Things you would not see in any other parts of the world….

Episode #1 The edge of Western China, almost the border with Kyrgyzstan:

We were driving behind a young couple, who was riding an old clanky motorcycle on the highway.
It was the edge of the Taklamakan desert and the road was narrow, monotonous and long, with no services for hundreds of kilometers.

It was a two lane highway with no separation and no markings, and the asphalt was burning hot.
On both sides of the road, there was nothing but dry desert and some low thorny bushes.

The motorcycle stopped ahead of us, in the middle of the road…

The young woman, who was holding a young baby, pulled out a thin fabric.
She placed it on the dirty scorching asphalt, and spread it in the MIDDLE of this narrow highway, taking one whole lane…..
She laid the baby on it, to clean his butt.

I am NOT exaggerating here, she did not place the cloth on the side of the road, because there were no shoulders to this highway, she spread the large cloth in the MIDDLE of the road, taking a whole lane.

Her baby-changing-operation, in the middle of the highway, left only a narrow pass for traffic from both sides, that might have needed to take turns to pass her by…

Meanwhile, her husband lit up a cigaret,…… extra calm and extra cool, as if this were the most natural thing to do in the world….. As if they were lounging at a bar on the beach.

Our driver passed them by, without even slowing down.
Both him and our guide, did not even blink an eye….

In the corner of my eye, I caught the astonished look on Jules’ face, and I knew that he was as shocked at this scene as I was…

I had to admit that I was totally shaken….
Growing up in Israel, I could not even imagine any Jewish mother changing her baby on a thin scarf, in the middle of the highway,….. in the middle of the desert….

It felt like an episode of “Believe it or not….”

Episode #2 Kathmandu

We were driving on a narrow road in Kathmandu.
It was the middle of the day, and traffic stopped for a long time.
Something was blocking the road…

We slowly inched our way to what I thought was an accident site.

When we arrived there, I saw what was obstructing the road…

In the middle of the road, stood a huge cow and an even bigger bull.

Cows and Bulls here, feed on whatever trash they find by the side of roads, which are extremely littered and filthy.

Their terrible “diet” of plastic bags and crap, gives them severe indigestion problems.

On that day, what was blocking the road, was a huge bull with an unbelievable bout of diarrhea…

This was a whole new concept of “Bullshit”… And I am NOT making a joke here…

The bull was having a stream of diarrhea coming out of his butt, like an open hose of pressurized sewage waters.
It came continuously for a long time, and splashed straight into the traffic and the road, with spatters on my closed car’s window.

I felt shocked beyond belief, and in my astonishment, I cried: “Oh my God!”….

What I really should have said was….”Holy Shit!”