Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Caught between a monk and a motorcycle
Day 32 of our Southeast Asia Odyssey

In Thailand, we women are not supposed to touch the monks. I mean, it's not that we go around touching monks in other countries, but here it's expressly stated a few places that women are totally not supposed to touch the monks, nor stand near enough to accidentally touch them, nor sit in the seats reserved for them on the bus/subway because that would apparently be kind of like touching them when they sit there later, I guess. Anyway, I've been keeping my distance from the orange-robe-clad guys, but I must say there is one thing in Thailand I would like to touch even less, and that is the burning hot tailpipe on the right side of every moto, the moto being the ubiquitous form of transport in Southeast Asia.

So, when one is walking down a crowded Bangkok street and one is moving to the right to avoid the oncoming monk but then one sees on one's right an oncoming moto, one has a decision to make, and this woman will totally veer into the monk, if that's what it takes to avoid sizzling leg flesh.

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