Laundry in Laos

Laos is bloody hot, with temperatures exceeding 90 degrees. And with that heat comes humidity, which makes it even worse. We have never gone through our clothes so fast as we have in Laos – it would be unthinkable in this heat to wear something more than one time (and usually we can’t even get through one day without going through at least a couple pairs of clothing). Considering how little clothes we are travelling with, we needed to do our laundry... and fast.

I checked into the laundry service offered by our hotel – even though we were paying only $35 a night for our room, by Laos standards, it was a pretty upscale place. So, yes, they did offer laundry, but shockingly it came with a steep price – even at US standards. Each piece of clothing – no matter how tiny –would be charged at $1 - $3 a piece! Since we were needing to clean practically our entire wardrobe, this would add up very quickly. I had recalled places in town advertising laundry at 10,000 kip per kilogram (that’s just over $1 US). When I had passed these places previously, I just noticed them as yet another example of life in Laos – never did I consider that I might actually take my clothes to these places. But now that was exactly what I was going to do!

Since Kevin was feeling ill at this time, I gathered up all our dirty laundry into my pillowcase and set out on my way. It was a bit of a walk (several blocks) that, even without carrying a large bundle over my shoulder, would be been exhausting due to the humidity. So that, along with being a bit embarrassed about what it would look like as I take to the streets with this huge load, I decided to catch a tuk-tuk (their motorcycle taxis). I paid $1 to have him drop me off at a street not far from where I remember seeing many of these laundry places.

As I’m walking down the street with my bundle, I finally come upon the laundry row. There are many – in fact, there’s more laundry shops on one street than coffee shops in Seattle. I try to find the one that looks the nicest – yet my search is useless. Each one is very small – like a shop turned out from an old garage – and very dirty looking. Clothes are generally found drying on clotheslines out front. If it wasn’t for the sign’s out front “1 kg – 10,000 kip” you would think these were somebody’s very humble home. I finally decided ‘what the heck’ and approached one – a little card table was setup outside with a few Laos people hanging out front. They looked at my bundle and gestured me to place it on the kitchen scale that was setup on the table. My laundry weighed in at 3.5 kg. They wrote a slip out that showed I owed 35,000 kip (less than four U.S. dollars). I paid and asked when I could pick it up – they clearly spoke very little English and so I gestured at my watch. They replied in broken English: “tomorrow – 5pm”. And that was that.

The next day I walked back to laundry shop to get our clothes. As soon as they saw me, they handed me the sleeping bag full of folded clothes – which they immediately knew it was mine. (Do they have many customers? Or perhaps they deal with mostly locals, and clearly being a Westerner, I was easily remembered?) When I got back to our hotel, I dumped out the clothes – I was feeling a little guilty over how skeptical I was at whether they would truly be clean – but, alas, everything appeared very clean. And the clothes even smelled great. I don’t know whether they use washing machines or whether the clothes are hand-washed, but whatever their method, our clothes had been refreshed! I was definitely pleased with my decision to do it “the local way” and hike to one of the laundry houses...