Tonight is my last in Bangkok. I knew three months would go fast, but it really does seem as though I've just settled in and now it's time to go.

People keep asking if I'm coming back — I hope so. At least for a holiday if not to take that job that Expedia offered me — oops! [backspace]

Of course, I still have a whole month of travelling to do through Vietnam and Cambodia! But I have been weighing up the things I'll miss about Bangkok, and the things I have begun to miss about home.

Brisbane — things I miss

1. My family (including Roxy, the dog), and especially my boys. We raised our kids to be independent, but that doesn't mean I don't miss having them around!
2. My friends at the Brisbane office. This is the first time in seven years that I've worked anywhere apart from the Brisbane Wotif office.
3. Being able to give someone a hug. I never know what the protocol is here, so I just resist the urge.
4. Being able to drink water from the tap.
5. Being able to hold a conversation with strangers that consists of more than "hello", "how are you", and "goodbye" (which is the same as hello).
6. Being able to order a meal in English, and know what I'm getting.
7. Blue sky.
8. Footpaths.
9. Being able to cross at a pedestrian crossing without checking for traffic.
10. Rubbish bins.

Brisbane — things I don't miss

1. Roxy's hair on every surface of my house.
2. Taxi fares.
3. The lousy public transport.
4. Boring food.
5. The Valley.
6. Shops that close at 9pm, or even 5.30pm!
7. Actually having your bag checked when you go through customs.
8. No daylight savings.
9. Not having my own pool and gym.
10. Today Tonight.

Bangkok — things I won't miss

1. The heat.
2. The smell of khlongs and drains.
3. Worrying that I don't have enough money on me to bribe a policeman if I need to.
4. Wondering which part of the animal that crunchy bit in my mouth was.
5. Dog poo down every soi.
6. Begging.
7. Saying "not want" to every second person as I walk down a street full of tuk-tuks and bars.
8. Dividing every price I see by 30.
9. Copping an eye- and throat-full of chilli vapour as you walk past a street vendor.
10. Having to go to Starbucks to get a decent coffee.

Bangkok — things I will miss

1. My new friends. Wherever I go in this company, I meet warm, welcoming, and generous individuals.
2. Being able to smile at almost anyone without starting a fight. A beautiful country with (mostly) beautiful, friendly people.
3. Being able to fly to the other end of the country, or even overseas, for $50.
4. Eating lunch for a dollar.
5. Catching a moto-taxi to work every day.
6. Living five minutes' walk from anything you need.
7. Shopping at 7 Elevens.
8. Soi dogs.
9. Markets.
10. Cool bars and restaurants.

Sawasdee khup, Krung Thep. Thanks for having me.

D.

Walk the talk

As any first year communication student knows, there's more to communicating than just words.

There are cultural differences I'm uncovering here that go beyond language and the way we talk. It's in the expressions, the attitudes, the non-verbal sounds, and even in the way we walk.

For example, it took me a little while to realise that my Thai friends weren't making fun of each other in a conversation when they responded with "Errrrrr. Ehr, ehr." They were agreeing with what was said. Similarly, anyone who who has socialised with a group of Thai people will recognise that "Oiiiiiii!" has nothing to do with 80s punk music, or that annoying "Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!" anthem.

In Australia there's a look, combined with a posture and a defiant walk, which you adopt when a car fails to stop at a green "Walk" signal or pedestrian crossing. It's a look of righteous indignation; a purposeful "how dare you!" to the driver of a one tonne vehicle who should know better, and is clearly in the wrong.

Now take exactly the same look and posture, in exactly the same situation, but on the streets of Bangkok, and its meaning is completely different. It means "I'm a stupid farang." Repeat the non-verbal communication a few times in quick succession, and it can come to mean "I will be availing myself of your wonderful healthcare system shortly".

These non-verbal messages can work to your advantage. I think I've become fairly good at not looking like a tourist. Those who are familiar with my loud shirt collection may disagree, however there's definitely certain non-verbal cues you can adopt if you don't want to look like a sucker, and I am willing to share my insights with you here, gentle reader.

