I was at the wet markets this morning (wetter than normal, I might add, due to rain) and while I was selecting my lettuces, a Chinese woman let out an almighty shriek and sunk her fingernails into my arm.
I had no idea what was going on until another woman nearby informed me “Big rat just run past her leg”.
Oh Lord.
“Big rat” is the last thing you want to hear at a venue where you’re shopping for your weekly fruit and vegetables… I know rodent infestation is a possibility at open air markets like these but sometimes, ignorance truly is bliss. I don’t want to think about it.
So, as you can imagine, I spent the rest of my time at the stall checking my feet every ten seconds, lest some rodent run past my leg, and trying to get the image of rats nibbling my lettuce out of my head.
As I walked away from the stall, I heard someone shriek out “Watch out white woman” at the same time I felt a brush of fur along my leg. A loud shriek began to rise in my throat, just as I looked down and saw a thin ginger cat streak past me and run underneath the table of another stall.
My scream dissolved in my mouth, before I had the chance to embarrass myself. Phew! Thank goodness it wasn’t the “big rat”. I started to feel optimistic; perhaps the Chinese woman mistook the cat for the “big rat”…
Or perhaps…
The cat was chasing down that “big rat”…
I don’t want to think about it.
Just another morning in South East Asia…
Happy Tuesday people!
Photo taken by my Mum of me at the wet markets a few weeks ago. As someone who likes to document everyday life, I’m happy to have this photo in my possession. Not so happy I look so ghostly pale without make-up on. Or “whiter than other white people”, as one local woman told me once…
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