24 Nov How to Use a Thai Toilet
You’re in Thailand for the first time. You knew toilets existed there and just never really thought about it. I know I didn’t. But now you’re here and your porcelain throne is at ankle height, there’s no toilet paper, and there’s a dish sprayer on the wall.
What do you do now??
Nobody wants to walk out of the stall to grab the nearest person and try to mime to them that you don’t know how to use the toilet. Hard enough with the language barrier, super awkward, and I’ll bet their return miming attempts would just leave you with more questions. And your pee dance may throw them off. So let’s start from the top and save you some trouble.
First rule of Thai toilets:
Even if it’s a regular toilet from back home, if there is tissue paper do NOT wipe and flush it down the toilet. IF you wipe (I’ll get to that in a moment), throw it in the trash. Their plumbing is not equipped to handle anything other than human-derived waste.
Second rule of Thai toilets:
Left hand is your ‘dirty’ hand. Thais traditionally do not use their left hand when handling food or touching others. They tolerate this in foreigners because they know we do things differently, but that might be why that lady gave you a funny look for tapping her shoulder with your left hand.
So what the hell am I talking about?
Okay, we’ve covered number one and number two (get it?? 😆😆), now let’s get down to business!
Traditional Thai toilets don’t have the ‘throne’ shape at all. It’s basically the toilet bowl in or on the ground with ridged sides for grip. You will have either a water sprayer or a tub of clean water with a cup available (sometimes both). My pee funnel has also come in handy a couple of times if I’m wearing my backpack or feel off balance.
Step 1: Hang your bag or find somewhere clean to set it. Ladies especially, remove anything that might fall out of your pockets.
Step 2: Some who aren’t used to camping or squatting in general may want to start by taking pants off completely, or girls may have an easier time in a skirt. This takes a little balance and practice to be a pro. Step onto the toilet and square your feet on the grip areas of the bowl. Squat. Think yoga squat. About-to-lean-back-and-fall-on-your-bum squat. Feet flat on the porcelain, weight distributed evenly, knees spread slightly or together for balance and pointed to the ceiling.
Step 3: Let it flow! Relax. No. 1 (ladies) or No. 2, our bodies were made to squat. Bowel movements are actually more fully eliminated when evacuating from a squat position. Weird, right? Who knew. It’s also oddly satisfying. You might think that’s a strange thing to say until you’ve tried it. Some of you know. Don’t deny. Am I making you uncomfortable yet?
Step 4: Pick up the spray gun if available and test it to see what the water pressure is like (don’t skip this step or risk surprise and potentially slipping into your…well, you know. Sometimes it’s just a trickle while other times it may knock you off your feet! Or spray things where you don’t want them.
Step 5: Cup your left hand under you (its best to come from behind 😉) and pull the sprayer around to the front. Then either spray the water directly onto yourself, also using your cupped hand to clean the area with fresh water, or pour some clean water into your left hand to use for washing. Ladies, I hope you know this by this point in your life, but it’s very important for us to clean from front to back and not the other way around, which is the reason for positioning your hand as described. You don’t want anything gross up in your cookie jar. If you’ve never had a yeast infection or otherwise – you don’t want one…especially while on vacation.
Step 6: Let air dry and if towels or tissue are available you may pat yourself dry. But again, throw it in the trash, not the toilet!
Step 7: To ‘flush’ the toilet pour small amounts of water from the clean water basin into your dirtied toilet using the provided cup or sprayer, rinsing the sides and letting it drain, then adding more water until the toilet is clean.
Step 8: Wash your hands. I also like to use hand sanitizer mostly because they never have any paper towels in the bathrooms and wiping my hands on my dirty pants right after washing them doesn’t feel right. They also don’t always have soap, so again with the sanitizer.
There you go! You just dropped one in a Thai toilet, Thai style.
**Side note: several places now have western toilets, but still no toilet paper. So sit on the seat like normal, then lift the seat and squat to do the cleansing ritual so you don’t get water all over the seat. Not nearly as easy or comfortable, I’m not sure why they even have them.
Feel a little grossed out? Why? Here in America we take little squares of paper and wipe away our crap, leaving lots of bacteria behind (teehee, leaving it behind, and it’s on our behinds?) and irritating the sensitive skin surrounding those areas. This way is actually much more hygienic, especially with how hot and humid it is here. You’re basically getting a mini shower of the important and, er, more damp areas every time you go! Bonus!
So stretch out your hamstrings, work those glutes, splash that tush, and party like a local!
naomi
Posted at 03:37h, 23 DecemberI don’t know how I missed this one! But it made me laugh A LOT! I miss you!!