A Bunch of Burts

WARNING! This post is not for the squeamish!

We are back from our trip to the NE! As always we had a wonderful time with our dear friends the Sullivans. Before we left, I thought to myself, self, what sorts of things should I document to make the trip come alive to everyone at home? What new and interesting things should I show them? Ah, of course, I will document the phenomenon known as… the squatty potty. As it turns out, no two are exactly the same with varing degrees of “appeal”.

Here in Chaing Mai, as a big city, you often have a choice of potty style, or even in some places, they are all western style toilets, but in the small towns and more rural areas, the squatty rules. Our first forced exposure to the squatty potty was around Christmas, as we took our first bus trip out to the NE. The bus stopped at a rest stop of sorts for a 20 minute break, for food and bathrooms. However after seeing the facilites, the girls had to be ordered in the bathrooms with not a small amount of threatening, as I knew there was no way they could hold it for another 7 hours and was not hopeful that the next stop would be any better!

The last time we were at this particular potty, the floor was flooded as the water for the cistern had just been let to run. Pull up those pant legs!

Not having had any previous ‘training’ on the use of these beauties, it was all on the job training for us! How exactly does one ask for a demonstration anyway? Greg and Zach clearly have an advantage in this one! But when you gotta go, you gotta go, and so we bravely entered.

Now one thing I have learned in our time here, is that in my bag, I always carry an ample supply of tissues and hand sanitizer.

This unusally clean squatty is in the house of two SIL ladies. Nice contrast, don’t you think? The muddy footprints were just made by kids, I was not quick enough with the camera!

This is at the tribal church in the NE where our friends the Sullivans work.

Some of the public restrooms (that term is used loosely) are pay potties. Usually it is three baht to use the facilites and another 2 or 3 if you want paper. I have noticed that there is an inverse correlation at work here. Invariably, the higher the charge to use the bathroom, the worse condition it is in. Hmmm

Then there is this one, in the house of an NTM family, a vertiable throne!

You may be wondering, how do you flush? You dip the small bowl into the cistern and pour it in. A good system if you do not have reliable running water.

On our way back home, driving this time, we stopped several places along the way for gas and refreshment. One station in particular, had a lovely bathroom, blue polished tiles, clean floors, sinks with actual soap, toilet paper, and gasp, western toilets. Closer inspection however revealed why squatty potties are sometimes preferred. Each and every western sit-down toilet had been used as a squatty, complete with wet and muddy footprints.

Arrgh! Out comes the handy supply of tissues and sanitizer. That pit stop took longer than usual as all us girls waited to use the one clean toilet.

Us girls have decided it is easier to travel in skirts and are thankful that at our home in Chiang Mai we have not one, but two western toilets! One thing though about the squatty style though, it does cut down on ‘library’ time in the bathroom!

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 14th, 2007 at 3:57 am and is filed under Family Events, News, Thai life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.