Bounty from abroad

In the olden days great exploreres returned home with a haul bursting with tresures and innovations from far off corners of the globe. Anything less and their princely sponsors would have off'd their heads.

Now, despite my best efforts I failed to secure a prince to sponser our trip. However, as a great explorer I feel it is my duty to bring some sorta bounty back. So, without any further delay, here is a list of things Canada could adopt from afar to make for a better country:

1. Community pets. In India there are cows on the streets, at monuments across Asia there are monkeys, and in Thailand there are dogs chilling out and appearing well looked after everywhere. It simply makes things more interesting, except in instances of aggresive contact - yes I'm looking at you head-butting Jaisalmer cow and water bottle stealing Elephanta Island monkeys.

2. Mobile street stalls. In Thailand and Cambodia the hole-in-the-wall restaurant comes to you via a scooter equipped with a sidecar made up of a frying pan, fridge, cutting board, and wash basin. They park, throw down a bit of patio furniture and start rapidly deploying banana pancakes, random meats on a stick, springrolls, bugs and snakes, and pad Thai. It makes for cheap and tasty, sometimes experiemental dinners.

3. Tuktuks, autorickshaws and Motos. These 3 wheeled small-engined open-air carriages can take two passengers with luggage. Way more fun than a regular cab and cheaper too, these things can zip up and down tight lanes on all sides of the road and get you to your destination on the tightest of timelines.

4. Low cost tall bottles of cold beer sold everywhere. Across Asia when the occassion for a cold beer has occured satisfaction has never been too far. It comes in a litre bottle for 1-2 dollars with exotic names like Everest, Tiger and Angkor. With the exception of India's delicious Kingfisher, fine Asian brews are sold everywhere ensuring that no sunset, hike, after dinner chat or latenight wait at a busy bus-stop goes unaccompanied. It just makes good sense.

5. Pyramids. Might be fun to have a set of our own. I know today's public works project are required to have a rovk solid business case, but I think a few pyramids in let's say Saskatchewan might really liven the place up a bit.

6. Trains, not planes. India's rail network is the world's largest employer, serves millions everyday, and connects almost the whole country in a giant web of rail tracks. Traveling by train has got to be better for the environment and it's way more fun than airtravel! Bring on cheaper, more frequant train travel in Canada.

Other than that I think Canada is AOK.


-- Posted from my iPhone