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The Rolf Potts Virtual Book Tour: The Cross-Cultural Ramifications of Wiping Your Ass

Long-term travel guru and po-mo hero Rolf Potts has been doing the travel blog circuit for the past week and a half, talking about travel writing, travel writing and, well, travel writing. So we put that topic aside and asked him to tell us a funny story from his new book, Marco Polo Didn't Go There. Thus this tale of pooping in India:

Chapter 5 of Marco Polo Didn't Go There is entitled "Something Approaching Enlightenment," and this story recounts a grand misadventure that transpired in the Indian Himalayas a few years ago.

By the time this tale ends, I have endured detainment by the Indian army, survived an attack by a giant mastiff dog that ripped my pants to shreds and spent a long night stuck in a town where the only place to sleep was a room occupied by three drunken, porn-obsessed Indian road engineers.

What I never included in the original story, however, is a small, tangential detail that can functionally serve as a little parable about the cross-cultural ramifications of wiping your ass.

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