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.

On a roll

The first thing you notice about dining with Thai people is not the delicious aromas of ... OK, so the second thing you notice about dining at a street food venue or even an office function, is not the unknown hygiene factors of the food's preparation, or even the abundance of sticks (more on this in another post), but the fact that all these people are using toilet paper as serviettes.

When you first walk through the office and spot rolls of toilet paper on people's desks, your first thought (as an Australian) is that they've had a big night out on the lagers and curries the night before.

Or maybe those unknown hygiene factors have caught up with their seemingly indestructible Thai stomach after all! If I'd known the language better when I first arrived, people would have become fed up with me asking them every morning if they were feeling all right.

As I say, it jars a little at first, but when you think about it, it makes sense. Toilet paper is a lot cheaper than tissue paper or serviettes, so why not use it for all your wiping needs?

Of course, in a lot of Asian countries, toilet paper often isn't used in the toilet - more on this in another blog too - so it's more correctly a roll of tissue paper.

I think that when the first farangs turned up with their fancy sit down toilets and rolls of "toilet" paper, Thais thought: "Hey, what a cool idea! Tissues that come in a roll! That's so convenient, and easy to use. I wonder why they keep them next to the dunny though? No wonder they're all so fat if they're hoeing down on fried chicken even when they're on the can!"

I'm pretty sure that's how it happened. In fact, I'm going to go and setup an article for it on Wikipedia now.

D.

PS. If you Westerners are still grossed out by this, just remember, the rolls of toilet paper didn't come out of the toilet, they came from a factory where they make all the other types of tissue paper too.

The song of the sausage

Today I had my very first case of "Tourist Tummy", also known as Thai Belly or Bali Belly if you're in that part of Indonesia. Now I feel like a real tourist! All of my friends were getting it from our Chiang Mai trip, and I was beginning to feel a bit left out. Not any more.

It was the sausages that did it. In my defence, they had been taunting me ever since I arrived in Thailand, and like a sailor strapped to the mast while listening to the call of the sirens, I've resisted their charms for two whole months.

Last night I was out wandering around the Phuket Indie Markets (a great little local haunt with none of the usual tourist fare for sale) working up an appetite. There were several food options around, but most of them involved the arduous task of sitting at a table and ordering from a menu, and then having to wait while they cooked the food! Boring.

I opted for the street vendor with the charcoal grilled sausages instead. It's like home-cooked McDonald's - fast food, but tasty. Lovingly prepared by a very friendly chap, who had formed the sausages by hand earlier that day. Rustic. And I'm pretty sure organic. As it turns out, there was a lot more organic material than I had bargained for.

I don't think it was just the sausage that had me feeling a little green (and not very environmentally friendly) the next morning; it was probably more the quantity that I ate. I ordered two of his finest what I think were beef, cased sausages. While he sliced them up for me (all part of the service), I spied a little bundle of uncased pork sausages - hand-rolled, just like I do with sheftalia back home (almost).

When he started bagging up my original order with my very own eating stick, and I saw that it came with a fresh cut salad, I ordered one of these juicy looking boys that had been calling to me everyday on my way home from work. "Mr Hii-iiiw!", they called. "Don't we look tasty?" Their songs wafted on the breeze as I walked through night markets: "Dawi-iiid, we smell delicious, nah?"

I ate half of them on the way back to my hotel. They were aromatic, spicy, with good texture, and not at all like the greasy, fatty things you get outside Bunnings on a Saturday morning in Brisbane. And the raw sliced cabbage served with it was sweet and crunchy - the perfect accompaniment. The flavour was not unlike a pepperoni, though without the greasy film left on tongue and finger.

I finished them off at the hotel, felt full and slept well.

The next morning, the sausage was kind enough to let me wake up, get out of bed, and get a drink of water before it started to ring the alarm bells in my stomach. Actually, it felt more like Rolph Harris playing his wobble board while jumping on a trampoline.

That's when my stomach decided to kick Rolph, his wobble board, sausages, and trampoline out.

I have had what I can only describe as a "no passing wind day". I couldn't take that risk. I won't go into all the gory details, but let me just say that I didn't eat a lot today, and what I did eat was very bland. Bottles of water, Coke Light, and black tea ruled my gastro-intestinal world today.

So I'm now sitting at a five-star resort on the Southern tip of Phuket, which has four or five gourmet restaurants and its own private island. I'm hoping that by tomorrow my stomach will have sorted itself out, because I was really looking forward to sampling most of what they have on offer here.

I'll probably give the gourmet sausage a miss though.

D.

