Beating the Bedbugs Before they Bite
Trip Update: Poz made it very clear to me today that she absolutely will not eat a cockroach on our trip, but that if I ate one she would still make out with me afterwards. yay for that (and here's to not chewing all way....).
In all seriousness, if you were to ask either of us if there's one thing that could ruin our trip, it's a pretty safe bet that we'd both say "bedbugs". We've read so many travel blogs and searched the internets, and we're pretty sure at this point that there are going to be at least one or two guest houses in rural Laos where the local inhabitants will be hospitable enough to let us stay with them, and drink our blood. Thus began the search to find out how to avoid these critters save for us sleeping in a ziplock bag.
After scouring the webs and talking to my nurse (who lived in Thailand for 12 years), we found out about Permethrin. Permethrin is a chemical that kills anything from ticks, chiggers, mosquitos, you name with 6 legs, on contact. It's often sold in spray form at your local REI (P.S., it's also what your "pre-treated" camping gear has already been soaked in). Apparently, it's also applied in high concentrations on your local factory farmer's livestock. It's supposedly "safe" even though the box says that it's highly toxic to fish and aquatic life. It also claims to be odorless even though I could smell the stuff through the box it was shipped to me in.
Anyhow, the deal is that you soak your clothes, mosquito net, sleeping bag liner, etc. in this stuff from a kit that they provide in the box. 2hrs later you take it out, let it air dry and then it's good for 45 days or 6 washings. The idea is that because the stuff biodegrades so easily when in contact with your skin, that soaking it into the deep fibers of your clothing keeps it off you and effectively embedded in the fibers, so that it can do its job against buggies. We're going to soak our sleeping bag liners and sleeping shirts in it, and we've been told that this is pretty damn efective in keeping the bedbugs away.
I'm less than excited about all the DEET and chemical junk we have to apply to ourselves for this trip, but if it works this stuff will be way better than getting eaten up in the first week and being miserable for the next three.