This toilet has stopwatch for everyone to see how much time you spend inside

An unusual tourism improvement has been installed in the Buddhist Yungang Grottoes in China, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Buddhist toilet is equipped with stopwatches. The devices are intended to shorten queues, but have been met with criticism from tourists.

The Yungang Buddhist Grottoes in China are a majestic complex of rock temples, containing as many as 51,000 statues and nearly 250 caves. 

This place, which was recognised as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001, attracts crowds of tourists from all over the world. However, recent changes may discourage some visitors. From now on, the Buddhist toilet will start counting the time for you.

In May this year, as part of an attempt to improve service for tourists, stopwatches were installed above the cabins in the women's toilets in the complex. These are counters that show how long a person uses the toilet.

When the cabin is empty, the screen displays a green "empty" message. When someone enters it, the screen turns red and starts counting down the time from the moment the door is closed.

However, such devices do not meet tourists' expectations.

"It was a bit embarrassing. I felt like I was being monitored," says one of the visitors, quoted by the New York Post.

According to the official position of the representatives of the Yungang Grottoes, the stopwatches are intended to relieve the queues, which have recently become longer and longer due to the growing number of visitors. 

The complex employee ensures that there is no set time limit, such as five or 10 minutes, and that no one will be thrown out of the cabin.

Still, many people express concerns that such devices may cause stress because others know how much time a person spends in the toilet. Some people also criticise the costs associated with installing stopwatches, which in their opinion are "wasted."

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It is worth adding that this is not the only place in China where you can find this type of time counters. They are used in many office buildings and large corporations so that the employer has insight into how much time employees spend on the toilet.

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This article was originally published on Onet Travel.