Worst Toilet Experience

you gotta see it to believe it. . I was stranded at kanpur station and trains were delayed due to fog. so all the platforms were full of passengers waiting for the trains. first all the toilets became big pile of *&^%. then people started using rail tracks (under the cover of heavy fog).
thank god it wasn't summer

We were on a bus journey somewhere in Himachal. My boyfriend had an old lady sat on his knee who threw up all over him and didn;t seem to even notice. I then followed her into the loos at a stop and she stopped in the middle of the floor and peed there - despite there being cubicles....... I was a little confused about that one.

Many rural Indians on their first trip in a bus may react this way. The assumption that this lady had probably never seen the inside of a constructed loo seems to hold good here. In the villages, they go to the fields and just pee on the ground....

These toilet threads still make me smile,,,,,,,
And what an ice-breaker they are when meeting other travellers.

But for me the Pig toilets in Goa take some beating, especially when a big fat momma of a pig pokes her snorting snout through the bottom of the hole looking for her breakfast.

Incidently there used to be an occasional magazine sold along the beaches in the 70's called "The Stoned Pig" and boy that was truely an apt name for some of those pigs after having eaten their second hand breakfasts,,,,,,,,,,,,

My 2 boys (12 and 9) who had never been to Indian public toilets could not believe what they saw. The memory and smell has stuck with them. They now carry 2 bog rolls with them in their bags whenever we travel to india.

But they did find the experience extremely funny.

You mean they still smell of those toilets?

Jeezzz.... that's tough on them

Might have been in the Brindavan Gardens, Mysore. I almost stepped on a dead snake on the way to the toilet, which didn't have water, running, walkning or standing... (even though there was much much water in the gardens!) Yuck. You can imagine the smell, the rubbish, the decay... The worst toilets have been the ones without water but when ploink has to go ploink has to go...

I still think the public toilets in France leave a lot to be desired. I only bring this up because they consider themselves to be civilised!

Ummm... India considers itself to be civilised.

context, my dear fellow One would expect France, etc., to have decent sanitation.... But it falls well short of India (and the rest of the world) in its attitude towards public sh!tters. QED.

has anyone else been struck by the irony of the toilets at the taj mahal - beautiful materials, nicely laid out and stinking like a public urinal?

Haven't france's public conveniences been famous for decades?

Infamous, that is!

My 2 cents worth:

In one of my bus trips, invariably we stopped at a dhaba near Mt. Abu. Ofcourse, I had mild case of diarrhea (surprise?) The dhaba boy showed me the public facility, behind kitchen. I took one look and found me a nice big bush and some newspapers.

Do any IMer have any photos of me? Please do not publish!!!

if its more than 5-6 hours bus journey, i stop eating well in advance to avoid participating in the Crusade.

I know I know

I never ever even try to go to a public toilet

but now a days there are "Sulabh" public paid toilets which are a lil better cuz they are gen. paid [Rs. 1 & 2] [but no guarantees]