We’re gearing up for a flight to Rio in a few days. While considering many fond memories of Brazil, I realized that next week a this time I will be all sore from sleeping on the bed at my wife’s uncle’s house (and many other beds like it at other relatives homes).
The bed looks just like an American bed, but when you sit on it you get a big surprise: it’s a big hollow wooden box with an inch or so of padding on top.
It feels like you are sleeping in a sleeping bag on a hardwood floor. I wake up in the morning with sore joints.
Wow, I wish I had one of those! My girlfriend likes a big pillow-top mattress, yet those things make me stiff and creaky in the morning. I actually prefer the floor, the harder the better.
Beds in Israel are usually an inch or two of foam on a platform, so not much cushioning there either. I always assumed that it was because they were cheaper. Schools for American kids spending a year post high school (a common thing among Orthodox Jews) will use ‘American beds’ as a selling point if they have them, because Americans pretty uniformly hate Israeli-style beds.
I’ve wondered if bedding preferences were more cultural than anything - this was inspired by seeing the wooden ‘pillows’ (basically carved wooden headstands) used in Imperial China in a museum, and wondering how anybody could possibly be comfortable enough on such a thing to sleep.
When I was in India, most non-touristy places had beds with a mattress about 4 inches thick, no box spring underneath. For the most part it was like sleeping on a very firm American-style mattress. Tourist hotels in places popular with Western visitors were more cushy, definitely.
Just a thought - if the Brazilian beds leave you sore, why not bring along an air mattress? They are quite comfy, and you can get one that is self-inflating and that doesn’t take up much space.