Car Wash

In Malaysia, you'll often see domestic maids washing their employers' cars in the morning or evening, sometimes on a daily basis. So it's not unusal to see many shiny clean cars, especially the luxury types, on the road.

It's a different story here in Melbourne. Very rarely do you see a truly clean car on the road. Most are covered with dust and mud and some look as if they have taken part in a motor rally or had a mud bath.

There's one simple explanatin for this - water shortage. Water restriction is in place across the state and that means you can't wash your car the conventional way - with a garden hose and splashing water here and there. It's an offence here. And your neighbours will report you to the water authority and you'll be labelled a water rat, a pariah within the community. (And there are other water-related crimes to, such as watering plants as you wish but that's another story).

You can wipe your car window clean with a piece of wet cloth but that's about all you can do. So everyone drives their car to the car wash facility to give their car a bath. There are 2 types - hand car wash where some workers will tend to your car washing needs and self-service car wash where you wash your car using what's provided at the facility.

Most people opt for the latter because it's cheaper. You put some money in the coin slot and you'll be given a specific period of time to do your washing. If you haven't finished washing your car and your time is up, just feed the thing more coins. So the faster you wash, the more money you save.

I was totally entralled the first few times I went with Alex to wash his car. You have to queue up, of course. But it usually doesnt' take long because nobody wants to spend more than they need to at the car wash. You'll also see some people washing in very kiasu manner - they are so fast they need only AUD2 to wash the entire car! It takes a lot of speed and skills, though!

I haven't tried using the car wash myself. I suppsoe I'll end up using a lot of coins. That being the case, I might as well just drive to a hand car wash centre to get the job done!