What's in that Plastic Bag?

During our cycle I saw the most amazing range of items in plastic bags. So being as how I like a good list, I started recording what I saw!

So here as some of the more peculiar items I saw in a plastic bag:

A puppy. How strange is that? A family was walking along the side of the road with their puppy in a plastic bag. I guess walking your dog is done differently over there!

Some ducks. In a plastic bag. The bag was on the handle bars of a motor bike driving along a back street with the ducks' heads all peaking out the top taking a look at what was going on around them.

Some rather questionable looking liquids. I choose to think it was tea. Workers need a nice refreshing beverage while out in the fields for the day! If the liquid was what it actually looked like, I am not sure why people would have been carrying it around with them!

At the Plan school, all of the kids were given their morning tea in little sealed plastic bags.

Then from the markets I vendors putting healthy and nutritious protein packed food items into bags for their customers. Some were very 'normal'... fruit, vegetables, meat etc. The stranger items included snakes, frogs, crickets, cockroaches, spiders (all dead and most cooked). Mmmmmm cockroaches for dinner! Would you like rice with that?

Of course, in our group there were people who were game to try many of these local delicacies. Me, not so much. Was fun watching though! I think my personal favorite was watching the tarantulas being eaten. Apparently the hair on their legs felt particularly gross going down! I was kind of surprised that none of them came back up, so good job to my intrepid fellow travelers!

Another fave was the girl who asked if she had something stuck in her teeth. In fact the answer was yes... there was a cricket stuck in her teeth! Very elegant!


Of course the downside of all of these plastic bags is the litter. Plastic bags everywhere in the country side. Such a shame!

Speaking with our totally amazing local guides, they explained that in the past food items were carried in banana leaves which were just thrown on the ground when they were used. Now that would have worked a treat since banana leaves would be slightly more bio-degradable than plastic shopping bags. And I am thinking that there may not quite the level of services with respect to trash collection in villages in Cambodia and Vietnam as we expect in the west.

Made me think one of the things which is needed is a 'Clean Up' campaign like we have here in Australia. And that is my 2 cents!

Later Gators!

W xx