Croaked, deceased, passed away, pushing up daisies, fish food.
Take your pick but its been a difficult one.
Double moped death came knocking today but I think there was an misunderstanding. Death mark one arrived to collect. When Death mark two jumped the queue there were some words exchanged and then some shoving. Somebody's new scythe got scratched. In the confusion they seemed to forget about me. .
I was crossing the road to go to the bank, although moped death can strike at any time. The pavement (which becomes an extra lane at rush hour), petrol station forecourts (where mopeds scream between the pumps as a short cut), the bath (don't ask me how but enough people bathe in the street to make anything possible). All are equally likely. Mopeds come at you from all directions and always simultaneously. One day the universe will end in a cataclysmic moped crash and God will be revealed to his faithful as a 25cc Honda Dream attended by a celestial host of divine tuk tuks.
Crossing roads here is like Asteriod Evasion on Atari. Nothing ever stops for you. Ever. It just keeps on coming and the best you can hope for is that they alter course to avoid a direct hit. Except when they haven't seen you. Talking on your mobile phone? View obscured by wearing sunglasses at night? Five people and a fridge on your moped and you need to look behind you to show your wife an amusing photo message of a funny looking dog riding a Harley? Oh dear.
As the 4x4 bore down on me, I held my nerve and was spared by a last minute change of direction. Sadly, the two mopeds driving precisely one micron behind the truck were busy chatting and were only alerted to my iminent death by ........ my imminent death!
I reacted quicker than the human eye. My trousers fell down (it happens alot). I waved my arms. I yelled something sharing components of 'Yrunggg' and 'pleasesparemyworthlesslife'. They looked up in unison and their expression of horror was only marginally less impressive than mine. There were two of them so cumulatively it might even have been better. They swerved left and right. My trousers fell down again. Handle bars brushed me front and back. Were it not for the 3lbs I have lost in the last 54 arduous days of travel, I would have been a goner, smeared on the tarmac of fate like an over ripe tomato.
I composed myself, pulled up my trousers and went about the business of finding a stiff drink.
Instead I was eaten alive.
Apparently indifferent to my miraculous escape, Clare talked me into what is euphemistically called a Fish Massage. You pay 3 dollars to a lad with a suspiciously over stuffed wallet and then put your feet into his road side fish tank, while he sets fire to himself and dives though a flaming, knife rimmed hoop before doing back flips. The little fish nibble at the dead skin on your feet. It tickles unbearably.Then they net the fish into the deep fat fryer for diners waiting for whitebait at the restaurant next door.
And you think I am joking.....
Take your pick but its been a difficult one.
Double moped death came knocking today but I think there was an misunderstanding. Death mark one arrived to collect. When Death mark two jumped the queue there were some words exchanged and then some shoving. Somebody's new scythe got scratched. In the confusion they seemed to forget about me. .
I was crossing the road to go to the bank, although moped death can strike at any time. The pavement (which becomes an extra lane at rush hour), petrol station forecourts (where mopeds scream between the pumps as a short cut), the bath (don't ask me how but enough people bathe in the street to make anything possible). All are equally likely. Mopeds come at you from all directions and always simultaneously. One day the universe will end in a cataclysmic moped crash and God will be revealed to his faithful as a 25cc Honda Dream attended by a celestial host of divine tuk tuks.
Crossing roads here is like Asteriod Evasion on Atari. Nothing ever stops for you. Ever. It just keeps on coming and the best you can hope for is that they alter course to avoid a direct hit. Except when they haven't seen you. Talking on your mobile phone? View obscured by wearing sunglasses at night? Five people and a fridge on your moped and you need to look behind you to show your wife an amusing photo message of a funny looking dog riding a Harley? Oh dear.
As the 4x4 bore down on me, I held my nerve and was spared by a last minute change of direction. Sadly, the two mopeds driving precisely one micron behind the truck were busy chatting and were only alerted to my iminent death by ........ my imminent death!
I reacted quicker than the human eye. My trousers fell down (it happens alot). I waved my arms. I yelled something sharing components of 'Yrunggg' and 'pleasesparemyworthlesslife'. They looked up in unison and their expression of horror was only marginally less impressive than mine. There were two of them so cumulatively it might even have been better. They swerved left and right. My trousers fell down again. Handle bars brushed me front and back. Were it not for the 3lbs I have lost in the last 54 arduous days of travel, I would have been a goner, smeared on the tarmac of fate like an over ripe tomato.
I composed myself, pulled up my trousers and went about the business of finding a stiff drink.
Instead I was eaten alive.
Apparently indifferent to my miraculous escape, Clare talked me into what is euphemistically called a Fish Massage. You pay 3 dollars to a lad with a suspiciously over stuffed wallet and then put your feet into his road side fish tank, while he sets fire to himself and dives though a flaming, knife rimmed hoop before doing back flips. The little fish nibble at the dead skin on your feet. It tickles unbearably.Then they net the fish into the deep fat fryer for diners waiting for whitebait at the restaurant next door.
And you think I am joking.....
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