Laundry service plus vomit: The tale of Hefei

The charming capital of southeastern China’s Anhui Province is a town called Hefei (合肥), a place that has only recently grown into its status as a city of significant size. For centuries it was a smaller, far less populated burg, and when Masayo and I arrived from Kaifeng on Day 14 of our China odyssey, we found it still retaining much of its ethereal old-world appeal.

But how do you find laundry service in a small town where you can’t understand the language? And what do you do if some street food makes you engage in some technicolor yawning?

Hefei has taught us the answer both.

The quest for laundry

The part of Hefei where our room at Look 128 Garden Hotel is situated is near the Nanfei River, and hemmed in on all sides by a series of long, thin lakes forming a little rectangle of land. There are a couple of shimmeringly beautiful parks with ponds and quiet temples, and a busy central area with shops, restaurants, and a pedestrian plaza.

Hoping to avoid doing yet more laundry in the sink, Masayo noticed a sign outside a house in town written in Chinese characters. She doesn’t know any Chinese but she could guess its meaning: Laundry Service.

(Japanese kanji characters are adapted from old Chinese characters; many are the same, some are modified, and some are new to Japan. People who know Japanese can sometimes guess at the meaning of Chinese, kind of like like an English speaker half-understanding written Spanish.)

Somehow, Masayo managed to work out a deal with the old woman doing the washing, and we brought our clothes to her. I was very impressed. If I had been alone it would definitely have been a sink-load in the hotel room.

The service was great and quick, our clothes professionally fresh!

The food in Hefei (good and bad)

We saw a lot of food vendors at stalls on the streets of Hefei, and tried a couple. One sold us some fried food that was a tad too oily, while another (actually a kind of chain kiosk) offered little hot dog-like snacks that I really liked.

One day Masayo, having grown tired of our local-only meals thus far, insisted that we have lunch at a Pizza Hut in the middle of town. I was against the idea — who goes to China and eats at Pizza Hut?!

But I acquiesced. The pizza was greasy and not that good, though I think she enjoyed it.

Soon afterwards I became ill, culminating in an evening lurch to our hotel room toilet where I barfed suddenly and violently. Uh-oh, I thought, recalling my Laos trip being cut short last year due to three solid days of throwing up and not eating. Am I going to get really sick again?

Fortunately, I was only unwell for a day and a half, and was more worried than nauseous. I wondered what had made me sick: I strongly suspected the Pizza Hut, but Masayo wasn’t sick. Could have been street food, which I occasionally ate by myself.

Either way, karmically speaking, I was ready to avoid pizza for a while. The travel gods had spoken.

I don’t argue with the travel gods.

Let’s stick around!

My malady, though brief, made me want to rest a little, so we stayed on in Hefei a few more days. It’s a nice place to walk around, and the amenities are convenient.

All in all, there is nothing that stands out about Hefei, except that it is perfectly pleasant and – perhaps my favorite aspect of all – off the beaten tourist trail. I’m glad we went, and got to see this lovely little hidden slice of workaday eastern China.

But when you’re backpacking through China on a limited visa, you can’t be hanging around one place for too long. The next destination draws you onward, and so Masayo and I are following the travel gods and heading to a town called Tangkou in the misty mountains of ancient China.

I hope they don’t have pizza there.

Has food ever made you sick while traveling?

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• Read next: Day 24: The secret misty mountain town of Tangkou, China
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