BootsnAll Travel Community

Hi

When you have travelled around the world I'm sure that you have come across some toilets that you found a bit....eh...nasty. This is the chance to share your best and worse toilet stories with all of us. I can start

Best experience: I was in the bar at the Burj Al Arab in Dubai (the one in the top wing). This hotel is over the top and it claims to be the only(?) 7 star hotel in the world. Well, the toilet was spotless. Once I had been to the toilet a guy went into make sure that it was as spotless as it was before I went in there...and when I washed my hands a guy was ready to hand me a real towel so that I could wipe my hands

Worse: well, In Beijing we got in touch with a couple of locals and we walked into some narrow streets. We went to a restaurant and I had to go to the loo but there was not a toilet in the place. So this one guy took my out of the restaurant and into the street and all of a sudden he points into a narrow and dark hallway...there was just one light bulb hanging from the ceiling in there. When I walked in there it looked like they had just used a sledgehammer to make a hole in the floor.

I was also on the toilet on a bus in Thailand once. First of all it was tiny so I couldn't stand up straigth (I'm only 5' 10")...and when the bus started moving there was lots of "water" on the floor that was sloshing around.

Regards
Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com - trip reports and pictures

haha..the only place that i have been overseas is india, so i will talk about that

best experience: At my cousins place, they had a marble fountain in the bathroom, very ooh la la. Also a heated marble toilet that flushed and sanitized itself the second your butt was off the seat. No one likes sitting on cold dirty marble!

worst experience: (at my uncle's place) had to go, but the toilet was broken so i was handed a jug of water and pointed in the direction of a bunch of people squatting in a row (women, men, children)..saw a bit more of those people than i wanted to. I asked "i have to go out here?? with everyone watching??".."yes of course" and when i asked about toilet paper (was joking),i was handed a flat rock the size of my palm..

Worst: One really LONG train ride from Kiev to Bucharest. All of the countertop area, sink, faucet, faucet handles, etc. as well as the lid & seat of the toilet, & the hand-hold handles on the wall were covered in...uh...something. Now, it didn't seem like someone just splattered sh** all over the place, so you knew it wasn't THAT, but you really coudln't tell what is was--and didn't want to know---but you just knew you couldn't set your hands anywhere. It was so disgusting that the girls on our trip would put blankets up across the "hallway", with someone "standing guard" in front of each blanket,and in teams of 3--the person who had to go would be held up by two on either side, & she would hang her butt out the windows so they could pee/poop. (they would wait until the train was in a rural area instead of just mooning a town).

The "if only I knew the language" option: In the YHA Hostel in Takayama, Japan: THE cleanest bathrooms I've ever seen in any hostel anywhere...freaking hospital grade spotless & sterile. The toilets were really, really modern with all kinds of small hoses, spickets, & electronic control panels. Now, I've seen plenty of bidet-style toilets, etc. But this was right off a bad sci-fi movie. Sure, you knew that one of these little button things would be the "flush" button. BUT, you also could tell that others controlled the "bidet" functions, the water spickets, all under/above/around the toilet, etc. You could tell that you have options as to water pressure, water "blast", which water "hose" or spicket the water would come out of, etc. And, you couldn't be positive you knew where all those little spickets were, and where the water would come out of. But, you didn't want to go hitting what you thought was the "flush" button & give yourself a freaking hyrdro-enema in the process. So you think, "No prob..I'll just get up & get my butt out of the way of what may be a fire hose effect...But, you coudlnt' really see the tiny labels & symbols if you tried standing up. You also could tell you had the options of "heating" the toilet seat, but it was hard to tell how to set the options of how hot, or how short/long it took for the warming effect to kick in. And, once seated, it was hard to see that particular set of controls, so if you heard the sizzle of your tukas frying, you knew you would have to get off "mid-labor" to re-set them.

I'll be going there soon, so I was glad that someone posted the "Squatholes of Yemen" to prepare me. You can see the good, the bad, and the ugly here:

http://arabistfancy.blogspot.com/2006/04/squatholes-of-yemen.html

I once corresponded with a photojournalist who traveled to some really out of the way places. She said that one of the more important things she packed was a poncho, it allowed her to "go" without fear of too much embarrassment.

Isaac

Hi

Talking about high-tech toilets. It was a bit weird coming to Japan. Our hotel room in Tokyo had a pretty advanced toliet...I have to admit that I tried the "hose me down" button and poor Nikki got a shock when she heard my scream from the bathroom They even had these toilets at places like KFC...we went to one KFC and the toilet was so clean...the toilet paper was folded just like in a hotel

Regards
Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com - trip reports and pictures

Hi

This looks like a pretty nice toilet. But I think I would have been a bit freaked out by watching people outside

Regards
Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com - trip reports and pictures

All I remember as my worst is in Milan. I was in our office there in this old building. I needed to do number two BAD! I had to use the communal toilet by the courtyard of the building, so I ran there with my roll of toilet paper only to find those ceramic holes on the floor thingys! Oh god, it was horrible, but I was at the point of no return. lol Ugh, I want to forget.

My worse experience is when I have a window seat on a long haul flight!

