Took a long good bath before I came to Singapore

When I went back to China at the end of October after resigning from Bread Junction, the weather was beginning to get really cold. Most days, we were experiencing less than 5 degrees celcius and together with the rain and wind (wind chill), it can be absolutely freezing. It's that time of the year again, when taking a bath is a big big chore, much as we want to keep clean! To make matters worse, the rain was pouring almost everyday and many parts of the region were experiencing their worst floods!

As I mentioned in one of my older post, when the weather gets really cold, taking a bath becomes a real problem for us country folks. We do not have hot water or even a heating system in the house and we have to walk out of the house to take a bath as the bathroom is located outside the house about 20m away. We can boil hot water but imaging having to cart them 20m in the cold to take a shower?

So this trip, I intentionally made a trip to the bath house just before I came back to Singapore. I wanted to take some pictures of the inside for you readers to see what it is like. Naturally I cannot take pictures in the actual bathing areas as most of us will be in our "birthday suit", but the general area is fine for picture taking. So here are some pictures for you to enjoy. The one on the right shows the price list for the various services as well.

One of my Singaporean friends saw it, and he said that it is quite similar to some of the "men only" spas in Singapore. Well, I have not been to one of these, so I really don't know. But I can say that they are very popular in the winter in the colder parts of China for both male and females. We have separate areas of course and some of these bath houses are quite luxuriously appointed that we actually spend quite a few hours there each time. Enjoy the pictures!

Travelling 15km to take a bath?

Many countries are so fortunate, and particularly so in Singapore. Many houses here have 2 to 3 bathrooms with hot water available at the turn of the tap, 24 hours a day. Do Singaporeans take this for granted at times? Most people who have been to China see the progress China as made over the years. But head into the country side... and you will still see parts of China that is still relatively undeveloped... where electricity and water are hard to come by!

Back home where I come from in the countryside of Liaoning province, we do not have hot water... at least off the tap! When we want hot water, we have to boil it. However, it becomes a problem in winter when you want to shower with hot water. That's because it is freezing cold here and our bathroom is a short walk away. So even if you boiled the water, you have to transport it to the bathroom to take your shower. And if you take too long, the water is going to cool down very, very quickly and you'll end up with cold water again. Not to mention that transporting the water is going to be a very heavy job!

So what do we country folks do?

During the winter, we "dry clean" ourselves with a towel and hot water at home. Even this is a chilling experience as our homes are not heated. And every week or so, we take a bus, go on a 15 to 20 minutes ride to the nearest bath house where we can have a bath. It cost 6RMB to take a bath and you normally do this with friends or family members. Also they have separate sections for male and females. Quite often, since we travelled all this distance (about 10 to 15km away), you'd usually want to savor the moment and stay a little longer to enjoy the space and nice warm water.  After all, you haven't had a bath for one whole week... you might as well have a super long bath and make sure every nook and cranny is sparkling clean!

See how fortunate you are now?