Travel Horrors

Catherine Watson’s picture of the “Turkish toilet” (“Travel Horrors,” Oct. 29) made me remember a trip along the Silk Road where the females in our group commandeered some of the men’s facilities because the men were important enough to warrant the American plumbing. Like Catherine Watson, I, too, learned how to make things work. The little island of Goree, just off Dakar in Senegal, has toilets in the public buildings, but no piped water, so you have to fill a bucket with water from the surf and carry it in with you to flush.

PAT HERRIOTT-VOEGE

Glendale

*

Catherine Watson is too young to have traveled in Europe immediately after World War II. My husband and I once rented a room with bath in a hotel in Toulouse, France. We found a cast-iron tub with lion’s paws for feet--no toilet, no basin. The toilet was down the hall, tucked under a stairway. Electricity was scarce too. When I turned on the light in the bathroom, the lamp in the bedroom went off and left my husband in the dark.

MARGARET W. ROMANI

Los Angeles

*

I was underwhelmed by “Travel Horrors,” expecting much more graphic and distressing travel nightmares. Perhaps travel writers have a code of silence regarding too much candor about disasters! Why not speak of the real-life stories involving bacteria outbreaks on cruise ships, close calls with air turbulence and near-misses in the sky. Equally distressing are those hostage situations: flying economy over the Atlantic for nine hours--wedged between a man with terminal hiccups and a woman holding an infant experiencing a first-stage colic alert.

MARY REYNOLDS

West Covina

*

For years, I was under the misguided impression that the Travel section was intended to encourage readers to travel by providing mouthwatering stories and useful information. Then I read “Travel Horrors.” I can’t help wondering: Did the travel editor fall prey to a fiendish plan by the Clinton Administration to publish these horror stories to stem the outflow of U.S. dollars?

GORDON L. FROEDE

Los Angeles

*

We recently returned from two wonderful weeks in Switzerland and Italy, where we traveled with rail passes and stayed at pensions or B&Bs; that had fabulous breakfasts. We never had to lift our bags (there was always someone to help two young 69-year-old women) and everyone everywhere was very helpful, even though we spoke no other languages. I laughed out loud reading “Travel Horrors” and sent them off to my lifelong traveling friend in Connecticut.

HINDA BEAMAN

Santa Maria