Can of worms: the world's worst toilets

by Ben Groundwater

Trust me, I've seen much, much more disgusting ones but, for pure comedy value, my favourite "bad" toilet would have to be in Thailand.

Having talked my erstwhile travel buddy, the Hilton Hippy, into slumming it for a while, we spent a week in a beachside bungalow on Kho Phangan (just us, and a few thousand other tourists).

Our little party pad was budget at best, with two bare beds, a concrete floor and a bathroom with one of those toilets I've only ever seen in Thailand - the half Western, if you will ...

I call it the half Western because the bottom bit is like a Western-style toilet, but there's no top bit, meaning to flush it you have to fill up a bucket of water and pour it into the dunny. You see them everywhere in Thailand.

But what was so great about our little bungalow's bathroom was the doorway, which was built about three centimetres lower than the Hilton Hippy and I. While this wouldn't seem like much of a hassle, when you wake up every morning with a bucket-of-vodka-Red-Bull induced hangover, you tend to forget your bathroom doorway's little idiosyncrasy.

So for seven days straight we would struggle out of bed, stumble towards the bathroom, and, crack! - smash our foreheads on the doorway. We'd then briefly writhe around on the ground in pain, get up, go to the toilet, pour the bucket of water in, and wait to watch the other one do exactly the same thing.

Toilets are the great leveller when it comes to travel. No matter what your travel habits are, it's the one place everyone has to visit. And they range from the spotlessly clean and technologically savvy (Japan) to the faeces-coated hell holes (ah, name your country).

And in the peculiar world that is life on the road, the humble crapper is the topic of constant conversation. For some reason, there's no taboos on talking about poos. Number twos become the number one thing to chat about.

I travelled through Africa for three months on an overland truck, and we'd find ourselves talking toilets as much as we would our other favourite topic: what we were going to eat when we got to Cape Town. A typical conversation would go something like this:

"Hey, where'd you go?"
"Oh, just went to the toilet."
"Really? How'd you go?"
"Yeah, not bad, pretty solid."
"Oh, nice one."

Having travelled a bit now, I've seen my fair share of disgusting dunnies - a fair few of them in camp sites in Europe. But hey, I was even shocked the first time I saw a squat. Travelling to Hanoi, I'd stopped over at KL International, and went for a quick toilet stop. There, to my surprise, was a bare hole in the ground and a hose. "What the hell am I supposed to do with this?" I thought.

And that one was clean! Now I'm no expert on this, but seeing as most Asians use squat toilets ever single day of their lives, you'd think they'd have better aim. It's ridiculous the amount of squats I've walked into which look like the guy in there before me had had a fit while he was on the can. What's wrong with using the hose?

I saw a whole new spin on the squat in the train I took from Hanoi to Hue in Vietnam, where the toilets were literally holes cut in the metal floor of the train, with the tracks flashing away below.

In places like India, you've also got the dilemma of how to clean up. Do you wander around all day carrying an annoying roll of dunny paper, or do you go Indian and use the jug of water? Or, for guys, do you just adopt a "when in Rome" mentality and disregard the use of toilets altogether?

I've got to say, I'm no fan of the long-drop either. While there are a few in national parks around Australia that have made me want to grab the bog roll and head for the nearest bush, the worst I've ever seen was in a tiny place called Sipi Falls in Uganda.

The long-drops, housed in a little wooden shack, were all covered with wooden hatches. You'd walk in there, gingerly lift the hatch, and be enveloped in a swarm of flies and an almighty stench coming from the pit.

That was only a little bit worse than the combo I found in a little makeshift camp in the Serengeti, though: a long-drop squat, with the threat of being mauled by a lion while walking over to it. But hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go.

Then there are always those times when you can't make it to a toilet at all. It's back to nature time in the bush. While that might seem all rustic and manly, the actual act is not much fun, particularly if, like me, you miss the little hole you've just dug for yourself.

For the girls on our Africa trip, particularly when we were in Tanzania and Malawi, things were even worse. A few minutes after our truck pulled up by the side of the road, hordes of locals would inevitably appear out of nowhere, and follow the girls around to check things out, probably out of pure curiosity more than anything else.

Once, in Tanzania, I was squatting behind a bush, trying to get finished as quickly as possible, when a women and her son casually walked past about two metres away from me. Little did I know, I'd squatted right next to a walking path. I made a hasty retreat. I assume the woman and her son did, too ...

Hope you're enjoying the Backpacker blog. There'll be a new one up on smh.com.au every Wednesday, for a bit of light relief to remind you of why you went to work in the first place: to save up enough money to get the hell out of here! If there are any good travel topics you think I've missed, drop me a line at bgroundwater@fairfax.com.au.

Got a dodgy dunny story? What's the worst you've ever seen? Are some countries worse than others? Let us know. Everyone that comments on our blog entries goes into the draw to win an Ocean and Earth 65 litre Travel Backpack valued at over $120. Please include your email address in your comment to go into the draw.

Great White Shark Cage Diving

Cage Diving.

The very mention of it polarises people and almost everyone has an opinion on whether the activity is pro-conservation or completely anti-conservation.

I had worked in the dive industry for a few years and had heard every opinion: It teaches the wild animals a domesticated behaviour, it brings this massive killing machines closer to surfing beaches, operators used whole goats on link chains to lure them... I had heard it all.

I had also been fortunate enough to be in the water with a fair few sharks over the years, including some Great Whites in Western Australia, so my curiousity was always peaked when I heard somebody else's opinion of cage diving.

