The Stalactite of Doom....

Sorry for the generally lavatorial nature of recent posts - I have now found my level and I am resolutely sticking to it. Here, therefore, are some interesting things that happen when you have a wee on a trans-Siberian train.



As on English trains, trans-Siberian train toilets deposit their contents directly onto the track. Unlike English trains, however, this is not done discreetly; instead of a pause followed by a strange suction noise, the bottom of the toilet bowl simply flips open and you can thus see your offering deposited at speed onto what must by now be a very sewagey train track.

Now this is fine in theory, but given that Siberia in February is at night twice as cold as your average home freezer, it does not work very well in practice. Understandably, the natural reaction of water or watery liquids in Siberia is to freeze, which, as the picture a couple of posts ago illustrates, means that the collective wee forms a giant pissy stalactite below the train. This makes going to the loo frankly rather interesting.

After you gingerly place your bum onto the freezing metal seat and begin to wee, the first thing you feel is your behind being bathed in a pleasant hug of warm steam. This, we think, happens because your warm wee temporarily melts the frozen dribbe of water in the bottom of the toilet bowl, but we cannot discount the possibility that the top of the 'wee column' has also been melted, and that steamy wee comes back up the toilet bowl to meet you. Which is not a very pleasant thought.

The excitment continues when you then insert toilet paper into the bowl. As the ice (and wee) at the bottom of the loo bowl have by this point refrozen, the loo roll sticks to the ice. And as the now expanding column of wee means that the toilet bowl does not fully close, a stream of Siberian air rushes in, meaning that the part of the toilet paper not glued to the bottom of the metal toilet bowl bounces around like a Mexican jumping bean on speed. It is rather hard to make it go away.

And that, I promise, is the end of all loo-related posts. At least until I eat some Sichuan hotpot....