A last reflection on SE Asia

After being back in the USA for about ten days, here is one last post regarding my recent tour of South East Asia.  In reviewing the journal I kept while on the road, I thought I’d share nine highlights from this trip.

(1) Does the question “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” lose meaning when you eat a sandwich that has both chicken and egg on it? You may not know which came first, but you know they ended at the same time.

(2) If you were part of a mathematical equation, would you prefer to be a variable or a constant?

(3) If you decide to count your chickens before they hatch, does putting all the eggs in one basket while you count compound the mistake, or negate it?

(4) Several of the old temples in Cambodia are still buried in jungle and only visited by a handful of tourists and the local villagers. I wonder what it would be like to grow up with an 800 year old palace as your playground? Would visiting ruins ever appeal to you after that?

(5) I think life would be very different if we got bitten by other animals as often as we get bitten by mosquitoes.

(6) Are you going to answer “no” to this question?

(7) In a great example of the hilarity that can occur due to mistranslation, my favorite from this trip was a business offering a Car for Rant. (Note: I am assuming this was mistranslated, and not actually a car which you could rant about!)

(8) I think I’d enjoy arrival in a foreign country more if instead of requiring a list of the property you are carrying, the Customs Form was list of the customs of the country you were entering.

(9) A young vendor, about 12 years old, said to me “You’re a man, but your mind is quick.”