Toilets of Nepal

stemeillon
Aug 1
2 min read

Once again I’m coming to you with a delayed toilet post. I'll get right to it. Toilets in Nepal are similar to those in India—often it is a squatting situation, sometimes (especially in cities) you’ll have western style seats, and mostly people use a water gun instead of toilet paper. In the countryside and out of the city you will often use your (left) hand and a scoop of water or an empty water bottle. Refer to my India post for clarification. You cannot flush toilet paper, it goes in a little receptacle or sometimes, while trekking and in the village, I had to burn it.

Squatting is good for your circulation and mobility, and is something people do their whole lives there, whereas in the west many older people cannot sit down and stand back up. On the other hand, it’s not uncommon for women there to get POP (pelvic organ prolapse) from doing so much squatting without properly maintaining pelvic floor muscles. There are clinics and health posts that make a point to teach women about these kegel exercises, but they are not yet widespread.

When on the bus, toilet stops are timed with food stops and are almost always gender separated. They (almost 😐) always have soap at the sinks, where people will take the opportunity to clean their arms, face, neck, and sometimes teeth.

One place that I really don’t know that much about is the toilet situation in the far remote Himalayan alpine. When I was staying in Dho Tarap, a village at 14,200 ft, I noticed that when people went for business they didn’t bring any kind of hand bidet or toilet paper or rag or anything, and while there was some open air defecation, there wasn’t a lot of that visible. So it genuinely remained a bit of a mystery to me how people do their “long” business. I have a few theories and I asked some other friends, but never really settled on a satisfying answer. PLEASE IF YOU KNOW I'M DYING TO FIND THIS OUT.

Without further ado, some toilets!

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