Originally Posted by
taxexile
younger westerners, from countries where health and safety regulations, restrictions and prohibitions have developed over the past 30 years in order to protect people from their own blind stupidity have little or no concept of the dangers present in everyday life in other parts of the world where people have grown up knowing full well they have to look out for themselves because nobody else will and are usually fully aware of the dangers presented by standing next to open train doors, precariously balanced cauldrons of boiling oil lining the crowded footpaths, live electrical cables at head height, highways full of crazed drunken drivers in poorly maintained vehicles etc.etc.etc.
this careless canadian, nannied throughout his life in a country where the careless are protected from their own carelessness was rendered utterly unfit to survive in a country where one has to look out for oneself.
thai trains, bouncing and lurching about as they do on uneven tracks are no place to try your luck by standing or sitting on the steps of the open doors. but poor ralph would have had no concept of the risks involved in such an activity and unfortunately paid the ultimate price for his lack of awareness.
survival of the fittest and all that.