There are no times in my life when I have experienced more quirky situations than when I’ve been traveling. However, in most cases, I haven’t had the chance to take a picture of the situation. Here, I have compiled the quirky situations where I/we actually managed to capture a picture of the moment.
You probably know the feeling. A situation suddenly takes a strange turn. A turn you simply go along with to see what it brings. And because you’re traveling, you’ve left behind all the usual norms and boundaries of what is normal and customary.
These are the types of situations I will try to depict in this article. Situations that became completely quirky and that we now look back on as an adventure we can only smile about today.
In this post, it’s only the quirky situations that were also caught on camera.
1. When Peter became Tom Cruise with a wife for a day
On our way from Siwa, out in the middle of the Egyptian desert, we sat waiting for a bus for four hours to take us back to Cairo. Here, we met an Egyptian family who were convinced that Peter was Tom Cruise. The girl in the family was absolutely thrilled and fell head over heels for my husband.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t compared to the lovely Nicole Kidman, who was his wife at the time, but I had the pleasure of witnessing the excitement over Peter.
Many family portraits were taken with both of us, in both standing and sitting positions.
P.S.: We, of course, told them our real names from the start…
2. Admitted as a makeup doll in a hospital in India
It’s really not fun to be sick while traveling. The worst place I’ve experienced being sick was definitely during my two-month trip to India and Nepal. I was ill in some way for 80% of the time. India, in particular, gave me the quirky experience of being sick.
After losing a lot of fluids due to my (in)ability to handle Indian food, I became so dehydrated that I had to go to the hospital. I was admitted and put on an IV drip to recover. Our driver, Radjo, came every day to check on me and my two travel companions who stayed with me. Radjo’s wife brought homemade daal to help me recuperate. I was well taken care of.
The truly quirky part was that the nurses found me so exotic with my red hair, fair skin, and blue eyes that they played makeup doll with me. They applied makeup, red lipstick, a tikka on my forehead, and nail polish. So there I was, lying in bed all dolled up.
3. Temple models for a day
I have great respect for the Buddhist faith and their temples. I know how much they mean to the people and the monks. Therefore, both of us were quite surprised and amazed when, on our trip to Damnoen Floating Market in Thailand, we were accosted by a monk who insisted on taking a picture of us inside the temple.
We declined several times as we found it a bit intrusive. But he wouldn’t let us go – he pushed us into the sacred area of the temple. Then he took our camera and snapped pictures of us.
So there we were, behind all the sacredness, smiling for the photographer… and feeling a bit quirky.
P.S.: It’s the first time we’ve shown the picture to anyone…
This was all for now. There will definitely be more quirky situations with pictures.
To be continued…
