Toilets

I've been meaning for a while to put up a post about the local loos. On the whole, I've been very surprised at the cleanliness of what we've found. Granted, we've mostly availed ourselves of facilities in touristy areas, but even those have the potential to be nasty. Instead, everything has been surprisingly well kept, with little evidence of poor aim or backed up plumbing.

I'd expected to find quite a lot of squat toilets, but there have been fewer than I expected. The further away from any city you get, or the lower down the totem pole (bus station rather than airport), the more likely you are to find a squat toilet, but still, the toilets have been far more western than I'd expected.

Given less than clean conditions, I actually prefer squat toilets since you don't have to touch anything. That said, most of the squats we've encountered have been "modern" ones, meaning they are made of white porcelain rather than being just a hole in the ground. The problem with these is they tend to be any where from 6 o 8 inches off the surrounding floor, making it hard to keep one's balance, especially as the knees creak and groan.

Outside of the cities, most toilets don't have automatic flushing mechanisms. Rather, somewhere near the toilet (western or not) is a cistern or bucket filled with water. Floating on the top is a scoop, and you are to toss several scoops of water down the drain when done.

Outside the big cities, there isn't toilet paper. Locals use water from the cistern to clean up with, though in more sophisticated stalls, there is also a "bum gun" available (just like a spray nozzle on a kitchen sink).

Public toilet places (outside of major shopping malls) are often guarded by someone whose job it is to keep the place clean. Typically you are asked to pay a dime or so to use the facility. In some places, this entitles you to a few squares of toilet paper kept behind the desk. In other places, the toilet paper is readily accessible in the bathroom once you pay the dragon outside, but not in the individual stalls. You have to collect it from next to the sinks on your way in.

Toilet paper generally should not be flushed (the plumbing can't handle it), but should be deposited in the bin sitting next to the toilet. One of my pet peeves: the bin with a lid that operates with a foot pedal, carefully placed directly alongside the toilet. How the heck are you supposed to get a toe on the pedal when it's behind you? Especially from a squat toilet.

Most toilet places have sinks with running water, and usually a bar of soap, but nothing to dry hands. In some smaller places, there is a single sink somewhere in a more public space (like the back of the restaurant), or in even smaller places, there is a tap over the cistern (the one that you flush with) that you can use to wash hands with (thereby recycling the water for flushing). Sometimes there's a well worn towel for hand drying (germ central) but never any paper towel.

Here in Bangkok it's striking to me that in the big shopping malls (which we keep going to in order to get out of the heat--they're so heavily airconditioned you get goose bumps) the bathrooms are completely westernized. No bum guns, no bins, big rolls of toilet paper in the stalls, motion sensors on the water taps in the sink, soap in little squirty dispensers--but still no paper towel.