Travel toilet photos

When most people travel, they take pictures of waterfalls, beautiful landscapes, fascinating people.

I do that too. I just also take photos of toilets.

Toilet in the hotel in Addis Ababa, capitol of Ethiopia. I was mostly interested in this one because the toilet is a rectangle. Does anyone know of anywhere else in the world the toilet seats are rectangles? It seems counterintuitive, since our buttocks are more round than rectangular. If you're wondering, it's not quite as comfortable.

This picture is the latrine of a school in rural Ethiopia. The school is in bad shape--when it rains, the children don't go to school, because the stick and mud structure is falling apart and cannot keep out the rain. Many places in Ethiopia don't even have a latrine. This one doesn't have running water, which is a biggest problem for not only hand washing, but also for young girls who are dealing with menstrual waste.



For complete contrast, this is the toilet in the palace of Haile Selassie, former emperor of Ethiopia from between 1916-1974. I don't know exactly when it was built. The bathroom also includes a bathtub and a bidet.

And now for the opposite...
Toilet in the hotel at my research site, a rural farming town near Jimma. It's as disgusting as it looks. We tell people that toilets are cleaner, but when their experiences look (and smell) like this, do we really think they'll believe us? I would rather have gone in a field.

Now, my friends are doing it for me too. This pictures if a medieval toilet in Salzburg Castle in Austria. She couldn't get closer, but like most medieval castles, it's most likely to operate on shitting in a hole that hangs out over the edge of the castle walls.

If you have toilet pictures, send them to me!