It's the little things

That you really notice on your trips overseas, those things that highlight either how much of a different world you are in (or how much of things is really the same). Some examples to illustrate:

1. Fried scorpions, beetles, cockroaches, etc... - only seen available at Koh San Rd (Chappel street meets Queen Vic Market meets back streets of St.Kilda - ie a tourist mecha) and do you know what - not one local ever seen eating them. "Bet ya that I can make these drunken white guys eat insects"?
2. On the train back from Ayuthaya (historical site out of Bangkok) we decide that we will pay double the price (40 baht = $1.333333) for a 2nd class (includes aircon and no livestock allowed) ride home. After the obligatory struggle with the ticket issuing guy I notice again that we have tickets with no seat number on them. On the way up this had meant not "sit anywhere" as we were told, but rather "be ejected from one seat after another as the people holding the tickets turn up". Oh well at least it is aircon. So we board the train and show our tickets to the police / military who look at them and seem to be quite annoyed. They proceed to yell at the station staff from the train, and then get down from the train and yell at them in person. After a bit of this they get back on the train and offer us their seats. My assumption is the yelling was "what the fark are you doing selling these crappy tickets to foregin devils, you know that means we will have to stand". ;-)
3. While snoozing the night away at the airport (our flight left at 6am and as we'd been drinking until 12am there didn't seem much point paying for a hotel that night) the security / military dude complete with gun walks towards our little uncomfortable nest. Here we go I think, about to be told off / ejected / woken up. But no - he sits down on the bench across from me, gives me a nod and lays himself out for some well deserved shut eye. I have to stuff my hand in my mouth so my laughter does not wake him.
4. Power company workers (we'll try to post some photos soon, but the wiring around here makes untangling 4kg of cooked spagetti seem easy). Two guys are walking around Koh Phanang (island just off Thailand where we currently are) one carries what could be described as a ladder but is better described as two bamboo poles with assorted bits of wood tied to them. The other carries a roll of wire about the same size as himself. The process is lean bamboo poles against power pole (or power lines if pole is too hard to get to) cross to opposite side of road. Run towards 'ladder' and attempt to get to the top of it before it collapses. Then feed yet another wire in amongst the 50 - 100 already there. Note that this was a "scheduled" power outage - I hate to see what temporary repairs are like ;-)

Anyway that's enough rambling from me. though all of this could be summed up with a phrase that's getting a lot of action around here "Same Same but Different".

Cheers

Jack...