which gets worse when it’s cold. (I can pee after every 30 minute in that case! ~ True story~)

In India, as a guy you can practically pee anywhere; behind bushes, trees, hedges, walls, buildings anywhere. As a kid, it wasn’t so much of a problem but as I grew older I would frantically wait for the next gas station to relieve myself. But given a choice, believe me; I would love to pee anywhere but at the absolutely horrifying public toilets! The smell and sight can be so revolting; it leaves you nauseous and disgusted. Makes you wish your pee would just dissolve and disappear within! In contrast, the feeling of peeing in the wild is something else. The cool breeze caressing your bum while you sigh of relief is pure bliss!

While travelling with women, it is always easier. I always form a buddy system, where one can create a protective shield from peering eyes while you pee away and vice versa! But when I travel with guys, it gets difficult because I have noticed, and I hope everyone would back me up on this, the frequency of men wanting to pee is way lesser than women! Though there is a physiological reason for this (a woman’s bladder is smaller in size because there has to be room for the uterus) but men don’t understand this most of the time! Really guys, it is not our fault! We are built this way and we cannot control it!

Bad Grammar or not, it is always good to see this sign!

I hate the uneasy feeling when you have to pee really badly and there is no opportunity or place to do it.  Every small bump on the road feels amplified and however amazing the landscape, I can’t enjoy its beauty. At these times, the only thing that runs through my mind is, I wish I was wearing an adult diaper!

Now if you are not into wearing diapers, you can do what I do.

1. The Aggressive Mode- Learn to be unapologetically shameless- If you gotta pee, YOU JUST GOTTA PEE! There is no two ways about it. So just stop the car, get out, find the nearest bush, ensure no men are around, unzip and just PEE! Don’t worry about the dog or cow loitering nearby (who are they gonna tell anyway, eh?) or some people standing a kilometre away! I mean, not like they know you or you know them! And what can they really see from that distance anyway?? So just be shameless, turn a blind eye to being polite and go on with your business.
2. The Passive Mode- Wear a skirt, especially a long one. It will make your job much easier, believe me. Instead of unzipping and exposing your bum to the world, here all you got to do is lift the skirt a bit and use it to shield the backside!  It is also comfortable while you are on a long road trip.
3. The Creative Mode- Use a sarong / shawl to make a make shift pee place between two cars or between two open door of a car. Worst case, use a BIG umbrella to cover yourself from whichever directions you anticipate maximum threat!

Creativity at it's best!

I have survived using one or all of the above. Of course I have had my share of people staring at me, nodding at me with disbelief or rolling their eyes every time I wanted to pee, but what the hell, it is just a question of ‘to pee or NOT to pee’, and I always chose to pee whenever wherever I peease!