Sunday, October 23, 2011

Worldwide Shortage of Zebra Shirts (Crisis Mode)

One thing I really needed to get while I was in Bangkok was more zebra T-shirts.

I'd had no idea that zebras were a good-luck animal until I'd started stumbling over them at spirit houses in June. I'd gamely bought some zebra shirts and I adored them, but like any $5 T-shirt, they had a short shelf life.

I headed out to Chatuchak Market on the #3 bus. This was an interesting ride today as I got on the first #3 bus that came, and the conductor told me to get off. "No, no, you want #3 bus!"

Er. Okay. 

The next #3 bus took ages to show up, but at least I didn't get thrown off again. I need to remember to walk over a block to catch the #524 heading north for next time...except that will probably be in a year or more, by which time I'll have completely forgotten that I desperately need the good luck of the Thai zebra.

The bus got out to Chatuchak quickly, and we only passed one instance of flooding. I hightailed it over to Kamphaeng Phet metro which is next to (and weirdly, in) the more interesting indie clothing shops of Chatuchak and...

gasp

The zebra T-shirt store was shut.

Maybe the shop owner is out building a retaining wall and waterproofing his home, I thought as I glumly walked through the puppy and monitor lizard section of Chatuchak, before catching the #524 back to Banglamphu.


After all, half the city seemed to be engaged in water-diversion. People who had a week ago known nothing about floods were now busily sandbagging and building retaining walls. Shops all over Banglamphu had sprung up new walls while I'd been out hunting for zebras. You now had to climb over small walls just to go into 7-11.

Seems the engineer I'd met yesterday wasn't the only one worrying about the floods.




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