A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
I am distressed to inform you all that I have experienced a new type of toilet here in China. I'm not sure if it's better or worse than those godawful squat toilets, but it's definitely scarier.

Predictably, it was at a bus station. In order to get to the business end of the bus station bathroom, you had to walk up a couple of stairs to get into the "stall", which was actually a half-wall with no door. Who needs full walls when you're squatting anyway? Inside the stall was a foot-wide trench that ran from one end of the bathroom to the other, so the same trench served both stalls. The principle here is the same as with the hole-in-the-ground toilets, so I needn't go into any more indelicate detail, but I will say that every second I was in there I was afraid I was going to fall into the trench.

The other toilet related issue I feel I must share is that those squat toilets are the norm here, not just to be endured at filthy bus stations and roadside diners. Seriously, even the department stores and nice restaurants in town have them, and I was quite alarmed to read in my guidebook that an upcoming hotel has just renovated and installed "blissful western toilets". Naturally, I'm not disturbed that this particular hotel has western toilets, but that sentence surely implies that many hotels in China do not have them. Forewarned is forearmed -- now I know that hot water and cleanliness are immaterial when scoping out a new hotel. I absolutely must look at their toilets before handing over any cash.

edited to add: After I wrote this this morning I went to McDonalds, where one of their four stalls has a western-style toilet. In order to resolve any confusion that users may have, they have taped the following sign above it, in both English and Chinese: Please Do Not Stand on the Fixture.

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 10:25 PM