public toilet near Garut, West-Java, Indonesia

Dear all,

If you like to make aquaintance with layers of green, slimy mildew whilst on the toilet...this is definitely one of the best places for you ;)

I saw this during my trip to Indonesia 2007. Was some kind of restaurant near the Papandayan volcano near Garut, West-Java. When I came back from the toilet wasn´t hungry anymore. Bad luck for the restaurant, hehe.

Mhhh...if you are in this area, try to find the place...would like to know if they cleaned it up during the last years :)

evaluation women´s toilet Guerney Plaza, Penang

Gurney Plaza in Georgetown, Penang, ist the second largest mall on the island. It´s a place visited by plenty of tourists and quite an upmarket location. Due to this it seems that they set a high value on having attractive toilets for their customers.

• Costs? FREE
• selling tissues? no
  
• Cleanliness? 4 of 5 Stars
• Type? Western & Asian
• Toilet shower? yes
  
• Soap on tap? yes
  
• hand drying? electric hand dryer

Same as in Queensbay Mall, they have a changing room for babies which is highly appreciated from my side. If they would make some small improvents like for example offering free tissues in their toilets (especially cause there are so many western tourists who are used to this), it would be a nearly perfect public toilet. But anyway it can be highly recommended!

Universiti Sains Malaysia Girl's Toilet

One can find quite a few public toilets in the USM campus area. Mostly the toilets are hygienic but I have also experienced not so nice toilets in the campus area.
* Costs? FREE
* Selling tissues? There is no paper available
* Cleanliness? 2½ of 5 Stars
* Type? Western & Asian
* Toilet shower? yes
* Soap on tap? yes and sometimes even soap!
* Hand drying? none

Women´s toilet in Queensbay Mall

Really, you can find toilet from every corner of this mall!

• Costs? FREE
• Selling tissues? free (hand drying)
  
• Cleanliness? 4 ½ of 5 Stars
• Type? Western & Asian
• Toilet shower? yes (outside the toilets, there´s free paper available)
  
• Soap on tap? yes
  
• Hand drying? electric hand dryer + paper

All in all, Queensbay Mall is clean and super comfortable experience compared to many many others! Or what?

Evaluation men's toilet in Queensbay Mall

Queensbay Mall is the biggest mall in Penang, Malaysia. Therefore it needs to have many toilets. Regarding this I'd like to give Queensbay an extra point: On every floor they have several toilets, for women, men, disabled and changing room for babies. You can find the toilets easily as there are signs everywhere.

• Costs? FREE
• selling tissues? free (hand drying)
  
• Cleanliness? 4 of 5 Stars
• Type? Urinals, Western & Asian
• Toilet shower? yes (but no paper in the toilet)
  
• Soap on tap? yes
  
• hand drying? electric hand dryer + paper
  

Overall, I think Queensbay is one of the good examples of how public toilets should be. Although, especially for Western toilets there should be paper (of course one can take the paper from the handdryer before going), and the water on the ground makes it not very appealing to stay for a longer time than just necessary... So small improvements can be made, but overall very good!

What do you think? Do you have similar experiences?

public toilet in Taman Negara, Kuala Tahan Village

Attention: If your are a bit prissy with dirty toilets, please, don´t enlarge this picture!
This kind of "worst case scenario" of a public toilet is located at the Taman Negara National Park, Kuala Tahan Village, near the river. There was no Photoshop editing on this picture, I swear! :) I´m sure it has not been cleaned up since decades...but anyway it still seems to be in use! Sometimes, it might be the better choice to search for a bush instead of using the toilet, don´t you agree?

Evaluation women´s toilet in Komtar Building (Ground Floor near Starbucks)

• Costs? 0.20 RM
• selling Tissues? yes, 0.30 RM
• Cleanliness? 3 of 5 Stars
• Type? Western & Asian
• Toilet shower? yes
• Soap on tap? no
• hand drying? electric hand dryer

This high-frequented public toilet is not the best example how a toilet in a public building should look like. Although they take money for it, it´s not really clean.

If you live in Penang, you´ll probably end up there, sooner or later ;) What are your experiences with this toilet?

Welcome to the World of Toilets

Hello everybody,

welcome to the blog 'world of toilets'.
This blog that will hopefully become a movement to improve public toilets in Penang or even worldwide is part of a project of the class 'Globalisation, CyberCulture and Future Studies' at Science University of Malaysia (USM).

who are we?
We are four exchange students from Finland and Germany:

Anja (from Bremen, Germany): I´ve experienced some really disgusting public toilets the last years...(will show you some examples later on)...This Blog is an interesting attempt to make this world a place of better toilets, don´t you think so? Participate!

Dennis (originally from Germany, studying in Utrecht, the Netherlands): I've always wondered what the meaning of life was, and figured whatever it is in the end, we all just want to live a happy life. Sometimes, small things matter the most: like a comfortable place when you really need to relieve yourself. So, let's make this world a happier world - together :)

Emma (from Tampere, Finland): Shit happens, especially when you least expect it. Ain´t it nice!

Saara from Finland, I have been in many places and seen a lot of disgusting things and all I can say is that there is certainly nothing worse than toilet that could make you vomit only by its smell. So hopefully with this blog we can change that:
"So say no to sickening toilets, and yes to pleasure&comfort!"