A Modern Phileas Bogg

Everyman should have a hobby, his quest, his holy grail .....

A Man On His Mission

 ... perhaps even his Shangri-La.

Certainly Mr Graham Askey had his quest. To which end he travelled approximately 75,000 miles, visiting 91 countries, and spent around £150,000 ($183,371), following his pilgrimage. He eventually claimed that he has finally found the object he was searching for - in Tajikistan. 

So what was he looking for? Why only the crappiest toilet in the world. He had developed this interest after his initial interest in bad public lavatories - and in particular their poor construction - on his first overseas holiday to Morocco (a country not known for offering public toilet facilities of any great quality, in fact quite the contrary). My own encounters of these horrors, have ranged from the Turkish/Syrian border, to Spain and Greece in the early mid 1970's, so I have some sympathy with Mr Askey, if not his fascination.

As each of these earthy treasures was discovered, he would only photograph the outside of the worst loo's that he visited, in order to spare people the 'vomit-inducing' contents, and he himself would only spend the 'absolute minimum amount of time' inside, to stave off his own nausea (He certainly didn't use any of these golden loo's).

So what eventually won top prize in his book of horrors, entitled 'Toilets of the Wild Frontier' which he composed from his blog 'Inside Other Places,' which he pseudo penned for a fictitious 'Toilet & Urinal Restoration & Design Society' (or 'TURDS'). 🤣

Tajik Sh*t Hole

Well the worst prize went to a 5ft-tall loo ramshackle tent, with walls that double as loo roll in northern Tajikistan, not far from the Afghanistan border. Those desperate souls who had to use it, must have stooped over sun-dried poo, and used the tent walls to wipe their backsides.

But there were other worthy hell holes ....

Some Of The Worst Bogs In The World

Mr Askey said: 'Make no mistake that every entry on my list is gross beyond words. Some may look OK but believe me - and I know - they're the most inhospitable places on earth, and to spend a single minute inside any of them would be unthinkable except in the direst of circumstances. Each and every one of them would appear to attract members of the public who have yet to master the basic art of 'aiming.''

'After my many travels, I thought I'd seen it all, what with s**tters on stilts, sinks seemingly full of wee, and bath tubs apparently being used as makeshift bogs. But having enjoyed some of the filthiest bathroom facilities to be found anywhere on the planet, the toilet in Tajikistan has to be the worst in the world - it is the perfect hell hole'.

All of them make you shudder and your skin crawl, and as mentioned I've seen a few bad ones (a public toilet in a Reading public park during the Reading Music festival 1975, still springs to mind, as well as few of those in Spain and Greece in the early 1970's before tourism took off and both those countries started to catch-up with richer European countries facilities).

However as one commentator laughingly pointed out, Mr Askey had "Clearly not been on a British train!" .... I think we can all nod at that.