A work colleague recently mentioned standing in public looking at an open map as a dead giveaway. This, along with the loud Hawai'ian shirt and camera around the neck, are obvious clues - so obvious I'm not going to mention them. Whoops, too late.

Of course there are times when you want to be a tourist and enjoy the new experience, but if you'd like to be able to walk down the tourist strip (or out of the airport) without being accosted by tuk-tuk drivers and people expounding the joys of table tennis exhibitions, there is a walk and an attitude that you can adopt.

Start with a lack of eye contact and don't look at your surroundings. Even if you've never been to this place before, look down at the ground where you going, or better still, straight ahead. Pretend you're walking home after a long day at work, and all you want to do is get home.

You can comfortably glance at the things around you as you walk, but your walk is purposeful. You're not browsing at the Sunday markets (even if you are actually browsing at the Sunday markets), you're headed somewhere.

There's no need to be rude or aggressive, it's more an attitude of boredom. Act like you've been here a thousand times before, and are just on your way through once again on your way somewhere, so not really looking to buy any Viagra or Sponge Bob Square Pants items today. The non-verbal message you're sending is that anyone wanting to sell something is better off approaching the couple behind you arguing about whether it really was Tiffany at that last stall, and that even if it was Tiffany, you still could have talked him down a bit more.

I have survived many forays into markets, airports, shopping centres, and unlit alleyways with this method, and have lived to tell the tale.

Unfortunately, it doesn't stop me from buying a lot of crap though.

D.

Map not to scale

If I can pass on any advice to would be world travellers, it would be this: never trust a map - even if it's on a reputable website (that you also happen to work for).

If you've never been somewhere before, ask someone who has, or find a description of the route, distance, conditions, etc.

I arrived in Chiang Mai a few days before the big Songkran festivities, so a friend and I - on the recommendation of another friend - decided to go up into the mountain to Pai for two nights. The place we booked looked beautiful.

The Phu Pai Art Resort - surrounded by little streams and rivers, mountains as a backdrop, a peaceful stay in traditional style Thai villas. What's more, it wasn't that far from town. According to the map. The stylised map, showing a meandering river in thick blue brush strokes, lovely ochre brown roads criss-crossing the small rural Northern-Thai town of Pai.

We stepped out of our minibus in the centre of Pai, ready to find a place to dump our backpacks and start exploring. It was this enthusiasm that was to be our downfall.

Supporting the previous claims of the website map, the free map handed to us by our VIP transfer driver showed pretty much the same story - and even had our the Phu Pai Art Resort marked on the map.

Shall we walk up or find a taxi? Nah, let's walk it. The simple map was easy to navigate, with plenty of landmarks to reassure us we were going the right way. 45 litre backpacks on, extra bags in our hands, wearing shorts and at least one of us in Aussie thongs (I'm not sure how many of us were wearing American thongs) we wandered off to find our perfect Pai place.

The song that came to mind after a while was "The road is long, with many a winding road, that leads us to who knows where..." There was no carrying of brothers or sisters involved though, let me assure you.

I was struggling with my backpack as it was, even being in my physical middle-aged prime. By the time we got to the airport - casually marked on our map as though you could throw a rock at it from the main street, we figured that we were halfway there.

Did I mention we arrive at midday? And the sun was shining? We stopped at a roadside stall and bought cowboy hats made out of old hessian bags to stop the sun from cooking our brains. B120 well spent in my books (tax deduction? Without that hat my brain would never work again?)

We were spurred on by a sign with the name of our Resort emblazoned across it: 3km. Really? *Still* 3km?

I was fairly certain by this time that the 98% water I was supposed to be made up of was slowly collecting in my shoes. I'd be able to ring it out of my socks later. We had water with us, which by now had passed Luke warm, and had reached Han Solo hot instead. I still drank it.

