Crappers of Asia

I am kicking myself now for not having taken pictures of the extreme variety of bathrooms that we have seen over the last three weeks. It started with Hong Kong.... if you were lucky you got a mix of regular and squat toilets. I was so surprised to see squat toilets because HK seems so regal but we figured that it related to the whole sanitary issue of not actually touching anything while in the bathroom. We lucked out most of the time and were able to find western bathrooms (and always had a supply of tissue with us) but one night I had to "live the destination" and was lucky to come out alive.

Once we hit Vietnam we did ok. We didn't encounter any squat toilets but due to the overall heat some of the bathrooms were a little sketchy. All in all, it was survivable.

The most traumatizing bathroom we hit was in Cambodia at the Dead Fish Tower restaurant. Keep in mind that it is 35 degrees there and incredibly dusty and dirty. I headed down from the second floor to the bathroom down a dirty and poorly lit hallway to a bathroom that absolutely reeked. I switched on the light fully expecting a rat to scurry into the corner. I did my best to hover over the seat and managed to catch my underwear on the toilet seat wrecking all chance of keeping sanitary. The piece de resistance was when I washed my hands... only to have all of the water empty out onto my feet because the drain pipe wasn't connected to anything. ahhhh

Tokyo has been the complete opposite. Not only is the toilet a toilet, it is a bidet, an air dryer and a noise machine... seriously, you can press a button that plays a flushing sound so as not to offend anyone if you make an inappropriate noise while in the bathroom. At first the heated seat is a little unnerving because at home, if the seat is warm, that means the last guy was in for too long. You get pretty used to it here and it is a nice surprise every time. The only thing we don't understand is the cold water to wash your hands and the lack of paper towel to dry. Still researching that one.....

M