and i quote 6

A few from the last trip...

"I need a bigger one." - Greta, a friend I met in Indonesia.  She was buying a wooden penis-shaped bottle-opener as a gift for a friend back home.

"Transport? Magic mushrooms?  Balinese boyfriend?" - Some of the things offered by the men in Bali as you walk down the street.

"Mid-life crisis at 31?  I love it!" - A 43-year old man I chatted with while waiting to board my final flight home from Chicago, making a judgment on my life.  I had just told him that I'd been in Australia for 6 months and was planning to do some more travel in the coming year.

One from a trip to Montreal while I was home...

"Oh good! It's only minus seven!" - My friend Shiv when I went to visit her in January, as we were about to head out to an evening event outdoors.  (For you non-Canucks, that temperature is in Celsius and about 20 degrees Fahrenheit.)

And now that we're caught up, some from this trip...

"Do you mean on purpose?  Or did you get lost or something?" - Mark, one of my tourmates, from Bristol, England.  Maria, another tourmate, had just told him that she'd been to his hometown.

"I thought I was going to get robbed tonight." - Maria, a 24-year-old traveller from Ireland.  We'd just walked into a riverside restaurant in Phnom Penh for dinner that offered a lot of great photo opportunities.  She'd left her camera at the hotel, heeding our tour guide's warning to take only the pocket money you need for the night with you as any other items would attract thieves.

"Are they all wearing their pajamas?" - Maria, wondering if we'd caught the women in the street-side shops too early in the morning.  Women in parts of Vietnam wear loose-fitting, light-weight tops and bottoms made out of brightly-patterned materials during the day.

"I'll never order prawns again." - Nina, another tourmate from Austria, while we were out for dinner in Ho Chi Minh City.  She didn't realize that her grilled prawns would be cooked at the table using live creatures, allowing her to see them struggle through a hot, painful death.