Storyline: Home to home westward
May 29
This deserves a post of its own. We arrived in Malacca yesterday. We didn’t do laundry in Singapore because the self-serve laundry in our hotel was S$8.00 for the washer and S$8.00 for the dryer. “But don’t worry”, said the receptionist, “the soap is included”. Given the heat and humidity there, most of our clothes were getting somewhat ripe, and we were getting a bit desperate. Thus, one of our first questions to our IBIS hotel receptionist was if there were laundry facilities here. Not a chance. And he looked puzzled when we asked where we could find a laundromat. Started to tell us about the hotel’s services. Then eventually suggested that we head to Jonker Street where we might find something
I checked on Google maps and found a couple. Judging by the photos, one of them looked like your laundry would come out dirtier than it was to begin with, while the other looked quite nice and clean. We headed towards the latter and found it close by on Lorong Hang Jebat. The prices were reasonable and the place was in fact very clean. But the coin changer was out of commission and we would need MYR 8.50 (under $3) in 50-sen (cent) coins to wash, dry and buy soap.
In order to be prepared for the next morning we scrounged the requisite change when Diana bought a pair of plastic sandals (MYR 9.00, or about CAD 3.00) and at the restaurant where we had dinner.
After breakfast this morning I headed out to the Super3 laundromat with two bags of laundry and a pocket full of change. A sign in the open doorway indicated “no shoes allowed”, and as I took off my sandals a friendly lady who was sitting at the clothes-folding table said hello. She turned out to be the owner of this facility and attached guest house.
And she insisted on helping me through the entire process, which was as easy as one may expect, but with one major twist. “You can’t use those coins. Only old coins”, she said. “What??”. “I will change them for you. Next time, you can use the change machine”. “But it’s broken.” “No. Not the blue one. The red one.”
Next to the big blue change machine was a small red one that did, indeed, have a ‘coin changer’ label. I’ll put that down to my selective blindness.
Armed now with the requisite coins…apparently the new coins were introduced a few years ago but the old ones are still in circulation, so there’s no need to go to the expense of updating the machines…things proceeded sort of smoothly.
She told me to put the coins in before the clothes then she took my bags of laundry and dumped them in the washer while I was getting soap from a dispenser. And as I was preparing to hit the ‘bright colours’ button she hit ‘colours’ and off went the machine.
“I was going to use the bright colours cycle”, I said. “No. colours cycle is what you need”, was her firm reply. Now, I don’t like to argue, but Diana has been using the bright colours cycle wherever we’ve done laundry, and she was being helpful so I kept my mouth shut. I’d decide later whether to tell Diana what had happened. If the laundry came out well, I’d tell her. If not…well I’d tell her then too. Either way it would be an amusing story.
We sat at the clothes-folding table and had a nice chat while the washer did its thing. “Where will you go today?”, she asked. “Well, we need to get our bus tickets for K-L, then we’ll probably walk around Jonker Street.” “Be careful. Lot’s of pickpockets”.
That led us into a chat about being careful when walking around. “Lots of pickpockets and even the locals are afraid”, she said. “We try to be careful”, I replied. “We take precautions, don’t join the crowds hanging around buskers. We keep our passports in hotel safes and still we know that things can happen. All we can do is try, and make it difficult for them. And we’re not out late at night when they are at their worst. Besides, it’s not just in Malacca or Malaysia that these things happen. There are pickpockets at home, too”. “They are there during the day also. One of my guests lost a bag last week. Fortunately, there were no valuables in it. No passport or money.” It was a nice friendly chat for the 26-minute wash cycle.
She then held a basket for me to unload the washer into, and hit ‘hot’ on the dryer when I finished putting in the coins. I was aiming for “medium” <sigh>. “Now you go walk for 40 minutes and come back”, she said, and disappeared barefoot onto the street. I guess the “no shoes” mandate isn’t just to keep street dirt off the floors.
Oh, and the laundry, it came out just fine.
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