Personal hygeine

Local bath / shower / toilet protocols are something every traveller gets acquainted with very quickly.

I have travelled to more than two dozen countries, a point I make not to show off but to give context to my observations of the local ablutions.

Having lived with
Toilets that varied from holes in the ground, (with or without handrails, water, paper), to toilets with bidets alongside, to grand toilets with every conceivable extra (think 20+ programmes including ‘should stream music be required press here’ found in Japan)

Bathrooms that varied from buckets and dippers, to buckets and dippers followed by a communal hot bath, trickling showers, showers in the same room as the toilet that sprayed all over it………..

I thought I had pretty much seen it all until I got to Finland

Western style toilets, with seat and paper. The toilet is always in its own room with a handbasin that has a mixer tap. The tap is also connected to a metal hose with a spray nozzle at the end of it which hangs right beside the toilet. I won’t elaborate except to comment that I do find it is a daily delight!

The bathroom is a serious business and is to be found in the sauna room. Yes – it seems everyone has a sauna. Even a tiny two bedroom apartment will have a sauna.

Where we are staying the sauna / bathroom is around 20sqm and contains two boilers, a three tiered set of wooden benches, boxes of wood, a deep bath, a lot pipes and hoses and taps, a shower that falls in the very centre of the room down through some wooden slats to a drain underneath, and a variety of buckets, dippers, and loofahs.

It’s not hard to stay clean – but am I am clean enough if I haven’t used all the items?

I still haven’t found a use for 2metres of rope or 1.5metres of thin rubber tubing.

Nor could I find a use for a 100litre bucket of cucumbers left next to the shower on day three. But that concern was alleviated when, by end of day they were pickling in brine on the porch and looking a lot like something I might enjoy eating in another few weeks.