Shopping & Sheets

Bangkok culture seems to be centered on shopping malls - big, modern, glass and marble buildings with seven floors, natural light, designer brands I can't afford and gigantic international grocery stores that take up the lowest level.  I’m not sure if I’ve seen such luxurious shopping centers before, even in the US.  

Every sky train stop has one attached to it and there will be two or three in a couple blocks of each other catering to foreign tourists (mainly Chinese) and wealthy, Hi-So (high-society) Thais.  People meet and spend their entire day there eating donuts (Krispy Kreme, Dunkin, the Thais appear to be addicted, but in the culture swap of crullers for curries, I definitely think we won.).  Even when I met some family friends for dinner we ended up eating in a mall, at a Spaghetti Factory.... so bizarre. 

Ironically, I never go to the mall at home.  In fact, last Christmas I got lost going to the mall (Trumbull) and ended up 10 miles past it in Stratford before knowing it.  Now I use my GPS at home and visit the Bangkok malls daily.  

Then there’s Tesco and Big C – the Thai equivalent of Wal-Mart and Target (except Tesco is British and Big C was French and bought by Thais…. bonus being they kept the French ovens and make some amazing bread!)  The stores are huge, maybe double the size of a typical American box store - so big that the stock boys wear roller-blades to get around the store quicker.  

They also sell EVERYTHING from EVERYWHERE – Aussie’s looking for Tim-Tams, Brits looking for digestives, Yanks looking for Peter Pan peanut butter (guess I didn’t need to pack some!)  They have it…. Even my favourite Danish butter than I can never find in CT, plus other American goods I never saw in London.

My $100 investment - pretty, right?   : - s

The one thing they don’t sell is sheets – flat sheets. Fitted sheets, no problem, but flat sheets just don't exist. , I spent the first two and a half weeks running through every mall looking for flat sheets.  I did find some at a super fancy, up-market department store where all the Hi-So people like to shop just for the bragging rights. The price?  $500.  (FOR A SHEET!!!!)

Why didn’t I pack my trusty old pair that my mom purchased before I was born, before fitted sheets and Egyptian cotton were invented?  The pair that travelled my world dressing beds in Santa Fe, Buffalo, AmeriCorps and London, that lined sleeping bags and hostel dorms from China to Chile, that smelled periodically of campfire and bug spray and New England pine.  Where are you pseudo tie-dyed sheets, so faded and loved?  

Sigh... I did you wrong. I threw you out of my Thailand bound duffle thinking I’d treat myself to something new.  I miss you now…. and the hundred bucks I spent replacing you.  

Sniff. 

Oh and before my mom sends an email asking why....  The reason you can't find flat sheets in this constant 90 degree plus humidity tropical climate is because the Thais prefer a duvet - to keep them warm. Go figure.