Hi Iain, thank you so much for the feedback, it is really interesting to hear your experience. Travelling on my own with a child I don’t ever go into bars or clubs, nor did we look at a map on the street in Bangkok, heeding the advice to do what we could to not look like a tourist we only ever checked the map in a shop or if we were sitting down eating. I don’t know if it was me, maybe it was something I was projecting, but I sensed a wariness of independent travellers/backpackers, though you have made me remember something, I feel another post about Thailand smiles coming up!

However, back in Bangkok I can tell you this simply isn’t the case. Meet some Thais in a purely non-consumer environment and just see how they behave towards farang. That is, towards people they see as visitors to their country.

With very rare exception, a smile and a wai (raised hands and bow) is the result. Seats are given up in clubs, bars or on trains. Foreigners are often given right of way on the street. They’ll wave you across when you’re trying to cross the road in front of their car. Lost in the street? I’ve seen more than a handful of tourists poring over maps in the street the last couple of days with a random Thai doing their best to help them get to their destination.

The only thing right now stopping this being the land of smiles for me is the current trend of wearing face masks to ward off plage and swine flu. I just know behind each one a smile is lurking!

In Turkish culture the straight face is almost the default for everyone – that is, until the opportunity for a grin and loud laughter present themselves.

I read a great anthropology study on it years back, wish I could recall the name…will let you know if I come up with it.