Embarrassing travel culture shocks

[WildBalonz]

Since it’s summer and holiday season I thought it might be fun to share some silly or funny or embarrassing cultural shocks we’ve all had when travelling!

I’ll start with an incident that is both funny and embarrassing depending how you look at it. A few years ago me, my brother, his wife and her brother (my brother and sister in law) went on a trip all through China. We were on a tour bus traveling through some rural areas outside Guangzhou. We had a pit stop to stretch our legs and use the toilet etc and our driver proudly told us that the public loos we had stopped at had western toilets which were very uncommon in these areas. Great we all thought, however what he didn’t mention is that instead of individual cubicals they had very small almost like shower screens separating each toilet. Not much privacy at all! It made for a very embarrassing poo for me my sister in law and two other ladies on our tour 😂. I laugh at it now but at the time it was probably the most awkward and embarrassing experience our lives. Luckily she’s a good sport and we joke about it these days!

I seriously cannot believe that people do not use public toilets and for a poster to say it's disgusting and bad manners - wtf !

Even royalty use public toilets

America trying to cross the huge streets! The button for the crosdibg was broken and there were just a ton of us trying to figure out how we’d get across so many lanes of traffic.

Other than that wearing a knee length dress to the Vatican and a man coming over and telling me to cover my legs in a shawl.

When I first started skiing in the Alps, it was common to find squat toilets in france and italy. I don't actually mind a squat toilet, in a hot country, but in ski wear with salopettes over leggings - and plastic ski boots - they're such a difficult faff and the boots soooo slippery on the ceramic.

Mine btw is going to Greece and having a shop owner (older lady) slap my (4yo) ds's hand for touching a Keyring. Dh threatened to call the police 🤣

She may well have just been a horrible cow though - I find most Greek people friendly and kind.

Admittedly this was back in 1994 - they've changed them now - but since toilets seem to be the main subject:

Venice Beach in California, where the restroom block didn't merely lack screens; it didn't have any kind of partitions at all, so you went in to find 4 pans just stuck there in the floor and amazingly people were quite happy to use them

Tokyo in the 90s. Our local video rental store would put a leaflet through our door every week with the new porn films, with helpful pictures to give you the idea. It was divided into three sections, 'lower school' 'middle school' and 'high school'.

I've travelled a lot and most things (including all the ones on this thread) don't begin to phase me, but I never got over that one. Specially seeing as the door next to ours housed a family with small kids, who had the same posted under their door...

Don’t believe you’ve never had a crap in a public toilet!

Before or after work/ the day out. How many poos a day do people need??

I’ve had Crohn’s for 25 years I’ve shit everywhere from the side of motorways with cars driving past to the side of a harvester restaurant when I couldn’t manage the extra 20 steps to reach the toilet - some people don’t know they are born

Decades ago, seeing very poor, disabled people on homemade skate board contraptions begging amongst the car traffic in Cairo

More recently, seeing elderly farm workers bathinng in ditches in the countryside, with traffic going past

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Arriving back in UK at the start of lockdown. Getting on an empty train from Euston to a northern destination. The silence & total lack of people. It was very weird !

Oh my goodness, this! It’s truly shocking! The south of the country is awful for this (looking at you, Florida!) Disposable plastic plates/cups/cutlery everywhere - regardless of how naice a hotel is. And glasses of water in disposable plastic cups with dome lids and plastic straws everywhere you go. Shockingly bad for the environment.

Apologies farm worker above bathing was Vietnam

I see your family of 4 on an Indian moped, Abbie22222, and raise you Vietnam where I saw a mum with FIVE kids and a dog on one

A baby held in one arm, one in her lap, one on the footplate thing with the dog and two on the seat behind her

Oh, and Thailand with little children wandering among the traffic selling trinkets, and worst of all the guy missing both legs who was dragging himself along the pavement with one arm while holding a begging cup in the other.
That last one still gets into my dreams sometimes ...

I can't believe anyone thinks going for a shit in a public shitter is rude!

It's a toilet. It is designed for pooing and peeing in believe it or not!!

Irritable Bowel Syndrome and other digestive conditions are surprisingly common in case you are not aware. Many of us don't get the option to only poo at home. If we need to go then we need to go RIGHT NOW! You might not have experience of that by the way you write.

And that is fair enough. My SIL is a sufferer too - sympathies.

I’m guessing the public toilet dodgers are the same people that wouldn’t let a workman go on their own holy throne.

For some of us it can be several some days and none on others. Why is that hard to understand?

Why would you shit shame someone 😂 a log could easily pop out when you thought you were only going for a piddle.

Well I’m a Brit, and I thought it as madness too, mass hysteria …

I couldn’t believe that Lourdes in France had those awful squat toilets. I had no idea they existed in Europe. They were awful. Fortunately they’ve got rid of them.

Also, you can't necessarily do so. When I need to go I need to go. And I don't even have IBS or IBD or some other condition. So I use whatever loo is easily accessible.

MNers like to throw the word privilege around, but the first poster really is privileged if she thinks that pooing to order is universal.

I've used them in Italy as well, not that long ago, maybe 2011 or 2013.

This new year in Germany, we came across a local "shop" that had no staff, you scanned a debt/bank card to open the door then scanned and paid for your shopping at a self service till. Obviously if you were caught stealing I suppose they could charge your card but it still seemed so strange.

They also had vending machine for cigarettes and whole bottles of wine - bloody love Germany

On the coach from the airport in Turkey we stopped to refuel. I looked out of the window and was horrified to see the coach driver, petrol pump in one hand filling the tank and a cigarette in the other casually smoking away. I was convinced the coach would explode!