I hope I haven’t offended you with the title, but if I have, I would suggest you read no further.

But shit really does happen and this is a blog about exactly that.

I have been in Sri Lanka for a week now, and stayed in three different hotels. Each one has been wonderful, and each one has a very stylish bathroom. But they all suffer from the same problem. The toilet roll holder is out of reach. The problem seems to be exacerbated by the positioning of the toilet. Instead of being flat against the wall it stands about a foot away from it. The reason is that they don’t hide the plumbing in the wall, they box it in, in front of the wall and then the toilet abuts (you had to know I was going to use that word!) to that. So to clarify what I mean, here is a photo of the toilet in the bathroom at 98 Acres in Ella

Before I continue my rant about the toilet paper, let’s discuss the bin or trash can to the right of the toilet. The room cleaner positions it there every morning. And why would that be?There is no bin liner inside so I presume they are not asking us to put our used toilet paper in the bin as they do in some poor countries where the plumbing is bad. There is certainly no sign asking us to do that, So what is it doing there? Gordon and I spent hours discussing it but couldn’t think of anything. Any suggestions would be gratefully received.

Now back to the toilet roll holder. As you can probably tell it is just slightly more than an arms length away. But what makes it even more difficult to reach is that it is a good 12 inches back. So take a look at it from this angle:

It is impossible to sit on the toilet and reach for the toilet paper. So I find myself leaning over to the side and twisting my body sideways. At this point I can sometimes manage to snatch a piece of toilet paper. I am too old for this! It demands a certain agility, quickness of hand and a long reach, none of which I possess. The alternative is that I might actually fall off the toilet. Now that would be embarrassing, and maybe a little messy. And if I actually hurt myself and have to call for help? Can you imagine trying to explain to the medic how it happened.

So, I found myself testing alternative methods of using the toilet. I tried sitting sideways on the toilet. A considerably better position for reaching the toilet paper, but a very uncomfortable position for everything else. Either my bum is totally the wrong shape for sitting side saddle, or the toilet is.

So then I tried sitting facing the wall. At first this seemed like a very sensible solution. My bum actually fits nicely on the seat and I could easily reach the toilet paper. But I quickly discovered that I ended up hugging the cistern between my legs, with my chest up against the cistern and my chin resting on top of it. Call me old fashioned, but there was something not right about it. I was just not ready to get that intimate with a toilet.

So, dear readers, you have just spent the last few minutes reading about my toilet problems. I recognise that it is a third world problem, but as I said at the beginning shit does happen, and when it does we need to know how to deal with it.

And fortunately traveling with Gordon helps. On the second day at 98 Acres, he suddenly realised what the trash can was for.

And that, dear reader, is why I never travel without Gordon