Scatology, or TP RTW

RTW is backpacker-speak for Round the World. This post is about the wide world of toilet paper.

And poop.

There are no pictures in this post but still, I wouldn't recommend reading this before or after a meal.

Get a group of dog walkers together and after the initial pleasantries the conversation will usually veer quickly to the dogs' bowel movements. Don't ask me why. I don't have kids but I notice that friends and family with newborns spend a lot of time talking about diapers and what's in them.

I've written several posts about "Things that may interest only me". This is one that will interest everyone. People just like to talk about poop.

Travelers are no exception. One of the joys of traveling is seeing the little ways in which other countries are different. For instance, a friend of mine, whose name I'll change to protect his innocence, returned from his first trip abroad. How was it? The first thing he mentioned was using a bidet for the first time. I jokingly asked him if he was going to put one in every bathroom now. No, not every bathroom, every room.

It's a subject of interest for even the most experienced and jaded travelers. I traveled for a few days in northern Thailand with a German photographer. Michael has seen more of the world than anyone I've ever met.

We were having dinner at a restaurant in the soulless ex-pat enclave of Chiang Mai when he got up to use the toilet. He came out laughing with a delighted expression on his face. "Did you see this?" he asked, pointing towards the toilet. "The lemons in the urinals?"

What follows are some observations rendered as tastefully as possible.

Squat toilets are the norm in Asia, although places that are accustomed to tourists will have western-style tourists. I can understand why people might find them uncomfortable or awkward to use, but I am surprised at how absolutely apoplectic some people get about squat toilets.

To a certain type of traveler anything other than a squeaky-clean western toilet is clearly an indication that the people in that area are morally defective and should be wiped off the face of the earth. These are generally the same people who travel to faraway lands to eat at McDonald's and spend half their day in internet cafes.

I'm a guy. I don't care. Squat toilets take a bit of getting used to, but they make hygienic sense in that you don't have to touch any part of the toilet. There's also a lot less hardware involved. Also, from a practical standpoint, you're less inclined to take the newspaper in with you and sit for 20 minutes.

When you're a man the world is your urinal. I try to be discreet but it's not necessary in this part of the world. Men will pull over on the side of the highway and urinate in plain view of passing traffic. I saw an old man in Hue standing on the sidewalk peeing into the sewer drain. This wasn't a side street, it was the main thoroughfare running parallel to the river.

It's refreshing to see a culture with a more relaxed attitude towards what is, after all, a perfectly natural thing to do. Perhaps it shouldn't be necessary to go to so much trouble or to build elaborate cathedrals for a simple bodily function. People who live on boats just sit on the edge of the boat and go, often in view of passing tourist boats.

One thing I've seen throughout SE Asia that I'd love to see in the US are outdoor urinals. I see them mostly at service stations and rest stops. A row of urinals with partitions is bolted onto the back wall of the building. I'm a man so I love this. If I were a woman I wouldn't be as thrilled, since there aren't similar facilities for women.

In most parts of the world I've been the plumbing is not as sturdy as we're accustomed to in the US. Toilet paper doesn't go in the toilet, it goes in a small wastebasket. If you put tissue in the toilet it will back up. As a result you'll see signs in the stalls asking you to please put the tissue in the basket.

These signs are usually written in all capital letters and have lots of exclamation points, clearly evidence that the sign was made by a flustered employee who had just finished cleaning up yet another mess caused by a tourist who still hasn't figured out the system. I'll have to remember to switch back when I return to the US!

One thing I'm really looking forward to is not having to carry my own toilet paper with me. Most places I've been have toilet paper as a rule. But you only have to make that mistake once, using the toilet without any tissue, before you remember to bring your own.

In some places you'll have to pay to use the toilet, such as bus or train stations. Often they'll charge you for a wad of toilet tissue. I've been places, such as Nepal, where the tissue is sometimes made of plastic and is just slightly better than using nothing at all. But at least there's tissue. Some places don't use it at all.

Please indulge me for just a moment while I go off on a wild tangent.

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was from a well-to-do family in Buenos Aires, but even then he bathed so rarely that his friends called him el chancho, "the pig". Later in life, when he became a communist revolutionary known as Che, his lack of hygiene was legendary. The CIA dossier on him famously noted with questionable grammar that "He is really outstandingly and spectacularly dirty".

And yet even Che was appalled by the habits of the Quechua people of Peru. He observed that men there don't wipe at all while women use their skirts to wipe themselves and their children. In "The Motorcycle Diaries" he wrote the women are "veritable warehouses of excrement".

I can say from personal experience that this is still true.

When I was in Peru in 2005 I spent a long two hours on a local bus from Ollyantaytambo to Cuzco. My friend and I were the only tourists on the bus. I was standing in the aisle next to a woman who had the most offensive odor I have ever encountered.

It was not organic. It was not of this planet. It's what potpourri will smell like in hell. It was so bad I literally gagged. My eyes burned. I spent the entire trip holding my sleeve over my mouth and nose to keep from getting sick. No one else seemed to even notice. I had to keep reminding myself that I was the visitor and, whatever I might have felt (or smelt), by local standards it was normal.

I met a Venezuelan man in Ulaanbaatar who had just returned from a 30-day tour with his wife and two small boys. They went to western Mongolia to watch the solar eclipse. What a cool dad! He said he had thought Russian toilet paper was rough (it is) until he saw a young Kazakh girl by the side of the road wiping herself with a rock. He said he'd never complain about toilet paper again.

I always have multiple rolls of TP in my backpack. It's cheap, lightweight and doesn't take up much space. And it's something you never want to be without. Whenever I check out of a guest house I steal the TP and the soap. I almost always have a roll on my person.

This comes in handy when I'm at a restaurant that doesn't have napkins. Unlike American restaurants, where we take a six-inch stack of napkins, use two and throw the rest away, in other parts of the world you might get one or none at all. (Hopefully it's clear which method I'm criticizing.) Napkins in Vietnam are the size of post-it notes and have the absorbency of aluminum foil.

I will change my eating habits depending on my travel schedule. If I'm taking an overnight bus I'll try not to eat or drink anything, otherwise I might have to use the toilet in the middle of the night. I have made the rookie traveler mistake of drinking a couple beers to help me relax and sleep. (Trust me, it's a bad idea.)

I also don't want to take the chance of getting an upset stomach. Buses will make rest stops but you don't want to be the guy that causes the bus make an unscheduled stop because of your tummy.

Indoor showers are also a western convenience that have to be retrofitted into bathrooms in other parts of the world. If there is a tub it probably won't have a curtain. Because space is limited there usually isn't a tub or even a shower enclosure. The shower head will be put on the wall wherever it fits, which is usually over the toilet.

This method makes for an efficient use of space but it also leaves the toilet seat wet and standing water on the floor. If you need to use the toilet you can wipe the whole area down with a towel, but it makes more sense to just take off all your clothes!

I could go on but I think to do so would violate even my low standards of good taste.