Stories From Myanmar part 2 (The Toilet)

29/12/05

After a nice breakfast of toast, butter, jam, eggs, cake, 2 glasses of orange drink and 2 teas we set off on our second foot tour of Yangon. We walked down the street and stopped at the railway line to watch a train crawl along at walking pace. After waving to the solders in the end carriages we continued on our way. It was not long and I was thinking about needing the toilet. We found the first pagoda we were looking for and I figured that there must be a toilet nearby. After some scouting around, I found a neat looking café so I inquired about the toilet. The boy seemed to understand, somewhat, and he led me through the kitchen (this is the normal way to the toilet in a lot of Asian countries) the kitchen was a very dark room with a dirt floor and several charcoal burners supporting large woks filled with oil only a foot off the ground. After the kitchen was a small area full of rubbish and muddy muck. I looked around for a door to the toilet, there wasn’t one to be found. I turned around and the boy pointed to the mucky corner. It smelled bad but only a bit like a toilet , I pointed at my fly and then at the corner and the boy nodded and left me there. I thought even if this is not the toilet it can’t get much worse so I did my business and left being very careful to wipe my feet on anything I could before I returned through the kitchen. Maybe it is not the usual practice to use the toilet in a café and so they didn’t feel the need to build one but please… Using a pile of muck and rubbish right next to the kitchen that’s just wrong.