When I meet other travellers I think the most popular topic of conversation is the public toilets here in China. We can talk for hours about them, comparing and contrasting, trying to see who has been to the worst and survived!
There’s two problems with the toilets here in China, cleanliness and privacy. Lack of privacy doesn’t necessarily mean a lack of cleanliness or vice versa. It’s usually with a sense of trepidation that you enter a public toliet, not know what to expect for each experience….
For me the cleanliness is not the biggest issue as holding your breath and stepping carefully can be very effective. Besides, with squat toilets there is no actual contact, it’s that bit more hygenic! No, for me the problem is the privacy issue. To understand this problem I have I would really have describe the many options that could be facing you when you enter a public toliet here….
Option 1: standard cubicles with high walls and doors that close and possibly even lock, this is very rare….
Option 2: standard cubicles with high walls and no doors but with the toilet to one side so that only your knees and head are visible by passers by, this is relatively acceptable
Option 3: Option 2 except with waist high walls.
Option 4: Now all notion of privacy is thrown out the window, the walls are waist high, the “stalls” are completely open, the squat toilets have been eliminated and instead there’s a gutter……
So yeah, there’s a whole world or adventure and excitement when you find yourself visiting a toliet in a petrol station, bus or train station….
You can even get bathrooms with views, it wasn’t just my room in Tiger Leaping Gorge that had a great view, the shared toilets had almost the same one…..
In Lijiang I managed to find a 5-star public toilet, it’s like a toliet in a fancy hotel, it’s beautiful, a work of art really – individual cubicles, locking doors, amazingly clean ceramics, sometimes I was tempted to pay the entrance fee just to stare in wonderment at it….
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