Hi

This thread wakes up the memory hehe....a bit of warning for you. This next picture is not a very pretty sight

I had almost forgotten about my toilet experience when I was climbing Kilimanjaro...the toilets there were not very nice either but what a view Some had little "windows" so at least when I was peeing I had a great view to the mountain. But the toilet itself was pretty nasty. So be prepared if you are hiking up Kilimanjaro onthe Machame trail

Regards
Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com - trip reports and pictures

Wow, where is that mirror toilet? Do people know that you can see inside if it is lighter there than outside (i.e. if you lean against the glass and shield the outside light with your hands when ooking through it)?

Worst: not to go into food-poisoning incidents, my worst was somewhere in transit in East Africa where the 'toilet' was a shed with the concrete floor covered about ankle-deep in shit. There wasn't even a hole (I wouldn't have minded a hole!).

Best: there were many, staying in nice hotels etc, but I still have to experience a Japanese tech-toilet.

WORST- Port-o-potty on bazaar day in Kabul....the locals stand and straddle the western hole...so when you go in there ar footprints on the seat... runner-up-squat toilets in the Tashkent UZBEKISTAN airport. Luxury Soviet plumbing at its best!!!!


BEST-HOME!!!!!!! of course.

Gard!!!! I can smell that kili toilet. UGGGG.

Jet

Gard is quite prolific.

Worst:

I had just finished off a visit to Doi Suthep in Chiang Main and headed back to the parking/shopping area. My guts had been in periodic turmoil for the second week in a row since arriving in Thailand. As I approached my scooter…

…drop…

I looked down, there was a little drop of you-know-what on my foot. My swim trunks had provided a clear freefall for the offending… globule. After looking around and feeling relieved that nobody saw this intestinal indiscretion, I skipped the scooter tightened my sphincter, and went searching for a toilet.

…drop…

Again. Great. Gotta find something quick. There! A big sign with the hand painted word ‘toilet’ in red. Walking quickly in an odd, shuffling walk I made it to the building in about one minute where a young boy and a sign demanded 5 Baht. Quickly handing him a 100 note and expecting my change equally as fast, he just muttered some Thai (?) and went back to papa for some change.

…drop…

Things are desperate, some evil bugs are stabbing daggers into my gut, my leg is now stained with a streak, and the kid is taking is sweet old Thai time getting my change.

Cool, have my 95 Baht, and I shuffle to the men’s toilet. It is disgusting. In hindsight, it is clearly one of the worst toilets of my entire South East Asia trip. Anyway, my lower gastrointestinal track violently purges itself into the filthy, all concrete ‘toilet’.

Whew. What a relief. Time to clean up the splatter. Hmmm…no paper. No nothing. The spoon thingy and half filled bucket aren’t nearly enough to do the job. Open the water spigot, and it is dry. OK, head for the sink, past the door-less entry with my swim trunks around my knees only to be rewarded by a trickle of water…it takes forever to fill the bucket up…minutes. At this point, I am only half worried about someone else entering the room. I am so uncomfortable that it just does not matter.

Cleaned up well enough to be presentable and semi content, I grab the scooter, race down the hill, and clean up in the shower at my guest house.

Gross.

Best:

I was spending the summer house sitting for a friend with an ocean view flat in Venice Beach. Some friends and I went to a bar on Main Street in Santa Monica called The Circle. (This is mid-‘90s before it was gentrified.) While using one of two urinals, the guy beside me said “Hey, I just went to a wedding. Wanna do some coke?”

^^ ewww..enough detail stoo!! lol.. i know how you feel..imagine having to wake up in the middle of the night ready to explode and you run out side and the first thing you step in it dung (huge waterbuffalo dung)..then you slip and fall in it...wonderful, and your so tired/relieved at the end that you dont care lol

Hi static

"Gard is quite prolific."...I don't know the word prolific...but yes, I have posted the topic on other travel forums. I had almost forgotten that I had posted it on Frommer's (there is no mail notice when you get an answer there)...I was very surprised that there were over 50 people that had replied to it

Regards
Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com - trip reports and pictures

Hm. See, as a Vegetarian I generally dislike Fast Food chains. However, once in a while a McD or Burger King can provide the cleanest toilets you had in a a loooooong time. I reckon these are usually my 'best' experiences.

Worst. Oh man, probably don't want to remember. Funny enough the s#$% alone (and I've seen it in all possible places...especially in the squat train toilets in India and Pakistan) doesn't completely make me fill ill. It gets seriously bad when rats and roaches are mingling around as well. Especially the roaches. I hate those f#$%^&. Oh yeah, used condoms and syringes aren't my favorites either.

My funniest toilet experience was in Hungary in 1977. For days, my cousin Ilona had been giving me tickets and tourist brochures as "souvenirs," which I merely shoved into my pocket. Then I suddenly got caught short and had to go. Naturally, there was no toilet paper, but I did have a lot of "souvenirs" on me which came in handy. You might say I got rid of two loads at the same time.

Jim Paris

The best toilets? In any Ritz Carlton, especially in the Middle East and Asia because they have ashtrays in the stalls and cloth washcloths that make great souvenirs.

The worse? Anywhere that has “squat toilets”, I just hold it.

wow. gard, you are in a whole different league...

i was in a club in oaxaca mexico and one of the bathrooms had two toilets one had a blue seat and the other a pink seat. i wasn't sure if this was a measure to promote romantic intimacy or a time-saving measure for the management...?