Not All Throne Rooms Glitter As Third World Travelers Find Out
Some travelers are gastrointestinally traumatized just thinking about the street food in underdeveloped countries. But the real fear that grips travelers in far-flung lands is not necessarily an upset stomach, or the creative medical care that may accompany it, but bathrooms that fall short of Martha Stewart’s criteria for proper hygiene - or even Attila the Hun’s.
I’ve discovered two standard varieties of Third World thrones, and believe me, you wouldn’t want to use either of them.
The first type, the squatter, looks like Chief from “One-Flew-Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” just picked up the toilet, threw it out the window and ran from the crime scene, leaving a six-inch-diameter hole in the floor. The user must squat over the hole and, like a B-2 Bomber, attempt to hit the target.
The obvious danger is losing your balance and falling backward into an area I’d just as soon not describe. This happens occasionally because there’s nothing to hold on to. The less apparent danger is that squatting causes your pants pockets to invert, and your valuables go sliding irretrievably down the hole. If this doesn’t sound challenging enough, just try reading a newspaper at the same time. Remember, you also have to hold a flashlight in your mouth since lavatories in the category seldom have decent lighting or, sometimes, any lighting at all.
Managing all this requires a number of skills, none of which fall within the scope of my liberal arts diploma, which, for lack of toilet paper, would sometimes come in handy.
Lack of toilet paper? Unfortunately, a large portion of the world does not use toilet paper at all. What do they use? Well, in squatter stalls there’s a little plastic bowl and a water tap next to “the hole.” As far as tourists are concerned, the idea is, you look at the water and the little bowl, then pull some toilet paper out of your pocket and use that.
Some people, however, such as everyone who lives in that country, usually forget to bring toilet paper, so they use the water in conjunction with their left hands.
How to flush “the hole” is not entirely apparent. There’s no handle to push, no knob to turn, no chain to pull. You have to fill up the plastic bowl a few times and dump the water into the hole. This feels more like a religious ritual than toilet flushing, so you may as well take the opportunity to pray that you won’t be back any time soon.
The other sort of toilet looks like a Western commode that was creatively installed by someone who couldn’t read the English directions in the assembly kit. If you’re lucky enough to find one with a plastic seat, it’s usually secured by something with the strength of dental floss, so if you don’t sit down exactly straight, the seat detaches and you slide right off. This can be painful and embarrassing and not the sort of thing you’d ever want to mention in a newspaper.
More commonly, however, the plastic seat is missing altogether, perhaps for use as a Third World Frisbee. This means you’re back to squatting again. Only now it’s more difficult because you can’t do a regular squat; you have to do a “standing squat” so you can clear the rim of the bowl. This usually entails bracing yourself with one hand on the wall behind you. This is exhausting and often makes your arm and leg muscles cramp.
A few of these bathrooms come equipped with toilet paper but it’s usually the sort that Rambo would be afraid to use. You’re better off bringing your own. Either way, you should never even think of throwing the paper into the toilet. There’s a little plastic bin nearby for this purpose. These johns, though they may look vaguely like ours, have an allergic reaction to toilet paper; one square of Charmin can clog them for a month.
A few models I’ve found in the Turkey-Syria region feature built-in bidets (pronounced: bee-daze), a French invention that’s the below-the-waist equivalent of the Waterpik. The idea is, in lieu of toilet paper, use this device to give yourself a painful enema. The French have a separate machine for this same treatment, but in Turkey and Syria there’s just a bent metal pipe positioned … well, you can imagine where it’s positioned.
The major problem with this arrangement, besides having to grope around behind the toilet tank to find the water control knob, is that some of the spigots are poorly positioned so the bent metal pipe is a little higher than it should be. If you sit down too fast … well, you can imagine what can happen.
This brings me to my sure-fire Adventure Travel Toilet Tips: practice squatting in your living room; use a timer to work on your speed; practice carrying around large quantities of toilet paper; and - if you can possibly manage it - when you get to your destination, don’t go to the bathroom at all.