Thai Toilets Too Dirty and Scary for Japanese Kids by Phairath Khampha 24 August 2001 More clean toilets are needed along the highway from Bangkok to Nakhon Ratchasima for use by Japanese high school students expected on study tours, according to Somsak Thepsuthin, the Prime Minister's Office minister in charge of tourism. Toilets in Thailand are horrid, foetid, humid muddy enclosures with a hole in one corner, wetness and faecal remains all over the squat plate and with nowhere to clean oneself up, cockroaches and huge flies abounding with the odd rat or mouse to also nip users' private parts. Even to non-Japanese they are a scary apparition, often driving foreigners to do their business against the wall of a building or behind someone's bush somewhere. About two million Japanese students were expected to travel abroad on educational trips in 2003, and many were likely to come to Thailand. The Japanese government had offered subsidies and tour operators there were looking to include Nakhon Ratchasima in the packages to be sold to the students. Japanese tour operators, however, said there were too few toilets on the Bangkok-Nakhon Ratchasima highway. Most were in roadside petrol stations or bus stops and were not kept clean enough to the point that they were frightening to behold. Mr Somsak said tourism officals would survey the number of toilets on the route and look at whether more should be built and how to go about teaching Thai people to keep such facilities clean.