When Life Sometimes Feels Like Fiction

Last night, H and I went for drinks with a few of H's colleagues.  Sometimes I wonder where the hell I am, not just geographically speaking.

My first pint of beer was accompanied by the following conversation:

B, "I'm going to Duri* (Indonesia) for days off to visit my boyfriend but he'll be working."

Me, "What is there to do there?"

R, "Drink cheap beer and hire prostitutes."

B, "Well, the prostitutes won't do me much good." (B's a woman)

R, "But you can hire them to do things for you, like paint your toenails."

*Duri is an oil town in Indonesia in the middle of nowhere.  Travel sites say, "There's no reason to visit Duri except for business."  Traveling from a reasonably first world country to Duri on your time off requires real devotion.  Often outside women are viewed as unwanted "competition" by the local umm..talent.  

Next conversation (still during pint one):

Me, "Hey, T, nice to see you.  How are you?"

T, "I'm doing well, just got back from the rig a couple of days ago."

Me, "It must be nice to be back."

T, "Not really, they had great food there.  All you can eat ice cream, oysters, and one night they served kangaroo, it was incredible."

Note, T is not Australian, and honestly who would trust seafood cooked by a man with marginal hygiene that more likely than not has spent some time as a ward of her majesty's correctional institutions.  

By this point, I was in need of another pint.

R, "Have you been to a cricket match yet?"

Me, "No but I'm looking forward to experiencing that unique cultural phenomenon.  As Bill Bryson says In a Sunburned Country, in what other sport can you dress in white from head to toe and end the game just as clean as you started it?"

R, "It's great fun, you sit in your blow-up pool all day drinking overpriced beer and eating meat pies and occasionally glance over at the game."

Me, "Wait, did you say blow-up pools?"

R, "Yeah, everyone in the lawn area brings them."

(Break for me to physically close my gaping jaw.)

R, "So you heard I got transferred to Saudi Arabia?  I'm trying to figure out what I can do to be barred from entering the country.  I'm thinking that maybe I'll bring in a load of pornography."

H, "Nah, they'll just confiscate it (and be silently thanking you for providing it)."

R, "Maybe I'll get fake breasts, they won't let a lady man in."

Me, "I think a quick trip to Israel to get your passport stamped would be easier."

After a visit to the bar, for another round, we started talking about R's time in Oman when he got invited to a camel race in the middle of the desert.

H, "You know camel racing has changed a lot.  They don't have child jockeys anymore, they've been replaced by robots."

R, "Yeah, people were putting up a big fuss that all these kids were stolen and forced to work in dangerous conditions for little if any pay."

S, "The kids weren't stolen, they were bought."

H, "But now it's more of a Land Cruiser race than a camel race because all the owners all race beside their camels to control their robots with remotes and they all try to cut off and distract the other drivers to make them drop their remotes."

Where am I and is this the real world or some kind of backwards flushing toilet alternate universe?