{"id":25,"date":"2006-12-19T17:47:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-19T07:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toddnorburyphotography.com\/blog\/?p=25"},"modified":"2006-12-19T17:47:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-19T07:47:00","slug":"my-mate-and-10-bucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.toddnorburyphotography.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/19\/my-mate-and-10-bucks\/","title":{"rendered":"My mate and 10 bucks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
My mate<\/a>
Originally uploaded by norbography<\/a>. <\/span><\/div>\n

There is a bit of a story to go with this photo.<\/p>\n

The night before, Andree and I were sitting at the Can Cafe (70c 435ml bottles of beer) having a cool drink and a feed, when these 3 little kids came up and saw the camera. They asked me to take their photos. Fair enough. Click, click. 2 complete duds (it may have been the beer, but I am blaming the dark) As usual, they then put the grubby mitts out for some money. I gave them what was about the equivalent of AU$1. Well, they laughed and took off and we could still here them laughing a while later. I said to Andree, “I am going to give someone ten bucks, just to see the look on their faces”. Those who know me know, Im not usually the one to be splashing cash around, but hey, I wanted to see what happened, and they needed it more than me.<\/p>\n

Next morning, I was up at 4am to go to the markets and see how the real people lived, with no tourists around. I headed off and had a ball.<\/p>\n

I originally saw this old bloke walking across the bridge towards me when I was taking a shot of the bridge in the sunrise.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/a><\/p>\n

He then approached me and posed for a photo. Right, snapped a couple of quick shots and put the camera down. He nodded and walked off. I motioned for him to stop, then grabbed 100,000 Dong (very roughly, about 10 dollars) and put it in his hand as I shook it. He looked in his hand and his face lit up. He then grabbed me by the arm and dragged me off. I was trying to put my wallet away, secure the camera and not tread on the hordes of tiny Vietnamese minding their own business.<\/p>\n

He dragged me through the markets and into an alleyway. There were about 6 old blokes playing Mahjong and eating breakfast. He spoke to jis friends and showed them the 100000 Dong. They all laughed and I thought it was going to cost me a fortune to get out of there. But no, they sat me down and all started chatting away and laughing and eating. They then handed me a plate of food (I still dont know what it was I ate, but it was very tasty) and some steaming tea and I ate breakfast with them. It was a highlight of the trip. They were all nattering away and I didnt have a clue what was being said, but they seemed happy enough and loved the fact that I ate with them. I was a bit apprehensive to begin with, but it was one of those rare occasions that only happen once in your life. And I am glad i met them all and had the experience.<\/p>\n

So, to my unknown mate, thank you to you and all your friends. You made my day.<\/p>\n

Footnote: I realise some people will frown on giving people money for a photo, but it created a fantastic opportunity and made me just as happy as them. So please, no more emails about how poor my morals are.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My mateOriginally uploaded by norbography. There is a bit of a story to go with this photo. The night before, Andree and I were sitting at the Can Cafe (70c 435ml bottles of beer) having a cool drink and a feed, when these 3 little kids came up and saw the camera. They asked me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqIRT-p","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toddnorburyphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toddnorburyphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toddnorburyphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toddnorburyphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toddnorburyphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.toddnorburyphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toddnorburyphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toddnorburyphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toddnorburyphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}