...and it was part of a display in a ladies wear store at MBK Shopping Complex. Finding a typewriter in the middle of the city was gonna be tricky, considering I had the family with me. My wife and I virtually marched our kids all over the city as though they were French Legionnaires. We wanted to see the street markets and visit some of the larger shopping centers and stores like Isetan in the hope of finding brands that aren't available back in Australia. I had no real plan to buy anything, but I did find some Waterman fountain pen ink for the equivalent of $5.78AUD per bottle. Since this stuff costs fifteen bucks a bottle back home, I bought three of them at the B2S bookstore at CentralWorld shopping centre near the hotel we were staying in.
I love Bangkok, btw. The traffic is a dance of barely controlled chaos and the Thais are a beautiful people in both demeanor and appearance and the entire city has this "Blade Runner" feel.
But...back to this typewriter that I saw. It was a 1940s Royal desktop model, a KHH or KHM, I think. I'm not well-versed in vintage desktop models. The ribbon looked pretty ragged and the grave-stone keytops were illegible. I should have taken a picture, but I didn't want to get any further funny looks from the saleslady who may have been wondering why this farang was showing so much interest in the old machine on display.
Ahh, well, can't find a typewriter, what about some ribbons? No luck there, either. If I were staying in Bangkok for the weekend, I would stand a pretty good chance of finding something at the weekend markets. But I flew out of Bangkok at 8 o'clock this morning. I even took a plane!
So now it's 9:30pm Friday night and I'm at Krabi overlooking the ocean. Tomorrow, we'll head into Ao Nang to check it out. Who knows, I might just find something, but our luggage allowance will go through the roof.
Thanks for reading.
Big place, Bangkok. You couldn't have covered it all. As long as you had fun trying that's the point.
ReplyDeleteBangkok is amazing. Did you get the chance to go to Pratunam market? Hope you had the chance to soak it up.
ReplyDeleteSounds exhausting but fun. And you actually spotted a typewriter. (Was it a Thai keyboard?)
ReplyDelete@ notagain, yep, I'm sure I barely scratched the surface of this city, but I did enjoy walking around pretending I was Jason Bourne.
ReplyDelete@ idreamlo-tech, I didn't get to Pratunam market, but I tried to soak up as much of this great city as I could in four days. Definitely, I'll be back.
@Richard P, it was an English keyboard and it was exhausting, but I was determined not to let fatigue put a dampened on this trip because I don't know when we'll be able to afford another one. Been great so far.