{"id":195,"date":"2011-03-11T16:45:27","date_gmt":"2011-03-12T00:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/?p=195"},"modified":"2012-01-03T06:11:06","modified_gmt":"2012-01-03T14:11:06","slug":"in-quest-of-a-laundromat-in-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/?p=195","title":{"rendered":"In Quest Of A Laundromat In Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here we are\u00a0in Kemer\u00a0in Southern Turkey, on the Mediterranean Sea with few clothes left to wear. \u00a0So, what is the laundry plan? Well, the hotel provides a service, but it is about\u00a0\u20ac5 per t-shirt, \u20ac8 per pair of pants, and so on. \u00a0Our total laundry bill could be about \u20ac100, which sounds like a waste of money. \u00a0We can afford to pay it, but we would rather spend\u00a0the Euros on\u00a0something else.<\/p>\n

An idea pops into my friend’s\u00a0head and he says,\u00a0“Why don’t we find a laundromat? It must be a cheaper alternative to the hotel.”<\/p>\n

Great idea! \u00a0But,\u00a0we are in a small town and there aren’t many shops or services around for miles. \u00a0Let’s find the nearest shop and start out by asking if anyone knows what a laundromat is.<\/p>\n

We walked outside the hotel and toward the few touristy shops selling clothes.\u00a0 Five young men stood on the sidewalk smoking cigarettes. \u00a0As neither of us speaks Turkish, we used\u00a0sign language and some\u00a0key English words to describe what we needed. \u00a0How did we do that?<\/p>\n

When no one understood the words, ‘Laundry’ nor ‘Washing Machine,’ I took the corner of my jacket and rubbed it in\u00a0my hands and repeated, “Wash, clean, soap, wash machine?”<\/p>\n

The young men\u00a0laughed at my animated gestures, and\u00a0pointed us\u00a0to a\u00a0street.\u00a0 They indicated with their arms\u00a0that we should walk straight ahead. We thanked them and set on our way down the slightly slopping street.<\/p>\n

After about 5 minutes of walking, we found a clothing store on a street corner and stopped to ask about the laundromat again.\u00a0 The shopkeeper told us, \u2018Keeping walking down the street.\u00a0 But you should forget washing.\u00a0 Come and buy some new clothes from my shop.\u00a0 I have original Levi\u2019s jeans, 3 for $60!\u201d<\/p>\n

My friend and I were tempted, but we smiled, nodded, and promised that we would stop by on the way back.<\/p>\n

Another 10 minutes of walking and still no visual on the laundromat.\u00a0 Now we were in another town and a large road sign read, \u201cWelcome to Goynuk!\u201d<\/p>\n

Okay, so we have walked for about 15 minutes and gone from one town to another, and now we began to suspect if a laundromat really existed.\u00a0 Perhaps the Turkish people we questioned along the way were pulling our leg, us being tourists in their small town and all?<\/p>\n

One more stop to triple check.\u00a0 I spotted a convenience store and asked the owner the same thing with my hand gestures and words.\u00a0 He came outside his store and pointed to a place at the end of the street in a cul-de-sac.<\/p>\n

Sure enough, we had walked for over 15 minutes\u00a0straight down a street right to the end where stood a small shop.\u00a0 A sign in Turkish read, \u201cTailor\u201d and the owner stepped outside to greet us.<\/p>\n

It was a small shop with an ironing table, a sewing machine, some clothes hanging on racks, some clothes in baskets, a laptop, and just one washing machine along the back wall.\u00a0 I turned to my friend and expressed my thoughts out loud, \u201cThis is a laundromat?\u00a0 He has only one washing machine?\u201d<\/p>\n

My friend explained to the owner what we needed.\u00a0 Not speaking a word of English, he replied in sign language, that it would cost us \u20ac10 for one wash load and that he would have our clothes washed and dried in 24 hours.\u00a0 It sounded like a good plan to us.<\/p>\n

Tired after our long walk, and one can call those 15 minutes long, we sat down on the couch in front of the shop. The owner waved a cup of tea at us, to ask if we wanted some.\u00a0 We nodded and he came back out in a few minutes with\u00a0two cups of hot tea and sugar lumps in a bowl.<\/p>\n

Alone, I walked down the same path the next day with our clothes in two large plastic bags, making a few stops to set down my heavy load.\u00a0 When I reached the \u2018laundromat\u2019 I was greeted by a smiling owner, as if he recognized a friend.\u00a0 He introduced me to his wife who was busy at the sewing machine, and to his son who was playing video games on the laptop.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I went over to the washing machine and said with\u00a0animation, \u201cSet to warm.\u00a0 No hot.\u00a0 Okay?\u00a0 Warm is good.\u201d<\/p>\n

They nodded in agreement and I motioned that I would return the following day.\u00a0 On my way out the door, I saw\u00a0that the little boy had hit the Grand Score on the video game we was playing.\u00a0 I congratulated him and clapped.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t understand me, but his parents translated something which sounded like they understood me.<\/p>\n

My friend and I were busy in downtown Kemer the next day, but we returned the day after to Goynuk.\u00a0 To our pleasant surprise, all our clothes had not only been washed and dried, but neatly folded.\u00a0 I paid \u20ac12 instead of the \u20ac10 asking price, because they had done a great job and had been very hospitable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another cup of tea followed and the exchange of nods and smiles, in appreciation of their kindness.\u00a0 So, if you ever visit the small town of Goynuk, be sure to look up the friendly couple and their one machine laundromat which sits in a cul-de-sac close to the mosque in the photograph above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here we are\u00a0in Kemer\u00a0in Southern Turkey, on the Mediterranean Sea with few clothes left to wear. \u00a0So, what is the laundry plan? Well, the hotel provides a service, but it is about\u00a0\u20ac5 per t-shirt, \u20ac8 per pair of pants, and so on. \u00a0Our total laundry bill could be about \u20ac100, which sounds like a waste […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,10,106],"tags":[133,136,135,132,131,134,262,137],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=195"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":205,"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195\/revisions\/205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zensufi.com\/nano\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}