Keeping It Clean

Stepping out of the shower, I wrapped myself in a towel. Taking a quick moment to admire myself in the mirror, I spotted some lint in my naval and quickly removed it. Now where did I put that clean underwear?

“I’m coming out” I shouted.
“OK, just make sure you’re decent” came Penelope’s reply. I opened the door. P was busy writing her diary (yes, she writes one too) and didn’t bother looking up. I grabbed my pack and riffled through it for some clean underpants but couldn’t find any. Not great news for a nomad.
“Look in the dirty laundry bag” said P, instinctively knowing what I was doing. I always store my dirty clothes in a cotton shopping bag. Sure enough, all the undies were in there. I hate it when P’s right!

Clothed in soft pelt, laundry is not something P needs to worry about. Don’t get me wrong: She does have attire for special occasions. On a day to day basis, however, a quick shower and shake is all she needs.

But what am I to do without clean underwear? I considered my options.

When I was a kid at summer camp, kids would wear jeans without underpants. No thank you...

My mother once told me of a friend who, when lacking a clean replacement, turned his underpants inside out and put them on again. Yuck!

Someone once asked me and another backpacker what we considered our most important travel accessory. I said “elastic bands”. She said “disposable paper underwear”. I have never in my life seen such a thing and I have never looked at that friend in the same way. Having said that I did – and still do – have a perverse urge to ask her to feel a pair, just to dispel all the possible implications of using such a product in an emergency.

An Israeli businessman I met at Chabad in Beijing took it one step further. He visited my hotel room while I was hand-washing clothes in the sink. “What are you, an idiot? Prices are so cheap here I just throw my underpants away and buy new ones. Every week.” But my environmental sense won’t let me do that.

Hotels generally provide a laundry service. The problem is that they charge per item and it takes 24 hours until you get your stuff back. In backpacker areas, one can usually find a laundrette that charges by weight. That, too, can take some time.

I always bring a stash of laundry powder. That way I can wash a couple of things in the sink and hang them in the shower to dry. But even then, drying speed depends on what country you’re in and the season. Wet clothes take longer to dry on a humid tropical island than in an inland mountain area.

I once found my scented washing powder tampered with. P had invited some British traveller, named Paddington, back to the room. He had surreptitiously gone through our stuff. On finding the washing powder, he thought it was something else and tried to sniff it. Paddington made a run for it. We had to contact the cops who put out an APB for a sneezing bear with bleached nose smelling of Forest Pine and holding a UK passport. P has since learned that not all backpackers are savoury characters.

I always have to remember to wash my clothes when I might be in a place for more than 2 days. Sometimes I plan to stay long enough just so my laundry can dry. It has caused stress: P firmly believes it is legitimate to wait around to catch a plane or train, but not just for the sake of collecting laundry. Considering our different needs, I think that’s just selfish. (You watch her reaction if I wear the same clothes for a week!).

You see, it’s a problem to travel with wet laundry. For one thing, it weighs down your bag – not advisable if travelling with a backpack. (This is also not a problem that the prissy little P-rincess has to deal with, because I am the one who always shleps the bags). For another thing, damp clothes start to stink by the time you arrive at your next destination.

We stayed at one hostel equipped with a laundry and drying room on the roof. That was great. I washed my stuff in the handbasin and then hung it up - together with other people’s g-strings and lacy bits (I like to think they belonged to those 18 year old Swedish girls in room 330) - and voila ! Next morning it was dry.

I hand-laundered at one Beijing hotel and after 3 days the stuff was still damp. I went to reception. “Do you have a drying room?” I asked, showing her a damp shirt. She shook her head. “How about an iron?”. I acted out an ironing motion. The attendant suddenly pulled an iron from beneath the counter. Guests checking in gave me quizzical looks as I stood there, filling in a requisition form while holding an iron and large ironing board. I took the equipment back to my room and ironed frantically to dry my clothes. P said it looked hilarious and she didn’t stop laughing about it for a week.

That was not, apparently, as amusing as the night we stayed in Louyang. Drying meant I needed some sort of ventilation. I spent half the night trying to hang my damp laundry on the ceiling air conditioning outlet. To reach the outlet I put a chair on top of a table and climbed up; P was watching, and her hysterical snorting (she does that sometimes when she tries not to laugh) almost knocked me off balance.

“What’s that smell? Is that Forest Pine?!” P is yelling at me from the bedroom. That Koala has a seriously refined sense of smell. But I have to wash my clothes. I absolutely refuse to wear dirty underpants.

Well. Maybe this once.