More On Street Vendors

I mentioned before that I never eat any food from the street vendors here. Sometimes, people tell me that I should toughen up my stomach by eating more of these questionable food and introducing some bacteria in there. Their rationale is that if I did that, I won't have any problems in the future.

I'm not going to do that. It won't kill me if I don't try these foods. I can have the same things in a cleaner (hopefully) restaurant where it is probably of better quality anyway. So I miss out on the novelty of eating by the roadside but at least I'm not boosting my chances of contracting something like Hepatitis A.

Here is an example of why I just can't bring myself to buy food from the street vendors. Bilbo might have had enough of cold white stuff but the kids here can't get enough of it. Obviously, it doesn't snow here in Palembang but they do have shaved ice. And this man is very popular once the school children are let out.

Here he is manually shaving the ice:



Pressing it into a round ball with his bare hands:



Pouring the food colouring on it:



After all that, he'll accept money with those same hands, fiddle around for change, maybe wipe the sweat from his brow or adjust his cap. You get the picture.

I really love watching the people here enjoy something like shaved ice from a man who rides around on a bicycle selling it but I just can't eat it. I think the people around me sometimes think I'm being hoity-toity about it but.....