 Long-tail boats jostle for space along the waterways of the floating markets  |
Stepping gingerly into the long-tail boat, our heavy tread rocking the boat alarmingly, two young children in the stern peer curiously through long- lashed eyes. Offering them my best wide-mouthed, friendly grin, they respond with bashful smiles. Gesticulating to their mother, who has now cranked up the enormous diesel engine and is manoeuvring through other long-tails away from the dock, she cannot hear my words, so I hold up my camera and point to her children, miming permission to take their photo. By now she’s donned a balaclava so I can’t see anything but her dark eyes, making her appear like a villainous baddy from a B grade movie.
Quashing my fears of paranoia, thinking that I’ve stepped onto the wrong boat, I quickly learn that the balaclava is to keep the heavily polluted water from splashing into her face, and I soon wish I had had the foresight to bring my own. Taking her nod of the head as approval, I snap away. Turning the camera around to show the children the screen snapshot, they both roll simultaneously onto their backs, legs in the air, giggling in puerile delight when they see their own faces staring back at them. The crinkling of pleasure in their mothers eyes assures me that I’m on the right boat after all.....
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