Travel 2013: Anatomy of an Indian toilet

Indian style toilet

There are two types of toilet in India – Indian and Western.  Indian are kind of like a slightly fancy hole in the ground, with places for your feet and sometimes a built in flushing device, other times you use a bucket of water to rinse it down.  Western are generally the same as in the U.S.  The range of cleanliness is vast – from a floor wet with water and who knows what else to very fancy and well-kept commodes, sometimes supplied with toilet paper.

All bathrooms I’ve seen so far have a secondary water source – either in a spigot or as what I see most closely as a sprayer from a kitchen sink.  The spigot usually is accompanied by a small bucket, so you can splash water.  The idea is to use that to spray yourself off after you’ve done your business.