In case you’ve missed it, President Barack Obama is in Indonesia and India this week. The tour is being touted as a return to the place (Indonesia) where the president spent a portion of his childhood, as well as a visit to a growing economic superpower (India.)
It’s also a good bet that he wanted to be as far away as possible in light of  the electoral whipping he took in the mid-term elections last week.
My guess is the other end of the world sounded like a good destination when few in your own country seem to want you around.
There are several interesting things about this trip. The first involves Indonesia, where the US Embassy set up a Facebook page so residents could vote on what President Obama would eat while he was in their country.
It seems President Obama had enjoyed a local dish, Basko, during his youth there. One news announcer compared Basko to the commonness of the American hotdog.
That’s way too average for the president, detractors said. Instead, they wanted him to try something fancier, such as Kerak Telor, a rice and duck egg omelet.
Yummy.
In the end, however, it seems Basko was leading the voting. This leads me to believe that Indonesia is a good country that enjoys its simple pleasures. It also appears to be one that has nothing else to worry about.
The second part of the trip involved India. It wasn’t food that dominated the headlines here – it was dance.
At one gathering, a group of young girls did a dance for First Lady Michelle Obama. It was a traditional Indian dance and the small girls invited Mrs. Obama to dance with them. Bravely, she did and did a good job.
After all, I doubt she’s trained in Indian dancing but she did show a skill for improvisation.
Unfortunately, she then got President Obama up to dance with the group. Like many men – I mean people – the president couldn’t find a beat. Instead, he looked like any other middle-aged man awkwardly hopping on one foot.
All this – the food, the bad dancing – would have been funny except for one thing. This trip to India and Indonesia is costing the American taxpayers $200 million a day. When you look at it that way, you have to wonder if such a trip is worth the cost.
$200 million is a whole lot of duck eggs, after all.