We watch ladies swat away flies from their fresh breads and notice butchered chickens laying in the open all day. No, we don't buy meat and poultry from the open market. And yes we do sanitize all of our fruits and vegetables in a microdyn solution. We are careful, yet still occasionally get a day of traveler's gut. An open air market is an entertaining place to experience. People all over the world live like this and consider it normal. We've seen these markets all over Mexico, Thailand, Guatamala, China, Morocco and Indonesia. They all have a similar feel.
Exactly my experience over the years! It seems poverty has a common denominator regarding public health & hygiene, and second/third world countries all start looking like the same place. I asked a friend of mine from Nepal why the locals don't get sick in contrast to so many of the tourists. He said, "Oh, if you lived here long enough, you'd realize most of the people are always sick. They just get used to being sick and don't know what good health feels like. They think it's normal to feel the way they do." That was an eye-opener. The potential for illness is one of those facts-of-life that haunts me, one of several reasons I resist travelling these days and even get nervous eating in restaurants. It's sad, because the problem can be easily corrected.
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