Take-Aways

It was not as exciting as it sounds, but I bet it got your attention. Overall it was a quiet evening with drinks and some fascinating revelations. I always find it very surprising how fellow travellers have the capacity to reveal themselves to total strangers. It's amazing the people you meet and the kind of projects you hear about. Like the story of these newlyweds who went to Las Vegas to get married and had their families from across the globe be present at the wedding online. No expenses and the gifts have been used to finance a year long honey moon across the globe. Or this lovely Irish guy who looked like some yoggi master, big whale bone tribal earings, long hair that probably reached his waist but which I only saw in a bun at the top of his head who is in fact a computer programmer. He has actually been on a year and a half sabatical and has been round the world, twice. My lot the other night was quite disparate but equally interesting. The hash expert was Italian. A really chilled out guy and a chef in a nursery. He works for 9 months each year and then takes off, preferably to poor and underdevelopped places to stretch his budget further. He knew everything about Morocco, Katmandou, Nepal and pot. One North American was gay, very friendly and fancied every male thing that walked by. He spent the last year teaching in Thailand. The other North American was Mexican and she was fun. What is it with you guys? Are you everywhere? The drag queens where actualy street theatre, you know, like those musicians who start siging in the street and then just have a little cup you can throw money in. This was like that. Outdoor, on a little improvised stage at 9 pm right where all the restaurants and children are. Quite nice that it is not taboo. Until a little girl selling flowers came round and started drawing pictures of little girls with breasts. Somehow I don't think little kids should notice should they? At any rate some of the drag queens up there would put real women to shame. There were one or two that were stunning enough to prompt the Italian to admit that he had not long ago spent half an hour kissing one in Bangkok before he realised she was a man. I could see how that can happen. I have to say though that when she came off the stage and spoke, it kinda broke the spell but I suppose there cannot be much talking in night clubs. And that is when the scorpion turned up. A real one. Big. Really big. And in a funny way absolutely fascinating, perfect, and shiny like it was made out of wax. Guess what happened then. The Greek just stared at it with open mouth, the Italian thanked God we saw it before it reached his feet, the US guy made a lot of noise and the Mexican called home to ask them to buy her a lottery ticket. That is when I had to rush home. I had been visited by another dreaded traveller's menace. It knocked me out for 24 hours.