Sorry, But What's Cat Litter?

We found ourselves in a town that seemed to only have outdoor cats -- at least we figured that must be the case because we saw a lot of cats, but none of the stores seemed to carry cat litter. We've had this experience on several occasions and so we've found a variety of solutions.

If there is some dirt, sand, or very small gravel accessible, then this is a great solution. It doesn't have any of the antibacterial properties of the commercial products, but it is natural.

Unfortunately, one time we couldn't find anything nearby and RC was getting desperate. After ransacking the local grocery store, we bought three 1 liter bags of rice. Much to our delight, RC decided the rice was an adequate substitute. He seemed relieved when we traveled to a more modern city 2 days later and found his regular litter.

One solution we tried that failed miserably was torn up paper. He didn't even think looking in the box was worth his effort.

A fellow traveler, Meredith Billman Mani, suggested that you can use saw dust mixed with a quarter of a box baking soda as a substitute for litter. This sounds like a great idea. We haven't tried it yet. We had been told that we'd have difficulty finding litter while in Asia, so we figured we'd get to try this idea out. As it turned out, the parts of Asia we've visited have cats everywhere and plenty of litter. so we'll keep the idea in reserve for another part of the world.