Ichinensei

Aside from some remote place in Africa or village in Asia, what is the worst toilets that you have consistently come across?

Mine is KUL, Malaysia. It has got to be by far the worst anywhere I've been. Even all my friends that live there cannot stand it.

Starting at the airport - I go in and it's all wet. Every loo you go in has a hose for people to wash their ... with - which means all the water on the floor cannot be clean. It's absolutely disgusting.

If that is not bad enough - some washrooms you have to pay to get in - which is not entirely abnormal since they do it in a lot of places.

One mall I went to didnt even have toilet paper in the stalls - you have to get it from ONE roll next to the sink - and there is one guy standing there. Do people in Malaysia steal toilet papers?? what the heck...

In the main train station - KL Sentral, there was one toilet - you couldn't even sit if you wanted to - there was no toilet seat, and there was something really strange over the toilet that would have prevented you from sitting in it if there were a seat.

If you ever go to KL, get a map, find out where all the American/Int'l hotels in the city - and use their lobby washrooms - nice, clean and western style.!!

wolfie_cr

let me asure you that I know many many places where people steal the toilet paper...........(unfortunately)

I dont know if you are a guy/girl......as a guy from the 3rd world.........I am used to much much lower standards.....

tjl

I wonder if the OP has used toilets in China (outside of nicer hotels and such).

The problem there is not so much the fact that they are often holes that you squat over (which I have seen in Switzerland and Italy as well), but that "flushing" is often just a small ineffective trickle of water that makes you wonder why they even bothered to have a water supply to the toilet. The sights and smells can be rather crappy.

tjl

Yes, in the US, where toilet paper is provided in public toilets, the toilet paper rolls are locked so that only someone with the correct key can remove and replace them.

Ichinensei

What?? Oh my, this is kind of low. I know here in my office in YYZ, they also lock the dispenser. But if someone really wants to steal it, they could always unroll the whole thing.

I am from KUL, but I live in YYZ for the last 20 years. Living there and going back as a tourist is 2 very different thing. Also I don't remember using the public loo too often when i was a kid living there.

Yes, I know the mainland Chinese have no toilet etiquette, or at least very diffrent from a western point of view. My parents flew from KUL to PEK once and one hour into the flight, there was .... on the toilet seat - some people do not know how to sit on toilet seats - they squat on them!!!

tjl

That would be a rather laborious way of stealing toilet paper.

In China, toilet paper is not provided in many public toilets; people are expected to bring their own. Sometimes, a wastebasket is placed next to the toilet to put used toilet paper in, presumably due to poor plumbing.

In Malaysia, hotels provide both toilet paper and the sprayer. The water spray method is not that unusual in some places; consider bidets, or those fancy Japanese toilets with the spray and dry functions.

Loren Pechtel

Yup. The worst I saw: A bus station that served other purposes as well. The men's consisted of a "room" made up of basically 3 1/2 concrete walls--a doorway, no door. Once you passed through the doorway you found an area built purely out of concrete--the space on the right meant to walk, a raised bit of concrete rather like a curb and the area to the left of it where the waste went. I saw no flush mechanism of any kind and it was obvious that there was no meaningful flush mechanism (although I suspect it was hosed down at the end of the day.) Anyone standing in front got a side view of what anyone inside was doing, to take a dump you would have to squat with your feet on the curb-like bit--and note that if you pee in this position it's going to go out into the walk area. A few people had taken a dump anyway--obviously urgent ones they couldn't wait to find a better toilet. I believe the women's was the same but I was never in a position to see.


Competing with that would be the village in Indonesia where there were ditches that were obviously an open sewer--and which people used for the purpose.

mapsmith

A very interesting travel related book is "How to Sh!t Around the World" Discusses the pros and cons of most of the methods of disposal around the world. Including the "Long Drop" outhouses that drop into a pig sty. Here Piggy, Piggy.

eyeballer

I was in Nicaragua a few years ago, in remote village on a medical aid trip. We set up our clinic at a local school, which luckily had recently been built and had all "mod-cons." The toilets had two small baskets, one either side. One was filled with used writing paper that had been ripped into small approx 2" squares. The other basket was filled with "used" used writing paper. The sanitation system cannot handle toilet "paper" being flushed.

SirJman

On trains in China they have the hole in the ground (which is never dry due to the rocking of the train), but the surprise is when you look down the hole, and you can see the tracks below you, moving.

This is why they lock the doors of the toilets when approaching a station.

tjl

China is far from the only country where the train toilets drop straight onto the tracks.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...to-tracks.html
http://www.cromwell-intl.com/toilet/ns-train.html

SirJman

No doubt they do, and come to think of it I've used many that go straight to the tracks, China stands out to me maybe because I lived there rather than just visiting.

I try to avoid trains opting to fly but only when the price is reasonable, this IS FlyerTalk.

Mr H

Came across some loos in Mtskheta a couple of weeks ago which were outdoor shed type things with no lights and backed up to overflowing.

In many parts of the world loos don't have free paper - you either bring your own; take from a single roll; buy paper on the way in; or use a hose.

I have found loos that don't flush - you scoop water into them. Loos without seats are common; squat toilets tend to be popular in countries which had French colonial rule or their immediate neighbours.

Plenty of countries have bins for the used loo paper and other stuff.

The ones the OP talks about sound fine. Did they have crocs so you could take your shoes off at the door and avoid getting your feet wet?

STBCypriot

The toilets in the Chelyabinsk Russia airport arrivals are the squat type. The ladies' (have not been in the men's) stalls do not have doors. The toilet paper, if there is any, is lesser quality newsprint cut into squares.

Now Chelyabinsk is a city of over 1 million people, so this is no podunk town. But it is Russia. Glad I won't be going back there ever again.

slawecki

some of the restaurants in venice have a hole in the floor, and two footprint marks. the canal is below.

until recently "DON'T FLUSH WHEN THE TRAIN IS IN THE STATION" signs were on all Amtrak trains.