Gee, I don't know how many pieces of clothing you use per week ;) , but I think $15 to $20 per week (or $2 to $3 per day) is just too conservative. I don't usually stay in non-western hotels, but from my limited experiences from Chinese hotels in Zhongshan and in the Silk Road area, a single shirt (regular or Polo) costs between 15 to 27 RMB to wash.

Even in Turpan and Kashgar in the relatively cheap Silk Road area where our group tour stayed in supposedly "the best available" hotels which rated themselves 3 stars (which I rated negative one to half a star!), the cost of a shirt was around 22 RMB. After seeing the gray colored white towels, I decided to wait until we got to a better hotel to do some laundry.

I've never seen any self-service laundromats in Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, or in the Silk Road area and I'm always on the lookout for these type of shops as I too take multi-week trips. Never found a "wash and fold" shop either that charged by weight. Only saw one shop in Hangzhou that charged by the piece and turnaround time was three days. Maybe it's because we're usually only in the tourist areas. A friend in Shanghai told me that there are shops that charged by the weight in the residential areas, but then it would be too inconvenient to lug our dirty clothes.

Hmmm, tbear, not too encouraging. At the prices you quoted, I could probably BUY a replacement polo shirt in China instead of getting one laundered (if I could find my size, of course!).

Better throw in a couple extra socks and underwear!

BTW, I'm staying in one Shangri-La hotel and I know they often offer a package that includes unlimited free laundry. It's usually not much more expensive, so can be useful mid-trip. Unfortunately, in my specific case this time, it would have added about $50/night to an otherwise available promo rate. Hard to spend that kind of money just for laundry.

tbear: While it's possible that I overlooked something, I don't think a single poster here advocated using hotel laundry services. Even podunk places like Turpan and Kashgar have laundry stores (though I mainly went the sink route out there on my May trip cuz it was so dry). What's more I've never run into the 3-day turnaround problem (well, those words have been uttered to me, but always rescinded when I started to walk away).

as with other clothing, if you're a large or bigger, there's no way you'll find your size in China.

Yeah, it really bugs me about the cost of laundry services in a hotel when it ends up more than the cost of a new item such as socks. In China you can probably buy some replacement clothing for less than some hotels' washing charge. I may be extreme, but I always wash new clothing (even it comes bagged in plastic) before I wear it. :o You never know what type of chemicals or how many hands have touched it during or after the manufacturing process. So this alternative doesn't work for me.

About your upcoming stay at a Shangri-La property, can you ask them what's their definition of "unlimited free laundry" on that special package rate. Does that mean a reasonable amount or can I really hand them a few suitcases worth of dirty clothes (after a few weeks of travelling) and expect them all back the next day? This might then be worthwhile to stay one night just for the laundry or booking only a single night at that package rate while the rest of your nights are booked at the cheapest rates. ;)

Huh?? :confused: (Without trying to step on anyone's toes) I thought I was replying to a poster who did.

Did you actually see any there on your first and only trip there in May? I sure didn't, but like I said we only walked and passed by tourist areas and maybe rents are too prohibitive for cheap laundry shops to exist. Maybe in residential areas, though.

Maybe that's true in some shops which have their own equipment. But at the shop in Hangzhou, it was more of a dry cleaning shop that did regular washing as a convenience for the customers. It didn't have any machines and all laundry was probably done in a larger plant/shop somewhere else.



Hey, if anyone knows of any self-service or drop off wash and fold shops in China's major cities, please post names and addresses here in this thread as I'm sure some of us cheapies (me, of course :) ) would really appreciate it.

I think they'd be pretty cool about it, as long as it was your personal stuff. I've found the Shangri-La hotels to be quite helpful and accomodating. If you wanted to book one night at the "laundry rate" and the others at a different promo, I'd just email the hotel and explain the situation. It sure would be nice to be able to get your laundry done at your own hotel without it costing a fortune. If you had 10 days worth of stuff, $50 would be pretty fair (especially since I'm sure the Shangri-La would do an excellent job washing the clothes).

Minor clarification. Since most of the socks in the world are made in China I think what you mean is one is better off buying the chinese socks in their home country.

Hangzhou IIRC. Something like an 85% market share.

Are you sure? I thought the cotton quota system had really taken a bite out of the (cotton) sock trade. I know this is the case with denim because I know a guy that has a large denim factory and his business has been turned upside down during the course of the past 5 years (pretty much synthetic fabrics only to the US).

Whenever I shop in the US, I always check the labels on clothes and most of the cottom stuff seems to be made elsewhere (though I must admit that I don't inspect socks very closely).

Regardless of whether there is any truth to my theory, the fact remains that it is hard to find nice socks here without paying full retail.

As a follow up, I did try to find a laundry in Suzhou. I met with only limited success. The Sheraton's concierge (an excellent hotel, btw) said he knew of a laundry a mile or two away. I stopped there the next day. It was a "Ilsa" laundry, and they seem to have 3 or 4 branches in town (I could dig up the street address if anyone needs it). It worked, but the problem was that it was more like a U.S. dry cleaner than a US "chinese laundry," so you had to pay by the piece. At about 75 cents for underwear, $1.50 per shirt and $2+ for pants, it was pretty pricey (at least by the standards of what services generally cost in China, and what "replacement goods" might cost me there). Frankly, next time, at those prices and given the inconvenience of carrying my clothes across town, I'd be inclined to rinse them out in my hotel tub.

I did catch a passing glance of another "laundry" in Suzhou (I tried writing down the street name, not sure I still have it), so a cheaper option MIGHT be available. It sure would be nice if Lonely Planet or somebody researched these laundry options in each major Chinese city and listed them. Otherwise, it's a modest pain to do laundry in China.

I have a convenient laundry around 20 metres from one of our Suzhou offices in the northern part of the city. They charge 10 yuan per shirt and 20 or so for trousers etc. Always busy with Chinese customers, Suzhou is a boomtown so people tend to have no problems at all paying for good service.

The Sheraton is on the south side and this particular laundry was a block west of the "center city" pedestrian mall. The prices sound a little higher than "your" laundry, but they did agree to a 20% "discount" for us (as you know, just about everything is negotiable in China). It didn't seem like many of the locals could really afford this place, though. They were bringing in their "special occasion" clothes -- kind of how Americans use dry cleaners. Laundering a week's worth of clothes for a family of 4 would cost about $70. I certainly would buy my own washing machine for that price!

Laundry in WANGFUJING/ DONGCHENG area
 

FWIW: Those in the WANGFUJING/ DONGCHENG area can find laundry services less than one block from the Crowne Plaza. Locate the department store across the street from the hotel (has a KFC on the ground floor w/ singage), walk past the KFC to the small shops about 100 meters, and there it is - laundry.

I did not use this laundry, but noticed it while walking, and am posting the location just in case someone searches for beijing | laundry | wangfujing | Dongcheng.

[QUOTE=FatManInNYC]FWIW: Those in the WANGFUJING/ DONGCHENG area can find laundry services less than one block from the Crowne Plaza. Locate the department store across the street from the hotel (has a KFC on the ground floor w/ singage), walk past the KFC to the small shops about 100 meters, and there it is - laundry.

I've used this very same laundry place. About 5 RMB for shirt/pants and 2-3 per pair of socks underwear. This is still double/triple the cost of places that charge only on weight, but in the area I didn't find anything better.