I began to realise that there is really only one way to fully appreciate and understand the pros and cons of it and that was to do it.

Shark diving is most popular in Australia, Mexico and South Africa because this is where the Great Whites are most prevelant.

I travelled to South Africa in 2003 as part of a bigger trip. When I arrived in Cape Town I still didnt know if i was actually going to do it and the myriad of operators and spruikers touting cage diving in the city made me wonder again if i really SHOULD be doing it.

Being the anal retentive nerd that I am I did some solid research into the operators before choosing one that I was fully comfortable with. It was true that a few of the operators I spoke to seemed very "cowboy" about the activity but the company that I eventually chose spoke in depth about the conservation of the animal and their worry that the other operators doing stupid things were in fact bringing the whole industry into question.

Most of the cage diving in South Africa is done near the pretty little town of Hermanus. This place was originally built up on the back of the Great White industry but since then has developed its own tourism identity and there are several hostels and other cool little places to stay here.

We left on the boat pretty early from Hermanus to make the short (maybe too short) journey out to "Shark Alley". This is the area that our operator used due to the clarity of the water, the relative shallow depth and the resident seal colony nearby which ensures quite a few sharks meandering through looking for a feed.

Once at anchor, the crewmen started to "chum" the water. They used shark livers to entice passing sharks to have a closer look at the source of this strong scent.

At first, nothing happened. At least one hour had passed and there was still no sign of anything bigger than a few passing tuna in the water.

Then, silently a shadow passed underneath the boat. A massive shadow. The first of the Great Whites had arrived.

The silence in the water was matched by a weird silence on the boat as well. There were 8 of us: a Kiwi, two Canadians, two French, an Irish guy, two Swiss girls, and me. Not one of us said a word as this huge fish did a few quiet laps around our increasingly-small boat.

Then Francois, the skipper, snapped us out of it by bellowing to his two crewmen, "Get the cage in the water!"

That was the first time I had actually looked at the cage, and it didn't exactly instill confidence. Sensing my anxiety, Francois murmured quietly to me, "It's stronger than it looks". Reassuring.

It wasn't long before there was another Great White circling the boat, then another. The crew had attached half of a tuna to a line and threw it out over the top of the cage which was now between the lure and us. The sharks didnt seem too fussed by it but instead kept circling very close to the boat. It was as if there was a hierachy between them as one would come in and have a close look at us, then another would replace him.

With the cage in the water off the side of the boat, and all of the group now shivering in their wetsuits (not all from the cold wind), it was time for the first group to go in.

The cage could only hold four at a time so I graciously gave up my place in the first group to anyone that wanted it really. Not the smartest decision perhaps because by the time my group went in the water there was three more Great Whites (now six) in the water and they seemed to be getting angrier by the second.

Once in the cage you feel very very exposed. There is no doubt in a rational mind that it is made from super high strengthile steel and would be virtually impossible for a shark (or anything else) to breach - but there isnt exactly rational minds in it! It is the strangest mix of adrenaline, curiousity and flat out fear that makes every minute you are in the cage seem like a second.

As the sharks approach from their patrolling orbit the crew drag the lure towards the cage which makes them swim very quickly towards us, usually with their huge mouths wide open. At the last minute, the sharks change their course when they realise they are not going to get to eat either the tuna or the humans in this strange cage.

By the time both groups of four had had a few rotations each in the cage there was seven sharks in the water - the largest of which the skipper estimated to be almost 4 metres in length and about 1000kg.

We stayed at Shark Alley for a few hours and then made a closer visit to the seal colony camped on some adjacent rocks on the way back to shore. Seemingly both cautious and partially oblivious to the danger awaiting them, they made frequent quick dashes between their two rock homes across the Alley all day. I dont think they are too clever because these sharks just swam up and down the Alley all day munching away on them. I am pretty sure that if I was a seal and just saw my mate get eaten by something the size of a car, not only would I not swim back across but I would probably tell my other seal mates about it so they wouldnt swim across either.

It is a completely exhausting day. When you return to Hermanus you feel exhilirated and strangely proud of yourself (brave humans in cages) but also completely drained and tired from the constant surge and release of adrenaline.

The one adjective that I was left with in my mind to describe these animals was strangely "beautiful". A savage beauty but a beauty nonetheless. The way they are able to move so effortlessly through the water despite their big weight and size was something I will always remember.

So the big question... The operator that I went cage diving with was first class. He was very interested in the conservation of the sharks - mostly because his very lucrative income was derived by them returning each day. There were no goats on link chains thrown to the sharks, nor was their any kind of red meat or other product of land animals. The lure used (tuna) is in the shark's normal diet and none of the sharks were harmed, scared or taunted.

There is some discussion as to whether the operators are bringing the Great Whites closer to the shores and to Hermanus' many great surfing beaches. The statistics on shark attacks don't really support this and I have to say when we were out at Shark Alley land was barely visible in the distance.

I guess the simple answer is I don't know. It was certainly one of the most memorable and unique experiences of my life but I wasn't left with a definitive idea of whether it was good for our (and the shark's) environment or not.

Maybe you will just have to make up your own mind...

Nick Bowditch

Below is a really well made video of cage diving off Guadalupe, Mexico. It is filmed by Rob Breskal and edited by Alex Finn.

Please support Adopt-A-Shark and participate in shark conservation today.

http://www.adoptashark.com/