The toilet from hell

Tuesday 8 May/Weds 9 May

It's 1.30 pm. Our taxi arrives at the Hotel Islambek to take us the 30 kilometres to Urganch station. It costs $8, about £5. Our lovely kind hotel owner has arranged to pack us up some food for the overnight journey back to Tashkent, where we should arrive at about 10.00 am tomorrow. The hotel owner had to phone an English guide, and I had to speak to her, then she had to speak to him, to understand our request for a picnic.

The pedestrian entranceway to the train station leads directly onto our platform. We're an hour early for our train, but a few passengers are already filing through the gate. The train is already there. Suddenly I look behind me and a car is nudging its way through the pedestrian entrance, right onto the platform. This is an extremely long train, and the car coasts along until it finds the right carriage for its passengers. Perhaps they are elderly or have lots of luggage? I've never before seen a car delivering its passengers onto a station platform.

We wait in the shade of the train, by the entrance to our carriage, until eventually the carriage guard lowers the steep train steps, signalling that we can board the train. The guard is very serious-looking and inspects our tickets and our passports carefully. In Uzbekistan, you have to show your passports as well as your train tickets; at many stations, there is airport-style electronic security check-in too.

We settle down in our cabin as usual; this is the last time Reg has been able to book first class tickets – from Tashkent onwards we'll be sharing a cabin. Luckily we're in the middle of the carriage, some distance away from the disgusting toilet at the end of the corridor. It has one of those ruffled plastic covered seats, which if they work properly, should give a clean seat every time the flush is pulled. This one doesn't work properly. It isn't long before the toilet seat is saturated with stale urine, which is soaked into the folds of the plastic covering on the seat, the floor is awash with urine, and the stench is overpowering. I hold on until I'm bursting, and can no longer avoid making my way down the corridor. I'm so glad I have my Gortex walking boots on.

All this makes me reflect on how lucky I am to have the use of a clean, flushing toilet most of the time, at home and while away. The stench and presence of stale urine is a passing inconvenience for train travellers. Some people here, especially in the countryside, live without any proper sanitation. Even in major towns and cities, as soon as we entered Uzbekistan, the sewerage system became less efficient, in that you are asked not to flush even toilet paper down the toilet, but to place it in the bin (often uncovered) next to you. This is the case even in hotels. It's a practice totally alien to us, and psychologically quite difficult to comply with! (For me it was anyway, though I'm used to it now). Also, the toilets in public places, cafes and restaurants (though not in hotels) are often the foot-either-side-of-the-hole-and-crouch-down kind, again, usually swimming with stale urine; I was surprised that even sleek, modern Tashkent railway station, with its shiny marbled walls and floors, and airport-style seating, has this type of toilet.

The whole experience of train toilets gives me an even greater respect for nurses and those working in nursing homes, who deal with incontinence every day. Our toilet from hell is nothing compared to what they deal with routinely.

Back to the train ride. As a little light relief from reading my kindle or writing my blog (to publish later on the internet, hopefully), and Reg reading the downloaded English newspapers on his smartphone, Reg and I amuse ourselves by constructing alternative words to well known sayings or songs. It starts with a spontaneous “the Lost Sheet” as I make up my bed in the train cabin (I'm sure Jesus won't mind – at least it shows I've remembered his poignant parable, affirming His love for us). We sing “Little Red Bowl” to the tune of “Little Red Bull” as I have my wash in the little plastic bowl I bought for this purpose. Later we spot some goats grazing, and as the train whizzes by, a goatherd! Of course we erupt into a poor rendition of

“da da da da, sang the lon-e-ly goatherd...” from the “Sound of Music” (we couldn't remember the words properly). Finally, with Reg having lost a sock, and still wearing the other one, I had to recite,

“Diddle diddle dumpling my son John

Went to bed with his trousers on

One sock off and one sock on..”

It's surprising what you end up doing to amuse yourself on a long train journey!