Bejing toilets
 

Are they as gross as I have read? Squatting or Western? I always travel with the small Kleenex packages, and the disinfecting hand wash. Whatelse should I bring?

There are more than 50 branches of McDonald's in Beijing, even more branches of KFC, many department stores and shopping malls, dozens of upmarket hotels, all of which have perfectly decent toilets available, which are Western-style.

The 'as gross as I have read' squat toilets are in what remain of the hutong, for the use of residents, and to a lesser extent in some railway and bus stations, etc., but even these are in a better state than they used to be.

Peter N-H
http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

Just for the record. I spent 26 days in China and always used a western toilet and yes I did leave the hotel! :) Bathrooms were usually cleaner than the ones at my local Kmart!!! The chinese matrons LOVE to wash those marble bathrooms floors.....makes those little puppies slippery!!!

It depends on where you are. Most hotels & decent restaurants have Western Style. If you go out to the countryside or use the trains, it can be scary at best! My husband found at our local Sav-On(drugstore) a "camping roll of TP" It comes in a plastic case that snaps shut. It is basically a small roll of TP without the tube. The beauty is that if you find yourself in a squatting position, the TP plastic container can be held with your teeth, freeing up your hands! Definitely bring the waterless antibacterial handwash. Good Luck and enjoy!

Hi

My wife and I went to China in March this year and we went to Beijing, Xi'an and Hong Kong. In Beijing we went walking a couple of days and we came across places where there were not that many tourist. I think I found the most gross toilet in a small hutong near Tiananmen Square and it was basically just a hole in the floor...another toilet I went to had a man squatting doing his business and he was smoking and looking at me because there were no proper cubicals or doors. But it was not hard to find western style toilets either. I have posted more &quot;toilet experiences&quot; in my trip report from China on my personal homepage <font color=blue>www.gardkarlsen.com</font>. Maybe you can find some useful information there :-)

Regards
Gard
Stavanger, Norway

We also used some squat toilets on our trip to China, even in the Forbidden City. I saw a trough in Nanjing but couldn't bring myself to use that. However, there are enough western style toilets around, too. Carry your own toilet paper with you and definitely have the waterless antibacterial soap with you. I really don't think the toilet siutation is as gross as you may have heard. Don't let that discourage you.

Don't worry, it's not that bad! There are western style toilets in a lot of the tourist places. If you go out of the way, you'll probably have to use a squat toilet, but once you're there and you have to pee, it's surprisingly not as bad as you imagine before you leave on your vacation.

We do try to go before and hold out for the hotels, tourist shops, etc. In dept stores and some tourist factory stops I have still come across squat facilities with water to dip and rinse/flush. In gardens/palace stops I have found the open trough with water running in it. Just ask your traveling companion to hold all your belongings and keep your pockets empty--you'll get used to it.

One woman we met on one of our trips said she made checking out toilets and other such part of her visit to any country. Her finding in China was that the squat ones were generally better than Western ones that weren't often flushed or maintained in some locations.