When in Rome...

Do as the Romans! And you should take that seriously when traveling otherwise you will 1) offend locals or 2) miss the opportunity to learn new things or simply 3) not enjoy the excitement of the adventure, that thrill of experiencing the different, which is one of the good things about traveling.

Doing so, however, will sometimes require you to be adventurous and/or skilled. Traveling in Southeast Asia will give you plenty of opportunities to exercise such abilities. For example, some say the French will eat whatever the rest of the world finds repulsive, right? Well, come to SE Asia and you'll learn the French are not quite there yet and still have lots to learn. At night, in any narrow street of Bangkok you will find small carts, usually in a bicycle form, selling all sorts of fried insects to all tastes. You can have ants, beetles, grasshoppers or one huge water bug that resembles a cockroach on steroids (yuck!).

The least disgusting looking ones are the cocoons. Maybe because they don't have legs attached to them? Nevertheless, I'm still trying to getting used to the idea they can actually be eaten. I take they are probably like liquor filled chocolates: crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside... Bleargh! Doesn't make the idea any better!!!

The most disgusting one is the big water roach. Oh, boy! I saw someone eating one and it was simply revolting! The person in question happily munched away the insect's hairy legs before breaking it in two where the head joined the body and noisily sucking out the 'content' of the insect's bottom. Do you feel like throwing up yet? Well, I did!

Anyway, I did not try any of those... ...yet! Something I just had to do today, just because there was no other way, was using one of those toilet squatting pans. They are very common in Malaysia and I've been told that also in Japan. It was not the first time I saw them, no, but until today I was able to avoid them. Today I was unlucky and when nature called there were no toilet seats to be found so...

Gotta tell you, it was supposed to be simple, but it wasn't! If you think about it, one shouldn't require a degree to squat down and let it go, right? But try doing it! Go ahead! Just for fun try squatting down and pretending you are 'at it'! First thing you will notice if you actually try it is, if you're wearing trousers, they get in the way and you fear you will sh*t inside them if you're not careful enough.

So I had to take them out. And then the underwear. Oh, God!!! What about my socks and tennis shoes? I better aim right! It would be extremely embarrassing to get out of the toilly with soiled socks. So I did. But the floor was wet and exactly clean... I put back the shoes, without the socks. Held my shirt high and squatted. While 'doing the business' I looked around and... Hey! Hold on a second! AARRGH!!! Where's the #@! toilet paper???

Well, I will spare you the details. Suffice to say it all ended up fine and I got back home with another funny experience to tell my grandchildren... :o)