We passed some interesting places on our trek to the Phu Pai Resort: A military base with the name written in 3 feet high letters against a large cut-out of a bayonette "Queen of the Battle". I couldn't be bothered to stop and take a photo.

A small cafe on a hillside outside of town called the detox cafe, selling hemp items and organic food and coffee. And rolling hill after rolling hill. We kept walking - in my case, plodding really. My friend has much longer legs than I do, and while she strode up hills like a daddy long legs, I stumbled behind like a two-legged cockroach. With 14kg backpack.

We finally reached a sign pointing off the main road telling us the Resort was a mere 800 metres down the road. While this buoyed our spirits, the consensus was that we had already walked more than 3km.

Surely by now, we should be able to see the Resort. But surely that's not it on the hill just there... with views of... the main road out of town?

It wasn't. A mixture of relief, and exasperation as we had to keep walking, up another hill, past more signs telling us how close (or far really) the Resort was. We arrived in a small village, more signs, more arrows, more metres.

People stared at us from their homes, and chickens ran in fright before the two sweaty, overloaded straw hat cowboys, no doubt from America, stumbling through their streets.

We got the front gate of the Resort. Information, 150m. Clearly, the 800m meant to the next sign, not to the actual resort.

We finally stood, dripping, in front of the reception desk, and a wide-eyed staff member asked us. "You walk? From town? Oii!" "You call us, we pick you up."

Now why didn't I think of that?

As compensation for our arduous journey through the midday Thai sun to their establishment in the Pai Valley, they upgraded us to the Honeymoon Suite.

Neither of us had the energy to explain that we weren't a couple, and had requested separate beds for the reason. We were too exhausted to do anything but go to our room so we could drink several litres of water, shower, change, and find something to eat. It was almost 2pm and we hadn't eaten since breakfast.

Eventually, we were to discover that the Phu Pai Art Resort is a beautiful place, with friendly and helpful staff (who laugh out loud every time you tell them that you walked from town to the resort), set on a large rice farm on the outskirts of Pai.

I would recommend it, and their shuttle service, to anyone.

A path for my feet

Philosophically, I am opposed to the encroachment of US English into the Australian vocabulary. But I have to say that in Bangkok, "sidewalk" is a much more appropriate term than "footpath".

There are very few roads that have any sort of path for either foot, let alone both feet. Most of the time, you just walk to the side of whatever thoroughfare you are on.

As soon as you turn off the main road and onto a Soi (small street), you find yourself dodging and weaving, trying to stay out of the way of on-coming, off-coming, sideways coming traffic, and there may or may not be a raised area at either side of the Soi for you to walk on.

Even if there is, this sidewalk will be broken in places, non-existent in others, and when it is in good repair, you will still have to wander onto the road at times to avoid food vendors, parked motorbikes, and scuffling stray dogs.

Even sidewalk doesn't really cover it, because where it does exist, it's not just used for walking. On main roads, where there is what you may consider to be a dedicated footpath, you will have to share this with scooters and mopeds ferrying people to work or the train.

On several occasions I have been beeped at (it's more of a beep than a honk usually) to get out of the way, because I wasn't looking behind me to see whether a motorbike needed to get past me on the footpath. Sidewalk. Raised concrete area at the side of the road for pedestrians, street vendors and motorbikes. Doesn't really roll off the tongue does it?

The other problem I've encountered as I walk the streets (whether on the side or not) is that even though they drive on the left-hand side of the road in Thailand, they appear to walk on the right-hand side. If I'm passing someone coming the other way, my natural instinct is to move to the left, but they move to the right - which of course is my left - and while we do a little dance, nobody makes a little love, and nobody gets down tonight.

I just end up trying to remember how to say sorry before they move on, and am left mumbling something that probably translates into Thai as "no horse biscuits for me please".

The really surprising thing again is that it all just works. No-one is shouting at anyone else to get out of the way, there aren't thousands of daily traffic casualties, and people still get where they're going.

My Thai isn't very good (nit noi), but I haven't once heard someone yell "Hey! I'm walkin' here!"

D.