Fredflare.com (thanks Annie) has nifty sandals for sale and as I was perusing the options, I had a sudden sense memory of the sandals of my mid-70's youth. They were flip flops that were slightly platform (about 3/4" high), had a woven straw base, and wonderfully thick black velvet thong straps. They cost about $2/pair at the Thrift Drug in the Princeton Shopping Center, where the "sank you very much" clerk with the lacquered hair worked. I think you might have been able to get red ones, although I could be making that up, but mostly they were black thong straps against a nice cool (it gets hot in New Jersey) tan base.
After googling flip flop+bamboo+70's, I found the term zori, and the winning search term turned out to be "zori sandals 70's" which led me to this page of "MI" an online Martial Arts magazine.
MI sells them, and I am so getting these, all the way from Australia.
