Lights, Camera, Kiwi?

I'm not sure why, but there must be about a hundred phones with photos of me on them now.

In Sabah the teenage girls were pretty good at the sneaky over-the-shoulder pretend selfie or the outright "Stop. Stand." techniques. The most amusing one to date has been a woman yesterday at the beach taking a photo of me and being so surprised when the shutter sound went off at full volume that she jumped back, straight into the path of a huge monitor lizard! Phone went one way, she went the other, and I laughed my recently photographed are right off. The teenage boys tend to go on the charm offensive, generally striding up to me and saying "Beauuuuutiful lady, can we get a photo?" - a generally better tactic, as a face wipe has been the closest I've got to makeup for 3 weeks and I'm desperately hoping the freckles might join up into a tan one day.

Having just got off the bus from KK I headed straight for the Sandakan harbour for some fruit and fresh air. No sooner had I sat down and cracked into my snacks, I caught two teenage girls taking my photo mid-kiwi and when they realised and decided to pose for photos next to me! I asked them why it was good to have a photo and they just said "Hello! We are from the Philippines!" and giggled away again. So I tucked back into my kiwi and before I knew it a boy sat next to me, took a selfie with me bemused and still with bloody kiwi next to my face, and ran off!

I got this a lot in India as the old "show and tell" back in the village because white travellers weren't too common in those parts... But then it turned out that I was apparently the girlfriend of 5 different guys in the same village, with our photos plastered all over their Facebook profiles! 

If someone in Malaysia fancies giving me a modelling contract then hit me up: I've got the 6-hours-on-a-bus and nothing-but-fried-for-days looks nailed. It's a niche market, but somebody has to boss it.