Hatless in bangkok

It was getting into late July now and to my delight the weather had become tolerable and even pleasant. I had feared the sun and brought from California an excellent straw hat, designed and branded in Australia, made in China, and bought by me in a sporting goods store for five dollars and ninety eight cents. The shading and ventilative features of this hat were excellent, but it was more than a nuisance to carry, and I began to notice that I really needed it only a few minutes every day. I had, for one, found that I was not venturing abroad for vigorous midafternoon walks as I might in America, and even then the sun did not shine much of the day, the sky filled with rapidly changing clouds, now mild and oyster colored, now blackish and turbulent. Soon enough I left the hat somewhere, I think in a movie theatre in Siam Square where they occasionally showed films that met my discriminating tastes.

I determined to design a better hat, since all that I was able to find in the markets were intolerably hot except during those very occasional and fleeting moments of fierce overhead solar radiation, for the Bangkok sun since April and until August was almost directly overhead. Extreme portability and low value were the principal design criteria for my hat; I thought that a small napkin-like folded paper disposable might do the trick, but I grew weary of trying to find the right materials and one day stumbled in desperation on the expedient of cutting a sleeve from an old T-shirt and gluing the end opening with ordinary carpenters glue. This worked well, I eventually made half a dozen, and though it might be said to have created a somewhat odd appearance I reasoned that foreigners were universally taken by the natives to be both odd and correct. I have never noticed even when shooting my most darting looks at the locals passing on the streets the slightest hint of derision from anyone.

But were it not for the impractical bulkiness for city wear, the traditional Thai farm hat, or muak, is clearly the winner, allowing for full shade and full circulation of air on your sweaty head.