Potty Humor

Seeing as this part of our trip will be a major topic of conversation with the Basu family at Christmas, I will get a head start on the ups and downs of the traveling toilet situation.

The highlight of this part of the trip was in Japan. The Japanese have applied the technology we reserve for $2000 dishwashers to their the porcelain thrones, with splashing results. I had heard rumors of the wonders of Japanese toilets - they have mechanical hands that wipe the nether regions, the seats are made of solid gold, they play music, etc, etc. Some of this was true, though not the mechanical hand. There is a famous 24 karat solid gold toilet in Tokyo. If you have a golden toilet, then why not golden poop as well?

The typical Japanese toilet, the one you find in the homes, hostels, and malls, consist of a toilet bowl, seat, and toilet tank. In the high-tech ones, there is a control panel of sorts next to the bowl. This panel is studded with many buttons in Japanese with small incomprehensible pictures for those less literate. I never really deciphered all the functions, but here are some Ian, Andrew, and I figured out. With this panel, it is possible to receive squirts of water from inside the bowl to one's business areas. These jets vary in intensity, duration, and aim. During my first use, I nearly leaped to the ceiling because I didn't know the previous patron had turned the jet on high. As I became soaked, I found out that it would not cease until I found the off button. These robo-toilets also also would spray a jet of air to finish the job you did with the water and toilet paper. For the discrete Japanese ladies, there was a "fake flush" button that when pressed, would make a flushing sound during which you could tinkle or make whatever other noise you wanted without the whole bathroom hearing. One had headphone hook-up. I never found out what was playing.

Almost more important to me than the actual toilet apparatus, is the ability to clean my hands. This need is inversely proportional to cleanliness of the bathroom. In Japan, there was always automatic soap and water basins. However, I quickly found out that everyone carried handkerchiefs to dry their hands. This lesson is one that I will keep with me in the US. Why use a paper towel when you can carry your own?

Which brings me to my next country. I had the most trepidation about India in this regard. During my 3 prior visits, I had had some horrific experiences with splintered wooden planks as a toilet seat over a vat of mosquitoes and filth. Also, since everyones toilet use increases in India for obvious reasons, I tried to be prepared by always carrying toilet paper and a hanky to dry my hands.

Reflecting the diverse economic strata in the country, India has a wide spread between completely horrific bathrooms and sparklingly clean ones with attendants. Fancy hotels and restaurants have normal easy to understand Western toilets with paper, a flushing mechanism, a clean dry floor, and a sink with water, soap, and towels. All things taken for granted in the American bathroom experience. When there is a squat toilet in India, it generally had a flusher and a bucket of water to use instead of toilet paper (though I never figured out how to do this without soaking myself in the process). We had a squat toilet for 3 days in our stay in Mapsua, Goa. It really wasn't that bad. When it is your own, you can strip down so as not to wet all your clothes in the process. I can't stay I achieved the Zen of backpacking in India, which is to balance yourself on a squat toilet while reading the newspaper. Only the free public toilets will cause night terrors, as happened with me before our overnight bus ride from Udiapur.

Also, though this may not be evident on a quick vacation to India as your experience will likely be colored by the worst bathroom experiences of your life, Indians do care about washing their hands. This may not always happen in the vicinity of the toilet, but in every restaurant, no matter if it has a dirt floor and is made of blue tarp (the developing world's replacement for the tar paper shack), there will be a sink with soap to wash with before dining. Once you realize this, and have brought your own hanky to dry your hands, your war against the colon twisting germs in India gets a tad easier.

I do feel that I owe India somewhat of an apology about ragging so much on their plumbing in my first blog about our accommodation. I didn't think that the toilet situation could get worse once we left the land of the squat toilet. But again, I was wrong. Thailand has the worst plumbing I have ever seen coupled with a questionable system of personal hygiene as well (from what I can deduce from the facilities offered).

Here in Thailand, virtually everywhere has either a squat or Western bowl. Not really a problem - India trained us well. However, no where are these toilet bowls equipped to flush toilet paper as the exiting pipe is a narrow as a sink drain. There is generally a large bucket of water with a huge bowl or a high-pressure dish sprayer to replace the toilet paper. All bathrooms here have a generally poorly worded sign that tried to communicate to you to throw the paper in the trash. One of these signs read "some napkins go in the bucket." Not fully understaidng this, I thought to myself, where are these napkins, and why do only some need to go in the bucket, as I tossed my tissue in the toilet.

The second enormous problem with Thai plumbing and why it ranks below that of India, is that there are many places that don't have a flushing mechanism on the toilet. That's right, there is a toilet bowl with no tank. You think it's a normal toilet until you go to flush and stupidly pull at the air. Every morning, one has to try in vain to dispose of your handiwork with a bowl full of water that is kept in a bucket next to the toilet. Once hotel toilet was so terrible, that Ian and I had to use the bowl of water, the high-pressure butt sprayer, and the hand-held shower hose to get the toilet to flush. The large downside of this country wide practice is that: 1. you guessed it, your bathroom stinks at all times with the used tissues in the trash can, 2. since there is always a large bucket full of water, the bathrooms are mosquito pits, 3. you never want to flush the toilet since it's such an ordeal, and 4. your bathroom is soaked at all times.

So after a victory with flushing the Thai toilet, all I want to do is wash my hands. Therein lies the 3rd problem. Most public toilets in respectable places - restaurants, shops, etc, either have no place to wash or if they do, have no soap. Maybe I just haven't figured out how Thais wash their hands yet. In India it took me a while to figure out that it was expected that everyone wash their hands before eating in a restaurant. This really is the most maddening thing here in Thailand. From what I can tell, most Thais clean their privates, Indian-style, without the ability to wash hands. Baffling!

I know some of you are thinking, what should I expect traveling to Asia? Maybe avoiding toilet paper is more environmentally correct, I should have more respect for the local customs... I thought you might want the straight story without the social correctness sugar-coating.

Now on to Cambodia. I'm sure the situation can't get any worse. But I said that about India as well.

Indian Cleanliness

One paradox about India that has puzzled me for the longest time is the situation here with cleanliness. One one hand most streets have a gutter of disgusting water, littered with garbage running down the side of the road. But in the morning you will see shopkeepers out meticulously sweeping their shops and making sure that everything is perfectly clean. Piles of trash are common on the streets, but the marble floor of our 15 dollar a night hotel is hand mopped by a guy on his knees with a rag several times a day.

This may be incorrect, but my observation has been that Indians seem to have a very distinct separation between the places that are their responsibility and should be clean and places that they are not responsible for and therefore they don't care about. I would suspect this is why the shopkeeper is so careful to keep the little concrete step in front of his shop clean, even if there is a smoldering pile of trash one meter away.

There are even places within rooms that are on various sides of this clean separation. In the room I am in right now the marble floor is perfectly clean, as is the desk the computer is on. However, the little windows that let the only sunlight in the room have not been cleaned in forever.

The one impotent thing to take from this as a westerner in India I think is that you often cannot judge a book by its cover. The outside walls of most buildings fall into the not cared for category because they face public areas and therefore are OK to be filthy. But, the inside can be very well cared for, and that does not seem to be an odd contradiction to the average Indian.