In 1984 and I was travelling with my younger daughter, then aged 9, to join my husband in Saudi Arabia, via Cairo. We had an overnight in Cairo and, before we went to sort out the hotel, we went to the loo in the airport. I walked into a beautifully clean cubicle and Nicky went in the next one. Thirty seconds later she wailed, "Mu-u-u-um." I asked her what was wrong. "There's no toilet," she said, "Just a hole in the floor and there's no paper, just a pipe thingy." On investigation it appeared that every second cubicle had an Arab loo, with water squirt instead of paper.
After a year in Saudi I got used to the "instant bidet" and I thought it was a lovely, clean idea (though I, being English, always took a sheet of paper in with me). The bidet got popular here in the 70s but seems to have gone out of favour now. Can't think why.
