It gets fairly warm in the month of October in Bali before the rainy season starts generally in November. In fact it can get too darn hot and having your skin exposed to the midday sun without any form of protection can be a killer, literally. Most travellers in the tropics know better than to walk around during the heat of the day from around noon until near dusk. Okay, so you are on holiday and that golden suntan you want to achieve means you have to BBQ yourself on Kuta Beach or laze around the pool at the hotel of your choice, but if your intention is just that then use some kind of skin protection.
Primarily my point in this article is dehydration from the tropical heat and this can come on faster than you would realise. I do a lot of trekking both in Indonesia and in Australia and, there are occasions when avoiding the heat of the day is out of my hands. There are two things to keep in mind. Firstly, if you are thirsty then drink. A parched thirst is the first sign of oncoming dehydration. Secondly, if you are not putting out enough urine then you are getting dehydrated. Generally in the tropics I drink between four to six litres of water per day, more if I am expending energy.
Hydration fluids are excellent top-ups to water. In Bali you can buy a drink called Pocari Sweat. This is great, albeit bland to drink, for putting the electrolytes back into your body. Of course at any of the supermarkets you can buy the western brands of Gatorade and Powerade and these are also good. I usually carry a couple of boxes of Gastrolyte (available at your chemist) and have one or two sachets of these per day just to top up the electrolytes in my body.
Let common sense prevail when holidaying in the tropics. Always wear a hat! Yeah, they can be a pain-in-the-butt at times but will save you a lot of agony down the track, so to speak. I should know, after decades of being in the tropics I recently had four Carcinomas carved out of my body.
Cartoon Credit: blogs.townonline.com
