Greetings,

Welcome to the the outright fruitiest title ever created here at SHABL. Took off today to check out the market and pick some things up in town, it’s true. Anyways I’m walking on the street take this photo. Turns out in the photo there is this kid on this bike, whatever, right? Wrong.

This kid turns out to be Nicholas and he starts following me. He’s like 12 or so he claims. I give him the slip and I’m at this health store for obvious reasons if you read yesterday’s update. You know going for gold or whatever that means. So he shows up and starts sitting on the arm of my chair, awkward. I don’t care for kids at this point in my life. I’ll have time for mine one day but now, no thanks. Also I  hate how they invade your personal space.

So I ask him to sit on the couch,  he does and I am like eh so what’s up… He’s like “nothing”. Then he’s like do you like video games, I tell him “no, I don’t “. Long story short buy the kid a pineapple juice then he asks for cash. I’m like no. As I leave I’m like hey, enjoy the juice and please, don’t follow me. When I bought the kid the juice I realized how expensive and at times, unfulfilling parenting must be.

I digress.

Come back later, turns out “Nicholas” if that is his real name didn’t even drink the drink. The drink was like $3.50 which is sadly almost double most wages here or more than half the daily rate for my apartment in Chiang Mai. Kids these days! To make matters worse, before I left I got some weird looks from people like “wtf you doing having a drink with some kid” you perv. I saw some old dude having breakfast with kids once in Cambodia and I thought he was a  weako, anyways.

After that hit up the market. Africa is not Asia FYI. I mean that as in if you take a camera out and take a photo of people it’s like “hey, why are you taking my $@#$ing photo”? The Asians are so used to it they don’t really blink in the markets, here not a good idea. I took a few then decided, this isn’t worth it. Also if you take a  photo they will be like hey, my image isn’t free ok? The market was busy and intense. So many trucks, no space, can’t even imagine how they get them in there, pure mayhem. The dude in photo with thumbs up was cool, didn’t care about photo. Honestly, most people are cool but it’s the ones that are not you always have to watch out for.

Honestly though, I mainly take photos of things and people are in them. If you just take photo’s of people… Put it this way if you were at home and this crew of Japanese people started taking photos of you with their ultra wide ultra zoom canon camera’s up in your face, you’d be like “do you mind?”. Odd how once abroad we figure it’s “ok” to treat people like we’re on a safari.

Had I not taken that random innocent photo of the street which happen to have Nicholas in it… Get where I”m going? Anyway it’s a Saturday night and I have nothing planned but some Discovery Channel, Nat Geo Wild and Travel Channel. Although I kinda dislike the travel channel, am I the only one who doesn’t feel any connection with the hosts?  I think 99.9% of people on those shoes are d@mn lucky to have the jobs they do. Those adventure guys who eat whatever and do ultimate survival are pretty sweet though, can’t hate on them, no, never, not now, not ever.

Total side note, it’s really beautiful here and all the photos taken were from today’s mini excursion of sorts. It ended with a ride home from my “Michael Jacksonesque” moto driver. He’s pretty cool but he calls sometimes like “hey what are you doing”. I’m like nothing …. he’s like “need to get picked up” I’m like no… He’s like “Ok, peace out man”.

Seriously though, traveling is the most interesting think you could ever do with your time. I took a siesta today instead of going out for a fiesta tonight. Woke up in this house in Africa to all the smells, sights and sounds and was just like “wow, never thought a kid from Ottawa would get this far…” It’s funny because once you get older everyone puts pressure on work/family/responsibility as though dreams don’t exist, they do and often come true.

Have a sick Saturday,

P.S: Instead of having a whatever for lunch had whatever is below. It was pretty good except for the stuff on top.