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Heliocyan — Princess and the pea
Published: 2010-01-10 23:25:00 +0000 UTC; Views: 828; Favourites: 4; Downloads: 0
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Do you know the fairy tale "The princess and the pea" by Hans Christian Andersen?? It is about a princess who is sleeping on 9 mattresses and still doesn't sleep well, because she could feel a pea under her mattresses....These guys and their mattresses reminded me so much of this tale
I have no idea what they were doing with them, they carried all kind of weird stuff around with them and unfortunately I didn't get the chance to ask them.
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Comments: 15
I remembered and saw those when we were in Chennai, India... amazing how they can carry such loads esp. when they only have such tiny transportation (like bicycle etc.)
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haha, that is so true!!! Unbelievable how much stuff some of them carry around with, and we saw a few completely overloaded trucks tipped over!
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I once even saw two guys on a bike carrying a washing machine. it was great. Pity, I didn't have my camera with me that day.
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haha, that's a shame, that would have been a great picture I suppose!!!!
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Look like sleeping pallets. I'm thinking.. India. Possibly somewhere in or around the Philippines. In any event, they are probably hauling them to an open air market somewhere, to sell.
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haha, they really do sell all kind of weird things there 
The best was the local butcher: all meat was still alive - they didn't have a fridge in the shop, so that is the only way to keep the meat fresh.... if you then choose something, they weigh the animal, then disappear with it backstage and come back after a few minutes with the skinned animal and chopped meat. It's nothing for the faint hearted....
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No kidding..
I spent a year in Thailand, when I was in the Army, so got a first-hand view of how they do similar things in that country. I actually enjoyed Thai food (it's real spicy), but would never inquire what was in it. Afraid they would tell me.. if you know what I mean. The thing I most remember about my stay there was the incredible gulf there was between the haves and the have-nots. The King lived in this lavish palace in Bangkok and, just down the road, there was a family living under a bridge. That was literally their home. In the country, where I spent my tour of duty, it was not quite so glaring, as there were only a hand full of villages in the area and everyone there was relatively poor, though they tended to live better, just because they could farm and basically have more for less.
Neat people, though. Really friendly.
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Exactly the same in India!!! They were all so super friendly, no matter how much or little they had....
There is lots of poverty there as well, we stayed mainly in the city, where whole families life in cardboards boxes on the pavement between the stray dogs. We stayed in a quite posh hotel complex which was built in the middle of a slum area, divided by barb wire!
I have to say the fact that we used with one shower in the evening more clean drinking water than a family outside has available for a whole year for drinking and cooking made me feel very uneasy!
They told us not to go in the slums, apparently it's dangerous, but because I never do what people tell me to do I went anyway, and I have to say they were all so lovely and friendly, I felt there much saver than I sometimes feel here in London.... They probably just didn't want tourists to see the real face of their country!
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Pretty much ALL of Thailand was off limits to me, other than the area just outside the gate of our Post, which was a small village that had, no kidding, three bars and two whore houses (plus a few so-called eating establishments and a couple of "souvenir" stalls) . Probably less than a hundred people living in the village, but they were set up to take our money. I think I went there once. Having access to a jeep, though, as well as a friend who had been literally stranded in country for over three years (when I got there - he was still there when I left), I had the rare chance to go beyond the borders set up by the military and see the real country of Thailand.
I also spent a year and a half on Okinawa, prior to my tour in Thailand and, true to form, spent most of my free time there in the Off Limits areas as well. A lot easier there, as they had taxi cabs, buses and, when all else failed, I could walk a few blocks one direction or another and escape the areas designated for us. Just didn't have a lot of use for Pawn Shops, Bars and Whore Houses. Don't blame the people for trying to make a living, but I had other things on my mind, which precluded following the herd, as it were.
You're right about the difference in slums there and in our countries, too. There are places in this country I would be fearful of going, and I speak the language, but I never felt intimidated walking the streets and alleys over there. Now, Mexico, or, say Guatemala.. totally have to be insane to go into their slum areas. Or suicidal.
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Wow, that sounds like a great experience to me! 
We ended up in a quite interesting establishment, a non-strip stripper bar (as my boyfriend called it): Apparently the Indian government made strip- and table dance bars illegal a few years ago, so millions of girls lost their jobs. To make it not so hard for them, they were allowed to stay in those bars, but they are not allowed to work at all and only 5 girls at the time. So what they do: there was a stage in that bar, and the girls were just standing there, 5 of them, waiting till someone gave them a tip! They came down the stage and smiled at you for about a minute, then they went back on stage again, waiting for the next tip.... every 30 minutes the 5 girls were replaced by 5 other girls - I was surprised how many there were!
It felt very weird in there....
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Sounds a little like the bar girls on Okinawa. They would sidle up to you at the bar and get all touchy feely. For the uninitiated, it seemed like things were getting all warm and fuzzy, but their whole gig was to get a G.I. to buy them a drink, which was always overpriced and alcohol free (I know, I scarfed one once, to check). They, of course, shared the money with the establishment. But, like I said, I think I went downtown all of four or five times and then only because some dude got it in his head he wanted company. Usually, I was up in the caves (smoking pot)or out in the Off Limits areas, doing just whatever. Also spent a lot of time, on weekends (when I wasn't working - I was a cook and had every other weekend off), out on the reefs, snorkeling/scuba diving.
The strip bars were full frontal nudity and usually involved some sort of sex pantomime, but Okinawan women were, for the most part, built just a whole lot like 14 year old boys, so, as you can imagine, it was hard to get just any kind of excited about such shows. Just one more reason NOT to go downtown.
Maybe we should start our own travelogue..
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haha, great idea with the travelougue!!
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We laugh, but my wife and I have often said that would be a dream job. Get paid to travel and then write about our adventures doing so. Throw in a couple photographs.. who knows? Thing is, we've always been so busy making a living, we've just never really taken the time to investigate how one would go about doing that.
In the meantime, I suppose we can all dream our dreamy little dreams.
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yes, you are right about that.... I'm currently working with someone who does wildlife photography, he goes on photo safaris to take pictures of tigers and other big cats - I never asked but it must cost him a fortune! He is only doing it for a hobby, but wants to earn money with it, desperately. So we try to have exhibitions together and who knows, maybe we can make some money out of it... other people can, why not we?
But of course you are right, making a living takes most of the time and all energy available in a day, it's so annoying - and I personally wouldn't be brave enough to give it all up and try it!
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Aye.. there's the rub.
Tell ya what, though. If it's something you really think you'd like doing, best to take the chance while you are relatively young. I remember thinking, when I was thirty, that my life was pretty much sewn up, that little else was ever going to change after that point. Man.. was I wrong. And, to be honest, had I known then just how much more lay ahead, I may well have taken one of those leaps. Now, of course, a few weeks from my 60th birthday, I can see how I may well have squandered whatever opportunity might have lain in wait for me.
On the other hand - I own my home, free and clear, my wife and I don't want for just a whole lot and I'm still fairly healthy (discounting the arthritis that is my daily bane), so I guess things could always be worse. I am, to be sure, grateful for what I have.
Still...
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