When Laundry Goes Wrong // Lesson Learned

We finally had our first full weekend off since arriving in Thailand. I arrived on Saturday the 26th, and have been on the go ever since. We had a lot of stuff to cover from Visas to placement expectations, so I have been going strong for 9 days!

This past Saturday my roommate Loh and I decided to do our laundry. No big deal, right? We brought our stuff across the street, paid our 30 baht to use the washer machine, went and ate food and picked up our clothes on the way back. There are not dryers in Thailand so we set up all of our clothes to dry on the balcony. I go to bed so excited that I will wake up to dry, clean clothes in the morning.

Well I wake up at 6am and look outside. Not only is it pouring rain, our balcony was an absolute mess! Half of the clothes on the ledge were gone because the wind blew them away. The heavy objects I laid on top of them did nothing! All of the clothes hanging up on the pole were on the floor. Socks and underwear were piled up lying in puddles. Every piece of clothing was soaked. I looked over the balcony praying to see at least some of the lost clothes. These clothes were not only the small percentage of our wardrobes that actually made it to Thailand, they were also the ones we decided to wear first! The best of the best. Luckily I spotted one of my T-shirts in the distance. So I grabbed my rain jacket and went on a scavenger hunt for the missing items.

I found one of my shirts on the ramp leading to the parking garage under the hotel. One shirt all the way in the garage. Another shirt and yoga pants across the street and my roommate’s tank top hanging on a bush. In all of this madness, neither of us ended up losing any clothes. Because of that, I’m choosing to chalk this up as a win.

So, a tip for people moving to Thailand. Pay the extra money and get your clothes washed, dryed, and folded for 75-100 baht. It still works out to only costing about $3 USD. It only takes a day and it is definitely worth it.

Bottom line, everything you do is just slightly more complicated in Thailand. Whether it is doing laundry, ordering food, or searching for a random item, it requires a little more effort than it did in the States. At the end of the day, I didn’t lose any clothes and it makes for a good story. Mai Pen Rai.