But You Can Never Leave
We just signed on for another three nights in our hotel after intense debate. Sure there are holes in the wall and the door won't shut properly, but it will cost us less for a week here than it does for our rent back home. Plus I get to hang out the window and watch the hookers drum up business across the street.
The toilet really unsettles me. When we were in Russia we encountered plenty of those pit toilets, where you must drop your dacks and straddle a hole in the ground and try to ignore the floating objects left by previous tennants. I would close my eyes and whisper to myself, "Come onnnn! Just let go!". That I could handle. Not so the toilet in our hotel room.
This beast appears innocent at first. But it has no seat, no lid, and a bizarre split-level system. Your basic Western loo is just one bowl and everything goes down right away in a beautifully detached, impersonal manner. But this one has the second level, a balcony; a waiting room for waste, if you will. I am so disturbed by it that I have been avoiding any controversial foods and/or running into the nearest McDonalds if the urge hits.
I am haunted by this vision, that if one had to use it, one would have to jump up and face the bowl in order to hit the flush button. Then one would be confronted by one's own handiwork, waiting there on that ledge, like giddy children queuing at the top of a waterslide. And of course the flush button is barely holding on to the tank, so you'd have to swear and wrestle with it for five minutes before it would work and then I bet your business would shriek wheeeeeee! as it finally began the thrill-a-minute ride into the Vilnius sewerage system.
Of all the thrilling tourist delights of this city, I choose to tell you about a toilet. Hmm, what else? I saw a statue of Frank Zappa today, that was very cool.
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Aha. Das ist ein Deutsch toilet. Ve, uh, we first saw one in (former) East Germany. They probably sold 'em all the way up the coast!
I'm guessing that type of toilet was the height of soviet engineering. They used to be everywhere. Scary!
The best one I ever saw was in a sports store in West Germany - the lid part swivelled each time to clean the thing - just so cool in a kinda freaky way though.
The worst is as ever is the nature version - Western Sahara is a bitch as there's nothing to hide behind and you always end up turning round to find about 5 berobed guys behind you.
Hee! They have the same toilets in Amsterdam. I'm always neurotic about these things so it was not a pleasant cultural experience for me.
Dear Amsterdammies: I love you, I really do, but what the HELL were you thinking?!
Sorry, guys, but isn't that the normal way toilets are???? Of course, I'm a survivor of a former east-block country so how should I know better ;-)
And yes, it stays eeeek even if you stuck with it your whole life.
Anyway, Shauny, even my MOTHER would love this post - toilets and so on. That's now real scary.
Mmmm, yes. My boyfriend's German flat had one of those. Minging.
That aside, I'm consumed by travel envy. Though we've had a beautiful couple of days in Edinburgh, I've been stuck inside doing jury duty - mostly sitting waiting for the Sheriff to turn up, but with a magnificent view over the sundrenched city just to underline our trappedness. I've got through four paperbacks since Monday.
Yep, I encountered the display case style toilet in Amsterdam. Something not quite right if you ask me! They're still better than the French stand and deliver design though...never did get used to them!
ah, ya bunch of wimps!
I GREW UP with these toilets and..... oh, wait.... it might just explain a few of my more disturbing mental disturbances....
Frankly, I MISS checking my doodahs for tomato pips, too much muesli and other interesting bits.....
(hah! everyone puking yet?)
You are required by internet law to link to the German Toilets page:
http://www.spies.com/~scott/misc/toilet.htm
And they're also Polish toilets, though that style seems to be losing ground to the big-bowl-of-water variety. We had the balcony style for years. Anchors aweigh!
At least you weren't disinfected in a French toilet:
http://www.bugeurope.com/destinations/fr-toilet.html
So the scary split level toilet is a world wide phenomenon? I found one of these in Buenos Aries on a recent trip - so I report they have infiltrated South America as well.
Funnily enough, that was probably one of the better toilets encountered on that trip, I spent most of it wishing for a normal loo (and one that could flush your paper in!)
So, from the previous comments, are there only ... what.. three/four toilet designs in the entire world?
Split level, bowl, hole in floor, au naturale. Any others?
And, more to the point, why am I asking this!!
Terrifying death-drop into pit of manure eight feet below? I.e., remote camping site toilets in Oz. Opening the lid on those is always a thrill, waiting for the stench and blowflies to surround you.
You'd also have to distinguish between the impromptu hole in the floor and the formal Asian-style hole in floor, with a ceramic base with footprints cast into it.
Dutch toilets are also famous for their "inspection shelves" as a few people have already commented. But then the Dutch are famous for their obsession with poo. I've just bought my son a book (in Dutch) about a mole who after someone pooed on his head describes the poos of different animals as he tries to find out who did it!
Toilets with just a hole into a pit are called "squatters" among the seasoned. I hate them!
I first encountered the split level ones on a school trip to Germany in 1984. The... um, inspection part was geographically dubbed 'the continental shelf'.
Yes, saw them in Germany too. Dreadful, dreadful idea. Never enough water either. Shocking, shocking. Still deeply traumatised by it, really.
I saw the Mole with Poo on his Head story in Holland too. Gepoept is the word, isn't it?
But it's a German book. And an Edinburgh Fringe show as well.
Ah, then come here to China and you get the inspection shelf and a suck rather than a flush.
The itty bit of water below the shelf is falls away - leaving the shelf content as is - and the water cascades down the bowl. Almost always there is a heinous 'residual'leftover on the shelf and some of it floating below.
After Sichuan food the poo-stew is profoundly disturbing. Yum.
I almost miss the squat-bogs.
Ah, then come here to China and you get the inspection shelf and a suck rather than a flush.
The itty bit of water below the shelf falls away - leaving the shelf content as is - and the water cascades down the bowl. Almost always there is a heinous 'residual'leftover on the shelf and some of it floating below.
After Sichuan food the poo-stew is profoundly disturbing. Yum.
I almost miss the squat-bogs.
Faith, I must have the Mole & Poo book for my 7 year old! He recently made a power point presentation with the word "POO" featured in various sizes, colours and graphic styles. I feel there's a talent here which must be nurtured, or is is a... leaning??