Waiting for Dead People

I managed to go 22 full years without seeing a dead person...then this past week happened. The first one I saw was on the way to Delhi from Chandigarh - a guy had been hit by a truck or had been the driver of a truck that had an accident.

So yesterday, we go to a restaurant on kind-of-a rocky outcrop. It was strange because there was a crowd of people standing on the rocks watching something. When I got up to a good viewpoint, I saw a dead guy bobbing up and down in the water. Everyone was just standing around watching - nobody doing anything. Finally, a boat came by and "scooped" the guy up and took him somewhere.

As the story goes, there was a group of 10 locals drinking away on saturday night. One of the guys decided it a good idea to go swimming in the rocks. Put two and two together and you don't have a pretty ending. Seeing that his friend was in trouble, another guy jumped in to try to rescue that guy that had probably been knocked unconscious. Unfortunately, he too met a watery grave.

A few hours after finding the first body, the second body appeared - we only saw it on the beach with a crowd of people around it. Not a pleasant sight at all. To be honest, I was quite uncomfortable knowing that a dead guy was just laying there/bobbing up and down in the water.

Here is the kicker...none of the locals know how to swim. Apparently it's like that all over southeast Asia as well. Living/working on the beach does not equal the ability to swim, unlike in Australia. Add some alcohol and rocks into the mix (no pun intended) and it spells disaster.