On my travels I visited Vietnam where one of my most memorable experiences was witnessing a man poo on the street . Not something you find recommended in the Lonely Planet, but one of the highlights nonetheless. This is because I travelled to discover new cultures, adapt to other ways of life, and feel enriched by all of the weird and wonderful things that are out there. I did not, therefore, expect to have the exact same experience in London.
Yes, the same experience. My younger sister, and our mutual also younger friend had both come to stay with me. It was a beautifully rare sunny day in the capital and I thought it would be lovely to take them for a picnic on Clapham Common. As we were strolling down from my house, picnic blanket and supplies in hand, the sun smiling down at us, we spied a head poking out from between two cars parked at the side of the road. Thinking nothing of it, (a repair man perhaps?) I continued gaily past until I realised that one of the girls had stopped. I turned to see her face, a fantastic concoction of laughter and horror; she beckoned us back barely able to explain what she’d seen. And there it was. The evidence in all its glory. Quite a champion achievement in fact. No word of a lie, a few metres away from a “No Dumping” sign. It is in fact his choice of location that baffles me the most, not even purely his insistence on engaging in this activity outside; we were three minutes walk from the common, at least go in the comfort of the trees.
So there it is, don’t spend thousands of pounds and all that effort getting to the other side of the world for a cultural experience. You can see a person excrete publicly anywhere. What a delightful story for the girls to tell their mothers.