Dinner with the locals

Dining out with a group of Thai locals is a very different experience from what I've had so far in Thailand.

Here you eat out a lot more than you cook at home. In fact, I know Westerners who lived here for a year and never owned a single plate or cooking implement (you know who I'm talking to). It's just so cheap! In fact, having cooked for myself a few times, I doubt I paid less cooking my crummy pasta and sauce at home than I would have paid going to a restaurant or street vendor.

My lunch today cost me THB25 - not even a dollar. By comparison, a packet of instant noodles and some thinly sliced beef from the supermarket (mixed with a little left-over chilli sauce) cost me about THB80.

So all of that is just to say that I've been eating out a lot, but up until tonight, always with other farang, and maybe one or two Thai people.

Tonight, I went out with the locals to a local eating place - a place where you sat on plastic stools, at plastic tables, on the footpath, next to the road, and you were surrounded by the kitchen. Several vendors cooking salted fish, chicken, seafood, stir fries ... I've been to places like this before at lunch time, but again, always with ex-pats showing me their favourite spots.

On the way there tonight, my hosts were kind enough to ask me what my favourite Thai dishes were. These are what they ordered first. And then they ordered a bunch of stuff I've never eaten, seen, heard of, or even thought about eating before.

I was handed a menu when I sat down, but instead of ordering, I was too busy taking photos of the Thinglish to try to decipher what I may want to eat.

What I did eat was the usual som tam (green paw paw salad), tom yum gai, and gai yang (grilled chicken). But then I also impressed them with my willingness to try the gung chae nam-pla (raw prawn salad), deep-fried pig intestines (for which I cannot remember the Thai name), and boiled (or possibly raw) miniature seashell creatures, which I told them were called pippies. This brought much amusement, possibly because I either sounded like I was saying "Phi Phi" or sounded like the Road Runner.

There was much concern for my weak gastro-intestinal system, and at the first sign of my breaking into a sweat at the extra level of spiciness served up to and by the locals, I was handed copious amounts of fluid, bland fried chicken, and toilet paper (more on this in another post).

My hosts were most gracious, and I felt honoured to have been invited out with them for a meal. While most of the conversation I didn't understand, they did go out of their way to interpret the funny and meaningful parts, and some parts which I still do not understand.

After dinner we retired to the air conditioned shopping centre, where I discovered that the phenomenon of women going to the toilet in packs knows no cultural boundaries. And neither does men standing around outside the toilets, trying to look purposeful and suave.

We went to an ice cream house for dessert. I was informed that they have a contest, where you have to put an entire scoop of ice cream in your mouth, and see who can finish it first. I now believe that this game was actually invented for my benefit, and was not, as I originally thought, a regular Friday night event.

Needless to say, the westerner with the big mouth won, but only just. O gave me a run for my money.

We wandered the shopping centre looking at make-up and trying to figure out what the Thai word for Balmain Bugs is (also known in some backwaters as Moreton Bay Bugs). Eventually there was agreement on the name, and I discovered that the English translation of the Thai name means "back-stroke crab". Our Balmain girl, Dawn Fraser, would be proud.

Dining with my Thai friends tonight has given me a new appreciation of several things.

Firstly, of my work colleagues. Even though we work for the same company, these are people who were complete strangers until about three weeks ago. They are hard workers, they love life, and they enjoy socialising together. And they're welcoming enough to allow an outsider to join them.

Secondly, of what it's like being the only person who doesn't speak the language. I've only experienced this once before while travelling in Seoul. Here I was lucky enough to have some friendly faces to interpret and make sure I didn't eat too many of the "toxic" shellfish.

Those of you from Australia will know that there is a section of the community at home with the attitude "if you want to live in our country, learn the language". Here I am, living and working in their country, with only the faintest spattering of Thai to get me through, and these beautiful people go out of their way to make me feel at home.

Finally, I have a new appreciation of my favourite food group - ice cream. It's good to know that wherever you are in the world, you can still get a scoop of something called "chocolate fudge brownie".

D.

Phuket, let's drive!

In the words of Winnie the Pooh, this is a long story, and even longer when I tell it.

Driving in Phuket seemed like such a good idea. It's not Bangkok, the traffic isn't crazy, crazy, crazy (just one level of crazy) and my hotel was only about 1km down the road from work.

There's a work vehicle, so if I crash it, the worst that can happen is that Robbie keeps my salary for the rest of my life, and I get a job cooking muffins in the Brisbane office full-time.

