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Doing a Pee Pee in Koh Phi Phi

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(I know I’ve written about toilets in Thailand once before. You can read about my massive culture shock here. But I couldn’t resist doing it again for World Toilet Day, a great cause raising awareness of global sanitation, which you can read all about here.)

 

I’d heard the rumours, seen the videos, bought the neon garments and the hefty plane ticket and the malaria tablets. Thailand, islands, sun, a break from real life, the glittering sea ahead of me, the grey of England behind me. It all seemed so promising.

 

There comes a time in everyone’s life when you are just so desperate for the toilet that you will go anywhere. I don’t mean that I regularly relieve myself in public, on the bus or against a lamppost like my dog so enjoys doing. I just mean that there are only so many ten hour bus journeys you can sit on in the sweltering heat before you finally give in and pee in a squat.

 

Welcome To Thailand - American Standard Squat ...

Welcome To Thailand – American Standard Squat Toilet at Bhurapa University in Bang Saen (Photo credit: Marshall Astor – Food Fetishist)

 

Everyone else was doing it. Everyone else, the unending army of tattooed, swearing, bikini-wearing twentysomethings, were all knocking back their buckets, swimming naked in the sea, and fornicating on the hot Thailand sand. They were also all doing their business in the Thai toilets. I couldn’t bring myself to do any of those four things. What kind of backpacker was I, for goodness’s sake?

 

It had to happen sometime, however. It finally occurred at Slinky‘s, a club in Koh Phi Phi, at 4AM. The irony of the island’s name, pronounced Koh Pee Pee, was not lost on me as I chatted and danced and dipped my feet in the pitch black sea, doing everything I could to distract myself from the inevitable. I contemplated walking the twenty minutes up a very steep hill back to my own room.

 

This, however, would still not have been too much of a comfort. The toilet often gurgled like a sick child, and the bathroom was also home to a large, jagged rock. When I wasn’t trying to avoid falling on it and decapitating myself, I often noticed various creepy crawlies scuttling out of their home and glancing at me, scared and shivering, trying to have my ice cold shower in peace, and retreating calmly back into their humble abode.

 

Finally, I decided, I must ‘seize the bull by the horns – travelling is about stepping out of your comfort zone and trying new things’. Cliches, undoubtedly plucked from an overzealous self-help book, but something to hold on to in the hedonistic surroundings.

 

Removing myself from the pounding house music, gyrating sweaty teenagers and Thai men casually throwing fiery spears around, I made my way to the Slinky’s ‘bathroom’ to attempt to relieve myself. I paid 10 Baht – the equivalent of 20p, but infuriating nonetheless – and entered the odorous cubicle. I pulled down my denim shorts, splattered with neon paint, and crouched in the thigh-achingly painful position I had been instructed to adopt by those better-travelled and less bratty than myself.

 

A cockroach scuttled under the door and glanced curiously at me, its odd little antennae twitching in the air. I shuddered with disgust, praying it would not run up my leg and thinking about making a dash for it, but it was too late. My bravery had paid off. I had been holding in my ‘Phi Phi’ for about five hours and my relief was evident in as many seconds. The music still thudded outside: I had survived my ordeal. Now that I had got the first pee over with, I would be able to enjoy the bus journeys, the restaurants, the hostels. Now I could see that they weren’t so bad, these squats – that there were actually a lot of hygienic advantages compared to the Western toilets that the world and their hairy, pimply grandmothers have all plonked their generous bottoms upon.

 

I went back to the beach, back to the familiar hammering sound of Swedish House Mafia, the familiar sight of people, high on bravado, getting their first tattoos, the familiar scent of Sangsom being chundered upon the pavement as friends attempted to outdo each other.

 

Thailand was debauched, there was no doubt, but now I could witness it all without hopping on one leg.

 

 

 

I am part of the #Blog4Sanitation movement setup by Splashdirect to raise awareness of the importance of global sanitation. Learn more about World Toilet Day.

 

 

 


Filed under: Asia, Thailand, Travel Tagged: Asia, culture, Phi Phi Island, Thailand, Toilet, travel, World Toilet Day

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