A Note About Bathrooms

I want to talk for a second about bathrooms in other parts of the world, for those of you who have not had the pleasure of experiencing them! Once upon a time, I had a great idea that I should take pictures of all of the toilets I have ever encountered and use them to create a coffee table book called ‘Oh, the Place You’ll Go’ (pending Dr. Seuss’s approval, of course), and now that I have seen so many different kinds of toilets, I really wish I would have started doing this, but alas, I did not. Anyway, throughout my travels in Africa, Asia and even parts of Europe, there have been many times I have come across squat toilets. I’m still not comfortable with using these but when you have no other option, you just do it!

So, a squat toilet requires you to do exactly as its name would imply…you put your feet on the grooves and then you squat to do your business! This is, of course, the more natural way to do it anyway, so I guess there is good reason why this is popular in other parts of the world. Notice the lack of toilet paper and the bucket of water. The water serves two purposes, the first is to flush and the second is for cleaning yourself. (It’s always a good idea to have tissues handy!)

It is not uncommon to see signs like this, probably because so many people are used to using the squat toilets and just transfer the same practices to using a standard toilet.

Pretty much every toilet is equipped with a hand sprayer for cleaning yourself. I do not understand why these have not taken off in the States. You save so much toilet paper and actually feel much cleaner after doing your business!

Showers in Asia have also been quite the adventure. The majority of the hotels we have stayed in have had what are called ‘wet bathrooms’ which basically means that there is no enclosure around the shower, so everything in the room gets soaked! They then take forever to dry so your feet get wet every time you walk back into the bathroom. I can honestly say I am not a fan and I don’t understand this design. Very rarely did we stumble upon a ‘dry’ bathroom and it was ridiculous how exciting that was for us! (Cheryl, if you’re reading this, your bathroom is still the best up to this point!)

‘WC’, by the way, stands for Water Closet and is the universal sign to look for when in search of a toilet.