Ear Plugs
by Phil Card
Courtesy of AdventureBase
Ear plugs are one of the keys to a good night's rest on the road where the audio assaults sometimes encountered can be quite weird: conversation among fellow travelers (in various languages), grinding road noise, or somebody else's let's-party music into the night. And combinations thereof.
Budget travel often means especially noisy conditions (what with the cardboard walls and the downtown locations), but considerably more expensive accommodations are no guarantee of quiet. As one guidebook points out a more expensive hotel can sometimes just mean a more powerful sound system with bigger speakers in the bar.
Actually, for me, ear plugs are about power. Travelers don't have much control over their environment. Complaining to management is hardly expected to achieve results when the hostel stereo is running full blast and a mob of Aussies are spewing soccer talk above the music. And anyway, such revelry is part of the atmosphere we're here for. But it is nice to be able to control your own space and turn down the din.
My first road experiment with ear plugs began with the foam kind given out by the airlines during some long flights. I found them unnecessary during the relatively peaceful drone of such flights. But less than completely satisfying during the extreme audio assaults of the famous backpackers' ghetto of Ka Sahn Road in Bankok.
I tested various other materials (often in the middle of the night):
1. Mind control. Not nearly enough mind or control.
2. Fingers. Pretty good actually. But they fall out once asleep and then you wake up and have to start over. At least they don't get lost like those pesky foam ones.
3. Cotton or the more available toliet paper. Does a respectable job in a pinch, but inadequate for the heavy-duty conditions that travelers encounter. Also disposable, although ecologically incorrect to do so.
4. Soft silicone. We found a pair (also called a wad) of these in a pharmacy. This is a soft substance that you mold like silly putty and push into your ear until it conforms to the shape of your (hopefully) outer ear. These are comfortable and succeed in cutting out all conversation except for yelling, low traffic rumblings, and the bottom end of the bass notes on a boom box. Silicone seals so well that the dominant sounds you experience are your own pulse and breathing. I sometimes follow my breathing sounds to cover up any remaining sounds and sort of meditate myself to sleep. (See number 1).
Is it dangerous to reduce your hearing at night? Although it seems odd at first to cut yourself off from the hearing world, it isn't dangerous because: (a) you can still hear shouts; (b) you probably would sleep through any important noises in a noisy place anyway; and (c) you have other senses--unless you use eye shades, too.
So the silicone plug gets my vote. When my wife and I use them we inform each other that we're plugging up for the night, kiss goodnight and wake up the next morning refreshed after a quiet night's sleep.
Now if we could just invent nose plugs to escape the cigarette smoke.
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