Dirty, dirty, diiirrrty - Always Pack a Runcible Spoon

March 02, 2005

Dirty, dirty, diiirrrty

I am officially the dirtiest I've ever been. However, it's not necessarily a rolling-in-mud kind of dirt.

On a good day, you hopefully wouldn't notice it if you met up with me.

But on a bad day - watch out!

It's been nine months and two days of RTW backpacking now, and the cracks in our personal cleanliness are SO starting to show.

Mostly, I have been living by the dirty girl's credo of, 'as long as I wash every day, my clothes can go a long, long time sans soap and water ...'

What's perhaps worse, is that when I do wash said garments, we are talking about a comedy in three parts:

1) Use hand basin in communal bathroom;

2) Use small cake of hand soap pilfered from one of our few visits to swanky hotels OR use dodgy shampoo (only if I'm feeling fancy and think, 'hmmm ... liquid soap would be good today!')

3) If clothes won't dry in time for us to move on, STRAP TO FRONT OF LARGE BACKPACK IN A MESH POLYESTER BAG AND 'VOILA! INSTANT CLOTHES DRYER AS YOU WALK THROUGH THE STREETS OF THE DEVELOPING WORLD!'

If you have ever tried to hand wash clothes, you will know this statement to be true: Handwashing Sucks.

Nothing cleans like a machine does; nothing.

People (Lonely Planet, you know who you are ...) swore black and blue to me that no one cleaned clothes cleaner than a dhobi-wallah in India. Not true! Travel myth debunked! The first and last dhobi-wallah who got hold of our clothes lost an important item, and returned several others with some extra bits of bird crap that really weren't called for.

And so I come to the most important part of this post. The All-Time Honour Roll for Amazing Services to Our Cleanliness.

Barbara & John, Nick & Laura, Olaug & Idar, Ronnie & Irene, John & Linsay (twice!): your baths, showers and particularly your washing machines rocked our world. Thank you!

Posted by Tiffany on March 2, 2005 07:15 PM
Category: Travel thoughts and whimsy

Comments

have to disagree..Dhobis in India rock!!! at least the ones who come to my mom's. See u have to have a tested one...

But agree with you never trust laundry services...in Chiang Mai i could have murdered the lady who ruined my shorts..my fav..they had insect repellant woven in them!!

Madhu
p.s could you delete my other comment i sound funny in that...very wise...not so like moi.

Posted by: Madhu on March 3, 2005 12:51 PM

Too true, madhu - I shouldn't malign all the dhobis on the basis of one bad experience! It scarred us so much, we were too scared to use another dhobi the whole time we were there - so my comments are not exactly tried n tested!!

Also, the guesthouses charge what I reckon are quite exorbitant prices to give your stuff to the dhobi to have it washed - it was frequently well over $1 AUD per item, which gets pricey pretty quickly. I doubt much of that made it to the dhobi himself, either ... sigh, at any rate, it was back to the hand soap for me!

Don't talk to me about Thailand - a guesthouse in BKK wrecked a whole load on this occasion (everything went khaki and small enough to fit a barbie doll).

Maybe all these experiences made me a bit touchy on-topic!

Posted by: Tiffany on March 3, 2005 11:35 PM

Awww, shame, Madhu - I liked yr comment! Have deleted it, but saved the text in case you have a change of heart and allow it to come back to cyber-space :)

As to your q about the States - we were in the US briefly at the start of our trip, so we won't be back there on this journey at any rate. SAD.

On the upside, I DID develop a very unhealthy fixation with the OTT wonderland that is Las Vegas (too crazy!) & loved many other things as well (including, maybe inexplicably, Chipotle ... mmm, that reminds me ... Chipotle ...). Can't wait to visit again!

Posted by: Tiffany on March 4, 2005 12:03 AM

loaded more wedding pics on Boots...
Vegas...humm...not my fav place but then i hear good things about it now...I had family in vegas and I went around with them so i can imagine the kind of fun i missed.

Madhu

Posted by: Madhu on March 8, 2005 02:52 PM

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