We had booked a room at a nice sounding hotel, who offered a complimentary pickup service. Unfortunately after pushing our way through the utter mayhem of New Delhi station, and eventually locating the ATM beside which they had arranged to meet us, they were nowhere to be seen. By this point Clairy was feeling violently sick and had found a space between some armed police and raggedy-beggars to plonk herself with her head between her legs. While I furiously phoned the hotel who let me know their driver had 'just left', a couple of young station sweepers thought it would be funny to try and sweep the poor girl up in a cloud of manky dust until one of the surly looking police shooed them away.
Eventually our ride did arrive, and I had to inform him quietly but firmly that if I asked him to stop he had to immediately, but at the same time to get us to the hotel as quickly as possible without killing us. This he did with consumate skill, and luckily for us Clairy made it, and the room was one of our best yet.
The following morning she felt a lot better, and whilst perusing our guide book's list of sights and activities for Delhi, one place jumped right out at us as a must see item. It was of course, the Sulabh International Museum of Toilets (yeah...not just boring old domestic bogs). I don't think there was any conscious connection with the events of the previous night though.
On the double page city-wide map of Delhi, it was off the page by a good 20km. After a quick discussion we decided that getting lost in a distant suburb with a non-english speaking rickshaw driver wouldn't be much fun, so we asked the hotel and coughed up for a taxi who claimed to know where we wanted to go. He did manage to get us there, but the rickshaw we got back cost about a quarter of the price.
Initially we headed into what looked like the main entrance, but this turned out to be a large public lavatory for the use of the neighbourhood's residents. Someone inside noticed our looks of confusion and guided us through a gate to the museum that was at the back of the complex.
We were shown into the museum by a hyperactive young man, who explained that he would be our guide for the museum, and afterwards we could take any pictures we liked and peruse it at our leisure. He was a nice enough chap, and had a lot of funny anecdotes to accompany the huge array of toilet related exhibits. To be honest it would surely be hard to do a guided tour of a toilet museum without it being at least slightly amusing to my childish mind, but he did a good job. We weren't quite sure though whether he had some prior engagement as he did rush us around at a incredible speed before pegging it off out the door.
Beside the first display our host positively beamed with nationalistic pride, whilst explaining that the first ever flushing toilet with piped sanition was built almost 5000 ago in the Indus Valley, in northern India. The archeological dig shown below apparently shows this first 'modern' toilet.
Where did all go wrong eh?
One of the next items that grabbed our attention was this ancient greecian bath that Clairy had encountered in Crete.
This example with separate cubicles for the boss and their employees was apparently thought up in America in the 1920s. Our host was keen to inform us that although it looks like the boss is 'crimping one off' on his minions' head, there is actually normal plumbing inside carrying the waste away. Nice.
We learnt about the origins of the modern water flush toilet. Apparently Da Vinci proposed a design yonks ago, but like a lot of his doodles, no one ever got round to making one. John Harrington came up with the first practical design that was realised, but it was shunned at the time and he died without making any money from it. The myth of Thomas L Crapper being the creator was duly debunked, as according to our guide he was just a manafacturer of bathroomware.
A super hi-tech Japanese toilet. Our guide got very excited whilst describing the various modes of operation on this bizarre creation. It does everything from washing and drying your bum to cleaning itself. We were both a little bit baffled/horrified as to what he was talking about when he attempted to describe an extra feature (sadly not shown on this model) which provided some kind of automatic genital manipulation?
A toilet cleverly hidden in this antique table.
Another camouflaged example. Accompanying this little beauty was a description of Louis XV, who apparently had a toilet built into his throne and would quite regularly 'lay a cable' in front of his entire court.
A rather disturbing picture from Thailand showing an elephant coerced into this undignified position.
One of a kind urinals created by American designer Clark Solenson. Surely too nice to piss all over.
What a claim to fame. The world's largest toilet complex in Chongquin City in China. This three storey 'porcelain palace' with Egyptian facade contains over 1000 toilets and bath fittings. A fun day out for all the family.
Modern day lightweight toilet tent for expeditionary use.
More quality designs.
Pee & Poo...according to the note, they were created by a French documentary maker?
A painting of 'scavengers'. Untouchable caste mambers that still work in India today removing other peoples waste from their houses for a small fee. Mahatma Ghandi worked hard to change attitudes to make higher castes be responsible for disposing of their own absolutions.
After tittering away on our own for a while we headed out of the museum and were met by a young indian researcher who said she would be happy to show us round the rest of the facility. We agreed, and began by appraising the various designs that they have created for low cost, safe compostable toilets.
The organisation that the museum belongs to is a charity set up by a philanthropic Indian chap with the aim of improving sanitation across the sub-continent. Our nice researcher lady showed us around the various designs that they provide to villages and slums that lack other facilities.
The basic system shown in the picture below would provide capacity for one family, with each of the two chambers being alternately used over a period of five years. Once one of the the containers was full, the channel above would be switched to the other, and after two to three years the natural microbial activity would apparently break down the waste into completely harmless nitrogen-enriched dirt, which could be emptied and used as fertiliser.
The designs had various configurations and were made of different materials depending on the funds available.
This one was much more on the budget end of the scale with its wooden lined pit. Still apparently it could be used by 10 people for 3 years before needing to be emptied. Nice.
I particularly liked this spirally shaped effort. I kept thinking that no matter how hot it was, surely you might fancy a roof mid monsoon.
'Come into my office.'
This is the rear of the public toilet that the organisation maintains on site. To the right you can see the methane tank which is filled from the toilets.
Some of the tanks used to extract the methane from the ...er...source materials.
The grass was fed on the fertiliser gerenerated in the toilets, and looked incredibly healthy.
Catchy title! Anybody hungry? There were staff cooking away in there in a typically chaotic fashion. The biogas definitely had a unique smell to it.
And after a quick show of some of their more interesting experiments in the labs nearby we were at the end of our visit. It was a genuinely interesting place, and we were both glad we had made the effort to visit.
Outside whilst we scoured the busy streets for any sign of a rickshaw who fancied driving us the good twenty miles or so back into town, we came across this unbelievably massive specimen.
Check out the big horny beast!
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