How not to use a thermometer...

I arrived in Nepal a few days ago, crossing the border in Tibet at the Zhangmu-Kodari land crossing.  When you can cross into Nepal though everyone is required to have a quick medical screening for the H1N1 virus at the immigration/visa office.  So after getting my visa, I was ushered into the screening room where a medical professional asked me some basic questions about my health - "Do you have a cough"; "Do you have a fever", etc.  He then passed me a thermometer to take my body temperature.

I girded myself for the idea of putting the thermometer in my mouth, where possibly hundreds of others had previously placed it.  So I took a deep breath and stuck it in my mouth, got the temperature reading and passed it to the guy behind the desk.  He looked at me a little weird and then wrote down my information in his log.

I didn't understand why he was looking at my so weirdly.  When I exited the room, the others that I was traveling with asked me how'd everything go.  I told them I stuck the thermometer in my mouth and exclaimed "yay, no fever!".

Strangely enough, I got the same weird look from my traveling buddies that I got from the medical guy and then they all burst out in laughter.  "Ummm, what's so funny?", I asked and one of them replied, "Don't you know you can take your temperature by putting the thermometer under your armpit!?!?".  I was like what??  You can take take your temperature that way?!

Suddenly the thought of a thousand armpits in my mouth entered my head...  What the hell did I just do!?!  I mean when I put the thermometer in my mouth the first time I figured if everyone else had done the same thing -  I didn't have much of a choice.  But now knowing that no one else probably put the thermometer in their mouths like I did really really disgusted me.  All the while, everyone's laughing at me!  I have to admit it was funny (well my mouth has probably been in even dirtier places).

But it wasn't funny for too long...  hahaha!  One of my fellow travelers bought a bottle of beer and I asked him for a small cup of it.   Probably not enough alcohol content in the beer to kill any germs, but I went ahead and rinsed out my mouth with it anyways.  I felt a little better afterwards - just hope there weren't any babies that were crossing the border that day!