Dancing traffic police - Bacolod, Philippines

I've never needed a reason to pack up my bags and start traveling. I've been "on the road" for years, many years, almost without interruption. There are moments though, moments when I get off a run down truck, at an unremarkable crossroads, surrounded by buildings made of stained concrete, smeared glass, rusty metal, and torn plastic canvas, whose old colors have been faded by the blows of the tropical sun. I get off the truck then, I turn around, I see something weird, amusing, surprising and I say damn carrying around backpacks, clothes, electronic devices and a guitar that I can't even play to end up in this world's asshole and enjoy the show that is unfolding in front of me was definitely worth it!
I'm standing at one of those crossroads right now, in downtown Bacolod, a city in the island of Negros, in the heart of the Philippines archipelago, and I'm watching open mouthed the performance of a policeman that is directing traffic with a mix of Michael Jackson's moonwalk, Tony Manero's hip moves and Nureyev elegant steps. Hilarious. A situation whose surreal angle I seem to be the only one to notice. 

I took a few videos, here they are:

Funny signs/10

I often come across some funny signs, billboards, notices and labels. When it happens I always make sure that I don't leave the spot without a photo. I'll post them here a few at a time.

Caution! - Koh Samui, Thailand

Thanks a lot, it's so kind of you - Shanghai Pudong airport, China

Why??? - Suzhou, China

Funny folks - Boracay, Philippines

Alright, you can't say we didn't warn you.
Now it's not our problem anymore...

BOOM! There was a loud explosion somewhere in Boracay Main Road. I think the blast came from the top of the building in front of me. Some people scream, then they relax and someone even starts to giggle. I ask a lady who is standing beside me what that was about. She answers something that I can't quite understand. Run...done...bun...something of the sort. It doesn't make sense though, what does that mean? Hold on a second...no! It can't be. I ask again. She answers with calm, almost bored: "Someone shot a gun." What??? A GUN!!! And then she also starts laughing while she's talking about it with a storekeeper. 
This guys are fantastic. After all I should have already guessed that last year here.

Summary justice - Bangkok, Thailand

The year 2013 was indifferently fading away while I was standing petrified, watching a mob publicly lynching someone who got caught stealing a shirt, or something like that. While he was lying unconscious on the road, perhaps already dead, someone used his heel to smash his skull on the asphalt a couple of more times. He raised his knee high and used all the strength he was capable of. The guy's head rolled on the ground in a peculiar way, like a coconut being hit by a machete. Then two cops arrived, checked his pulse, couldn't make much of that, handcuffed him and took him away. Yes, they really handcuffed him: after all a thief is always a thief, even if he seems to be dead. As for the executioners, they proudly walked away. Obviously unpunished. 

The "motorsai" experience - Bangkok, Thailand

Taxi "Motorbaaai"

Have moooob! Taxi no gooo, mo-ter-saaai gooo! OK mai krab?
You say OK, and you hop on, with all your luggage, guitars, saxophones, dogs, pigs, chicken coops, bread, cheese and ham, radio, TV set, satellite dish, dad, niece and grand mum...skirting cars, bikes, food stalls, protesters, cops, journalists, office workers, tourists, hookers and ladyboys, from the airport link terminal to your hotel, air, chili vapors and smog on your smiling face.
And that's when you suddenly remember why you liked it so much the first time you came here...

Conflicting rights - Bangkok, Thailand

Seated on the tables barring the passage

Sometimes we have a lot to learn from the simplicity, the humanity and the flexibility of South East Asians (for an example you can take a look at the last picture below). Or better, to re-learn, as fifty or sixty years ago we were pretty much like them.
For some other aspects though it is better for us to go and take our lessons somewhere else. I realized that when I was having a bite and a beer at at table near the edge of a street in Bangkok. The restaurant management had placed their tables on the section of the sidewalk in front of the entrance. Normally people prefer to walk on the road - especially in this area and in the evening - turning it into a sort of pedestrian area. The road was jammed though, as it often happens here: a taxi, a tuk-tuk, a street stall and a few people ordering their food. The passersby were forced to move to the sidewalk. Notice that this is exactly the opposite of what should normally happen. This is a very common thing in Asia though, and it is not what I intend to point out here.

The discrete time dimension security - Moscow, Russia

The Moscow metro

Last week I was watching a video at a contemporary art exhibition at the Moscow Manege. According to what the author claims as soon as the users of the huge city subway system set foot on the long escalators they suddenly enter a different dimension, where time ceases to be a continuum entity and becomes a sequence of discrete quantities: those of the intervals between two consecutive stops and those of the long waits at the exit gates. The only thing we can do to regain possession of our personal time experience - we read on the exhibit caption - is leaving the flock, walk in the opposite direction, do something unusual, different, original. 
Maybe. It seems to me though that the plastic masses of people that clog the bottlenecks of the escalators mouths - not discrete at all, actually rather continuous, uniform, almost liquid - can be a useful source of security, confidence, physical and human warmth, especially when you are wedged between the soft paunch of a boozer and the prominent ass of a beautiful Moscow girl. 
Then you recall that a few years back a group of fanatics launched a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, causing a massacre, and you realize that in cases like this the larger the mass the higher the number of victims, so you tend to agree with the artist, not really to reset the hands of your personal clock but rather to save your precious ass. 
Still, dropping the nipple of that huge, sensual and wobbling - albeit time-upsetting - breast is not easy at all.