While over there we noticed a lot a little things that were subtly differences to back home. These are just some of the many wild and wondrous items…

• Diet coke is call “Coke Lite”
• Red bull is dangerous stuff!! It is sold over there in little medicine bottles maybe 150ml and is a concentrated version, with about the consistency of cough syrup. It isn’t quite as bad as it sounds, but it was a bit scary for me cause I usually only drink RedBull Vokda’s.. I wasn’t game to have to many in the one night!!
• The Patong beach in Puhket had a line of deck beds, coffee tables and umbrellas for as far as the eye could see. They cost about 100B ($3 AU) to hire were dusted down for you before use and include a couple of coat hangers for your cloths… Now that’s service!
• You don’t find taxi’s either, they find you.. every time we stepped out of our hotel we’d get “Taxi?”, “Where you go?”, “Tuk Tuk 20 baht, 1 hour?”.. The vultures congregate outside hotels and pounce on every exiting foreigner. Happens at shopping centres too..

  There are fewer metered Taxi’s than there are others… and haggling for a price to get somewhere rarely worked out cheaper than it would have going by the meter. Although we never paid more than about $10, averaging $3… The most was when we hire one driver for 3 hours to tour samui that was about $26.. Haha suckers.

  Funny thing is the tour started a 2:00pm finished before 5:00pm.. and at the end he want more money because it was longer than agreed… failing to see his logical until we realise his method of counting hours was 2:00pm (1), 3:00pm (2), 4:00pm (3),  5:00pm (4)… After failed attempts to teach him the basics of math he conceded although I still don’t think he understood.

  A well edumacated man obviously, or just had a scam going at his own expense.

• Airports had “smoking rooms” small rooms with rows of chairs against the walls and big ash trays in the middle.. With no increased ventilation to suit their purpose, when they were full it was like entering some teenagers bathroom after a heroic session with the bong.
• Thailand is a public liability nightmare! Uncovered man holes, half tiled foot paths, wires hanging from telephone poles (hopefully not live!)… taxi’s without functioning seat belts… motorbike taxis without spare helmets…

  Sitting on the back of a little scooter being taxied through Bangkok’s busiest roads with numerous close encounters, with nothing more than a mini mohawk with A LOT of hair spray to protect me noggin, some might deem the most adventurous thing I did on my holiday!

• Changing lanes is basically a game of chicken.. the car changing will keep nudging into the next lane until one passing car isn’t game to pass it. This is often done without indicating. Although being half in another lane is probably indication enough…

  Ohh and driving on the opposite side of the road is common… Actually, it seems to be their god given right, and if its only a motor bike coming the opposite way, a car being bigger obviously has the right to use the lane despite the direction of travel, bikes are simply expected to sit close to the kerb and hope for the best.

• Sometimes retarded english is more easily understood… “Ice coffee” isn’t easily understood by the locals… best to say like you just bit your tongue, they understand you straight up.  “eyeth koffaye”… I was drinking it a lot over there with the exhausting days and hot weather a cold source of caffeine was a must ;)
• Don’t cross at zebra crossing! Cars are bigger than you and apparently still have right of way here…
• Laws are generally bent and broken for foreigners. This doesn’t mean you can get away with drugs or murder… for any of you homicidal maniacs just waiting to come out of the closet…
• Initial prices quoted for any given item by ‘most’ stall holders are generally 4x high than what they’ll settle for… They’ve caught on to the advice every tourist typically gives “When bargaining, halve their initial offer” Hehe
• Beggars use more dramatic methods… Lying in the middle of a crowded market face down as though dead or sleeping, with a cup near by…  Kind of like those people in the Mall pretending to be statues, but not.. Don’t like that analogy? Get your own blog!
• Of the few police I saw all were on old 1980-90′s motorbikes most of the time doubling… I think I only saw one police car the entire trip… Well funded obviously.
• Strippers dance as well kids at their first school social… some might call it swaying. Ohh and ping pong shows do exist but are hardly as riveting or as erotic as TV makes out… Another case where TV has let me down, next I’ll find out Santa isn’t real.. Pfft.. as if!
• Toilets flushed in the opposite direction… hours of entertainment.

The list goes on so I’ll save the other stories for later… Ohh I’m back in Brisbane safely now too, thanks for asking.

See you all soon.