MORE Character Assassination

OK, perhaps some more character assassination and backroom gossip is in order.  I know I'm not supposed to do either of those things but it's just so damn satisfying.  I think I'm a decent guy but tolerance and patience with you lesser mortals is definitely an area I need to work on. Gossip is like eating potato chips - once you get rolling it's hard to put the brakes on.

So, that being said, here is a catalog of some of the bitching and boorish behavior I heard while on the fancy-pants tour, and I am not making any of this up.

The bus is too hot or could you turn down the air conditioning?  Tough shit and no.

The road is too rough.  A few times the road was pretty bad but talk about something out of everybody's control.

This site is stupid or a waste of time or too far from the ship.

The guide never stopped talking.  This is a variation of the complaint that we weren't given enough information from the guide about the day's excursion, and maybe one of the origins of the concept: "Damned if you do - damned if you don't."

Immediately upon embarking on our ship more than one person complained about the internet access.  I mean they were standing in the lounge with their devices trying to get on-line immediately.  I assume that their input was needed on important matters with global implications.  Have you ever looked over someone very important's shoulder while they were on the web?  Try it - no one is doing anything very important unless you consider Facebook to be a matter of global import.  Which you should not.  All of their electronic devices should have been chucked into the Mekong.

People sitting in the a/c lounge reading or talking while we were cruising down the Mekong in Cambodia.  We could have been in a hotel lounge in Pismo Beach.

People who think they're very funny but aren't funny at all should be sterilized.  If they talk unfunnily very loudly then their children should be taken in the middle of the night and extradited to a black-ops site for several months.

People who enter sacred religious sites and then find a place to sit down, all in a group, so that they can talk very, very loudly about matters unrelated to the site should be gagged and hobbled.

People who bargain fiercely for a $1 discount on a $3 item and then bragging about their purchase should have $1 bills super-glued to sensitive mucous membranes.

At one of the temples the tour company had arranged for two monks to say a long prayer for us. During this invocation the monks scattered lotus leaves into the crowd.  A couple of people complained about an "allergic reaction" to the leaves.  How about some hot sauce on your genitals?  That would classify as an allergic reaction.

One woman actually came up to me at the start of cruise - named Riches of the Mekong - and asked: "Which river are we on?"  I said: "The Mississippi," which she didn't think was that funny.  I should have suggested the Rhone or the Seine, maybe the Orinoco.  She was a lot more savvy than I gave her credit for.  Frankly, the question so disarmed me that I was speechless for a second.  It took me a lot longer to come up something offensive to say than normal.

Part of me wondered why travel to a 3rd World country only to complain about the 3rd Worldness?  This was never a vacation but more of a cultural adventure.  And as I mentioned before my hat is off - or should be off - to anyone willing to take the plunge into such newness. This would be if I could look for the good in someone instead of the bad.  There was another couple there who felt like we did but were - in my opinion - overly pious and self-righteous about the correctness of their traveling .  .  . and yes, I see the irony as I write this, luxuriating in my own perfection.  The point is I try to keep finding that middle road, that balance, that perspective.

Really, I'm mostly just having some fun with this.  Most of the time these folks were just fine and they didn't bother me at all.  We all have our shortcomings.  

Mine, as has been pointed out repeatedly, is a total lack of tolerance for other people.  Working on it, working on it.