In a city like Mumbai, we'd rather "hold it" till we get home. But if you have a small bladder or you're visiting a new land, this might not be an option.

Strike potluck across the globe

In a city like Mumbai, we'd rather "hold it" till we get home. But if you have a small bladder or you're visiting a new land, this might not be an option. If you are particular about innocuous details like water on the floor or the availability of a Western-style loo with a toilet roll, The Bathroom Diaries tells you where you can answer nature's call, with every conceivable disclaimer.

An award-winning website claiming to be the "world's largest database of restroom locations", The Bathroom Diaries (more about the pot than the shower) provides brief, primarily user-generated reviews of 12,000-plus bathrooms in over 120 countries. Run a search in the Find Bathroom list to read up places in the neighbourhood where you can relieve yourself without feeling appalled or confused.

We loved the Essays section where travellers post first-hand accounts of their pooping experiences around the world. In one essay, a traveller talks about how there was no bathroom on a train from Bangkok and so, a fellow traveller asked for a part of his newspaper that he used to squat down in the middle of a crowded compartment, relieve himself and chuck the paper out of the window, all this with no one around even raising an eyebrow.

One talks about perching on an elegantly-designed Indian toilet, another of having flushed a toilet in France only to have her "doings" flood around and spurt up and down her jeans, while one found sudden company with six males and three females in the same stall in Panama, while he offloaded a meal that wasn't kind to his stomach. Some will leave you in splits, others might sound disgusting, but all provide nuggets of the culture of that land in a way that most travel books will never dare to.

The Mumbai list throws up only five bathrooms, with one reviewer describing India as "pretty much an open sewer". We thought using the Churchgate railway station cubicle as "a literal view across the cross section of the people in Bombay" was refreshing while bumping into "Hindi movie stars, including Mallika Sherawat" in JW Marriott's restroom was funny. Stop by the Golden Plunger page to feast your eyes on some of the world's most exotic restrooms. Never thought you'd drool over a pot now, did you?