Tariffs
May 29th 2008 08:58
A practice that I was not familiar with and still don't quite understand is paying before going into a public bathroom. Now this seems like a good idea, right? Making tourists pay a fee to use your facilities so that you can afford to keep them clean and well stocked. However, these bathrooms are some of the worst I have ever been in.
A sad truth about travelling is everyone gets a bit of a runny tummy now and again. Also long coach trips usually mean that when you finally get a break or reach your destination, nature can come knocking rather loudly. When you're desperate you'll pay anything... and the locals know this. They will demand pay before you enter the bathroom and of course when you enter you sometimes regret parting with your money.
A particular bathroom always comes to mind when I think of paying to use facilities. This one was in a little tourist village in France just near the Spanish border. We were on the way to Nice from Barcelona and stopped in the village for lunch. Many of my fellow travellers were desperate and needed the bathroom rather badly. Cleverly, there was only one actual public bathroom in the whole village and to enter you had to pay a rather large some of money. Of course a little rude old French lady manned the ladies door and nastily regarded us and our money. In a later discussion, we learned she charged everyone a different amount. As English speakers in France you always come second best. This was at the start of the Euro change over and France still primarily used francs and after leaving Spain, we had very little local currency on hand. Scraping what few francs we had only granted us permission for one, being of the fairer sex, my companion insisted I go. Gratefully I accepted but once I entered I was horrified. The walls seemed to be smeared with excrement and of course there wasn't a piece of soap or square of paper in sight. The smell was rather revolting and I couldn't stomach the room, leaving almost as soon as I stepped in. I was not alone in my disgust and a few non-french speakers tried to argue with the lady in charge. This was to no avail and in the end we lost out. My partner had gone off to seek an alternative bathroom and had sneakily entered a busy restaurant and confidently used their facilities. I eventually did the same, although many others braved the horrors of the public bathroom. They saw us coming that day.
A sad truth about travelling is everyone gets a bit of a runny tummy now and again. Also long coach trips usually mean that when you finally get a break or reach your destination, nature can come knocking rather loudly. When you're desperate you'll pay anything... and the locals know this. They will demand pay before you enter the bathroom and of course when you enter you sometimes regret parting with your money.
A particular bathroom always comes to mind when I think of paying to use facilities. This one was in a little tourist village in France just near the Spanish border. We were on the way to Nice from Barcelona and stopped in the village for lunch. Many of my fellow travellers were desperate and needed the bathroom rather badly. Cleverly, there was only one actual public bathroom in the whole village and to enter you had to pay a rather large some of money. Of course a little rude old French lady manned the ladies door and nastily regarded us and our money. In a later discussion, we learned she charged everyone a different amount. As English speakers in France you always come second best. This was at the start of the Euro change over and France still primarily used francs and after leaving Spain, we had very little local currency on hand. Scraping what few francs we had only granted us permission for one, being of the fairer sex, my companion insisted I go. Gratefully I accepted but once I entered I was horrified. The walls seemed to be smeared with excrement and of course there wasn't a piece of soap or square of paper in sight. The smell was rather revolting and I couldn't stomach the room, leaving almost as soon as I stepped in. I was not alone in my disgust and a few non-french speakers tried to argue with the lady in charge. This was to no avail and in the end we lost out. My partner had gone off to seek an alternative bathroom and had sneakily entered a busy restaurant and confidently used their facilities. I eventually did the same, although many others braved the horrors of the public bathroom. They saw us coming that day.
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