Book excerpt: The ‘Travel Tales Collection, Toilet Stories,’ No. 8, March 2015, is part of Michael Brein’s ‘Collections’ travel tales series and contains among the best travel stories from Michael’s huge collection of travel tales that he has gathered in interviews with nearly 1,750 world travelers and adventurers during his four decades of travel to more than 125 countries throughout the world. ‘Travel Tales Collections’ are groups of very interesting similar travel stories of a kind on a variety of very specific travel subjects, themes, or countries, such as close calls, great escapes, pickpocketing, scams, safety and security in travel, Paris, Morocco, Mexico, and so on. Eventually, several hundred ‘Collections’ on all sorts of specific travel subjects, themes, and countries will be available on all the major eReaders. In the previous issue of ‘Travel Tales Collections,’ No 7 Feb 2015, I included a selection of food and drink experiences that you can have in your travels. Therefore, it is only fitting, after covering food and drink travel stories, that we now turn our attention to what inevitably comes next or later, namely, the subject of toilets in travel. After all, toilet experiences are an unfortunate but essential aspect of living that, like it or no, we all must come to terms with, whether on the home front or in strange exotic foreign lands. Being often beset with culture shock issues almost at every turn, especially in third-world countries, the necessity of dealing with toilets: where to find them, what to do about them, and how to use them even, elicits from many travelers nothing less than abject terror. Thus, for instance, when ‘nature calls,’ and you have barely a clue as to what to do about it or where to go . . . well, for many, it is in the least, horribly anxiety-provoking, and for others nothing less than horrifying and debilitating. For, in the best of all possible worlds—namely, in your home—where you have your bathroom all set up just as you like it, with an ample supply of paper toilet tissue rolls, a great functioning sink, fresh, safe water, nearby reading matter—in a word—you have conveniently all the first-world accouterments for dealing with the art and science of defecation fit for a king or queen, no less, at least in your own private castle, on your own private throne! But what if you find yourself in a third-world outback where you are bluntly faced with nothing but a bare hole in the ground and with NO paper of any kind anywhere in sight? And what if there are piles of human feces and hordes of flies at just about nearly every turn and in every corner? You have the stark realization that you are not in Kansas anymore. Are you of the proper mindset to deal with all of this? Be it as it may, there is, of course, much humor surrounding the subject of toilets in travel and considerable disgust as well. In this issue we pull no punches and deal with the subject of toilets overseas head on! (Pun intended!) They say, that in travel, people often ask the same basic sorts of questions over and over again when they meet for the first time. “Where are you from?” “What do you do?” “Where are you going?” and on and on. It should not be at all surprising, therefore, that one of the typical morning topics of conversation among travelers in the third-world often is—however disgusting and revolting this may be—and maybe the number one or number two (pun intended) things travelers talk about together during their early mornings (I swear this is true!)—whether they've had a good dump or not. Or, “Did, you have diarrhea again?” Or, “Did you drink the water?” It is about all this crap, literally and figuratively; there is no escaping it. Call it all TMI (too much information), but it's about what starts you off on a good or a bad day! And it IS, after all, what you really do talk about! Some of the toilet stories I've gathered are truly hilarious, and some, sad to say, are not! It's a third-world out there, and if you are not prepared for it—BEWARE! The pages in this ebook will make you much more aware! But be forewarned: this ebook is not for the faint of heart. Oh yeah, you will laugh your “okole” (Hawaiian for ‘butt’) off, and, if you're not quite ready for it, it just might dissuade you from really, truly roughing it. However, discouraging you from third-world travel is not my purpose; rather, it is to inform you, enlighten you, and prepare you, somewhat, for the inevitable consequences of drinking the ice or water, eating unpeeled fruits or veggies, eating some street food, or crossing that stream with an open sore, any of which may have some unpleasant and unintended consequences in store for you! My advice to you is this: if you are squeamish about toilets in the third-world, perhaps you should think about making alternate travel plans! In any event, the travel tales of toilets, which follow, should help prepare you for such adventures! When nature calls you and you have NO-where to go or not much of an idea of what you can do about it, well, you will have earned yourself a place in these very pages!