I have an even better toilet experience (or rather worse) this year. HCMC (Saigon) in one of the big markets (not one tourists typically go to.) We were having Pho at one of the little food stands, and my daughter and I needed to “go.” My lovely Vietnamese niece asked about a bathroom and translated the directions. She was in stitches when we came back. One upon a time there had been stalls in the restroom with squatties. These were used for storing stuff. There was a large basin of water with plastic buckets. You toss some water on the tile floor and pee in the puddle you’ve made, then wash it down with a little more water. (Standing in the pee puddle, of course.)A real life walk in toilet! The we walked back around the corner into the food stands, feet drying of our pee on the way, to finish our noodles. Yum!

Tip from a long-time local: This, my friends, is why you pay more money for a fly in fishing trip to the bush. More of a true Alaskan ‘commune with nature’ sort of experience…and alot less stinky to boot. After all, the whole point of Alaska is to get away from people. So why go fishing on the Kenai? Seriously.

Anyway, regarding Robert’s list – my least favorite toilet is not the mud hut I used in Uzbekistan…not the many trees I used in Alaska…and not the roadside communal squat & dump I used in China.

No…the worst was a lot closer to home, in Tijuana, Mexico. I’d rather go in the great outdoors than the bathroom I was directed to in one of the liquor stores I visited there. At least the great outdoors gets rained on occasionally, whereas this bathroom hadn’t seen the business end of a sponge in decades. 17 years later, and I still get the dry heaves just thinking about it.

If I’m thinking of the same place on the Kenai (the place with the small cable “ferry”), that thicketed area is a hiding spot for black and brown bears looking for a free salmon or two from the folks who are fishing on the river bank. I have even read stories about guys unloading shotguns at attacking bears right on that very spot. A guy was bitten on the butt by one at the nearby Cooper Landing campground.

Your toilet paper description is the …. errrr…. icing on the cake.

Reminded me of my own walk-in toilet experience on the Kenai River, combat fishing. The guide put me on the bank of the only stopping spot around. Inside this “thicket” the toilet paper covered the ground and dangled from the shrubs and some even hung from the branches overhead. Don’t know why, not sure I want to know. Smelled lovely. Unforgettable Alaska.