As it turned out, the driving to-and-from work bit was fine - it was on Sunday when I decided to head to the shopping centre I'd read so much about on Phuket.com - Phuket Central Festival - that I got myself into trouble.

It looked pretty straight forward on the map - head down the main road the hotel is on, turn right at some street I can't pronounce, which runs into the street where the giant shopping centre is. I'd been past it before as a passenger, so once I got my bearings I'd be fine.

I did get to the shopping centre without any serious drama, although I ended up driving in through the service entrance at the back, rather than the main entrance like a normal tourist. I still don't know how that happened.

I wandered, I shopped, I had a latté (can someone please tell Thailand what a flat white is?) and I decided at 12pm that it was time to make a move back to the office to drop the car off, so I'd be back at my hotel in time for my 1pm airport transfer.

What I hadn't noticed on the way to the shopping centre was that some of the streets were one way (it's hard to tell over here OK?!). This meant that I couldn't simply follow the same route I'd taken to get there. I had to deviate.

No biggy - I figured that I'd just follow the signs to Phuket Town (where the office and hotel are located) and I'd recognise some roads, and David wouldn't have to sit in this little car for over an hour hurling abuse at the town planners of Phuket.

That's where I was wrong.

Every street I drove down, I would come to a point where I thought, "oh, I know where I am", and dutifully take the direction my brain told me was correct. Wrong. After 35 minutes, I ended up back at the shopping centre. So I followed the same route again, only this time taking care to drive what I envisaged would be parallel to my original route. Wrong.

At one stage, I even got back onto the road that the office is on! There was much joyous singing and celebrating in the confines of that little car (Jazz never sounded so good!) as I drove down Thepkasatri Road. But alas, the party was short-lived, as Thepkasatri Road turned into Phuket Road and I drove down the same street I had been in three times already.

At last, after dodging left where I had previously veered right, I found myself a mere 20-30 metres from the office, and at about 1.30pm I locked the car and raced to the office foyer to return the keys to the weekend CS staff.

Naturally, being a Sunday, the elevator was away visiting relatives down the coast, so I had to run up four floors to get to the front door. My Phuket swipe card would not let me into the office, because this was a secure workplace on the weekend, and I had no business there.

By this stage, my nerves were a little frazzled. I couldn't help thinking about my driver who may, or may not, be waiting for me at the hotel 1km down the road.

I rang the doorbell which summoned one of our champion Phuket Customer Service staff, whom I have never met before, and who no doubt was wondering why this farang was ringing her doorbell on a Sunday when she had work to do.

I reached into my pocket and grabbed the keys and handed them to her with my swipe card saying - in my best Thinglish - "For Khun Tasnee". She nodded and repeated "Khun Tasnee". I thanked her in Thai, and exited the building as fast as I could.

This was about the time that I discovered that the proliferation of taxis and moped taxis in Thailand is unique to Bangkok. I walked (very quickly) all the way to the hotel without seeing a single taxi, or person who might be cajoled into giving me a ride.

I got to the hotel, asked if a driver had been for me and they said no. The desk staff offered to call me a taxi for the airport, to which I heartily agreed.

As it turned out, taxi here referred I think to a friend or family member who owned a car. When he arrived at 1.50pm, the driver asked me what time my flight left, and when I told him 3pm, he gave me a look and said "you not much time". I couldn't have said it better myself.

He was very nice, and we chatted all the way to the airport about his family and my family and what it was like living in Bangkok, which is where he was born.

At one point he asked me "OK I speed?", and used the internationally recognised hand signal for pushing the accelerator flat to the floor. "Sure, if you like." I'm not sure if that word choice would get me off on a technicality in court or not. Sean?

To cut this long story short:

• I arrived at the airport and stood in line to check in - my flight was delayed by almost an hour so there was no real rush after all;
• traffic from the airport in Bangkok was terrible so I sat in a taxi for about an hour and a half listening to Thai talkback radio;
• I arrived back at my apartment only to find that I couldn't get in because I had given the wrong set of keys to the smiling CS staff member in Phuket;
• I had to mime leaving keys in Phuket and not being able to get into my apartment to the security guard;
• I had to explain leaving keys in Phuket and not being able to get into my apartment over the phone to the building manager who speaks no English;
• I had to wait for the caretaker to let me in with a master key;
• I then went to bed wondering how I was going to lock my front door when I left in the morning.

And all because I decided to drive in Phuket. Next time I'll walk.

D.

PS. I received a very nice email on Monday morning from the airport transfer company apologising for not being there to pick me up at 1pm, as they thought my pick-up time (and not my flight time) was 3pm. I told them, no harm done - don't worry about it.