TRAVEL

After Another Few Weeks In Malaysia, My Washroom Questions Came Back With A Vengeance

I need answers NOW.

Linda Ng
The Starving Tourist
3 min readNov 9, 2023

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This looks pretty normal to me. (photo provided by Linda Ng)

I was in Malaysia for a few weeks and I lived in a local house. I always had questions about using washrooms in Malaysia ~ I don’t think I ever really got any solid answers. On Medium, I even posted a few stories about it before. After coming back to Canada, my questions came back with a vengeance like never before.

Let’s go for a little background here.

I grew up in Canada. Toilets were the standard ones and I had never seen a squat toilet in my life. I still remember the very first time I saw a squat toilet. It was when I arrived at KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) and had to go to the washroom after a very long flight. I rushed into a stall and threw the open door only to find a squat toilet greeting me. I was shocked and very dismayed for a moment. Then I panicked, I don’t know what to do! Which way do I face? Do I squat all the way down? What if I slip or can’t get back up? Thankfully, the airport had other stalls with standard toilets and I used those instead.

Now these toilet questions could easily become a separate story. What I really want to talk about here are the “wet washrooms”. While I was in Malaysia, I lived in a local house, not a…

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