Anyways, this wasn't the worst. After a few days, I really needed to take a shower. There is a lack of water here (because it's dry) so water is precious. I managed to put off washing for awhile, but finally, my hair was just too gross. So my dad's 2nd sister (our 2nd aunt) put us on a bus to go to the nearest city, Xin Xian Cheng. The bus was so crowded!! Really, Chinese people sure know how to squeeze twice the capacity of people into the bus. Luckily, I got a seat. Now, just because we were in a city doesn't mean it's a city like Sandy, UT, or even Chengdu, China. My 2nd aunt took us to her home. Her home does not have a bathroom (which is rather inconvenient if you have to "do your thing" in the middle of the night). We had to go to a public shower place to shower. Elisha and I got our own room, but the water wasn't very warm, the place had a smell, and we didn't have any conditioner with us. I swear my hair has died because now, I lose a lot of hair each time I brush it. We eventually figured out what the smell was. Across the street, there is a public bathroom, which is just an enclosed place with ditches and stalls without doors. As soon as we walked in, these fumes rushed into our face. You could smell the stench through your mouth!! The floor was crawling with maggots, those disgusting little blind white worm things that squirm and squiggle, and the edges of the ditches had feces all over them. Of course, since it's stinky, there are flies, and flies lay eggs that hatch into maggots. But how could there be feces on the sides of the ditches?? It seems that people don't...er...aim very well when they go. Anyways, we ran out of there and I couldn't breath because of the fumes. It seemed like if someone tossed a match in, the whole place would explode, throwing all the crap everywhere!! (sorry about the description) We figured we could hold ourselves until we arrived back into the village!! I guess that just because the city is a city, it is not necessarily better than the village. In fact, that city was the worst place I've ever been to. I told my dad that next time we came, we would NOT come to this city again.
But don't be scared of the bathrooms in China. Most of them in the developed regions are quite modern. These horrors only occur in the remote cities and countrysides, which you will probably have no chance to see (darn).
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