Indonesian Bathrooms

I have previously written about the squat toilet, as inspired by a sign on how to use a ‘western’ toilet in a mall, but when I got home to Canada I realized that I haven’t written about the Indonesian bathroom in general…

In coastal area villages, the bathroom is still basically an outhouse built out over the water (river, lake, ocean):




But in most areas aside from these, bathrooms in Indonesia tend to have a few things in common other than the squat toilet:

The MANDI

Most bathrooms do not have showers (except in modern homes and hotels)… so there is a MANDI. A bak, or tub, which is filled with water, and a scoop (gayung) used to scoop and pour water over your body with one hand while desperately trying to scrub and lather with the other before the next scoop has to be taken. The ‘mandi’ is one of the reasons I was thinking of getting my hair chopped off in the first few months in Indonesia (the other, as you can imagine, is the incessant heat)! This scoop also serves as the 'flush' for the toilet.


TILED SURFACES

The entire bathroom is tiled, from the floor, the bak, right up to head-height…. This is because of the bathing style of splashing everything everywhere… there are no limitations imposed by a shower stall or bath tub… no, no, you just rub-a-dub-dub on the floor! This is a somewhat liberating experience, but the toilet paper (which isn't traditionally used by Indonesians, so isn't normally an issue) usually ends up a soggy mess!




The BIDET

Only in fancier homes and hotels, but in most public toilets. Always fun for a laugh the first time a westerner tries to figure out what that extra knob or button is for while looking for the flush – usually ends up as an impromptu shower! The more complicated the system, the funnier the outcome! Since this hotel HAD a shower, it was easy to know what the extra spray nozzle was for!