Toilets on Tour

I am wondering if you are expecting a day by day account of our travels, but I have decided to group things together as there are so many similarities throughout Portugal (P), Morocco (M), and Croatia (C).  Incidentally, on this trip we also visited Singapore, Britain, Germany and Bosnia. But just to kick things off, a short post on the necessities of life. Beds, sheets and pillows seem very different to NZ. And of course toilets! these three are from our toilets in Morocco. They are generally about 2 dirham to go to (about 14c), and if you are lucky you get some toilet paper for this price, but the quality of the toilet paper leads something to be desired.

 This is the wash room at the Mosque of Hassan II. Diana is a GP in Melbourne with a special interest in Palliative care and was very helpful to me if I needed a hand up or down. I knew in this case that the toilet would be a squat toilet - and worried about how I would get up and down, however my tramping etiquette made it a successful mission without Diana's help! On Fridays and feast days this fountain would be working and many women at a time would carry out their ritualised washing before going upstairs to pray - not with the men as their raised bottoms as they knelt forward might inflame the passions of the men.

 This little cute toilet was on our first day in Morocco, where we stopped for lunch. On of our tour party insisted that we have lunch - seemingly unaware that we wouldn't get served for a while - as lunch is not until at least one. He seemed to think he would get a beer at this restaurant. Poor George. The silly thing was that he was married to an Egyptian woman - you'd think he might have been a little more aware of these customs. George sells caravans.

This is in our riad (hotel) in Marrakech. Now thats what I call a real throne!