Bangkok: It's been nice but now it is time to go.

Things I will miss when I go:

1. Life on the streets:  Bangkok is one of the most vibrant cities there is.  Everything happens on the pavements here.  Food stalls and market stalls.  Motorbike taxis idle while waiting for fares.  Dogs, cats and people jostle for space.
2. The eternal sunshine: Pretty much every day for 12 months of the year the sun shines.  Even when it doesn't it is only cloudy for a while.  It is perpetually sunny in this country and that is nice.
3. The colours:  Thailand is full of colour.  Perhaps it is the Buddhism, perhaps it is the perpetual sunshine, but people wear colours with abandon. 
4. Double think:  The concept that allows people to hold two opposing ideas and treat them as equal.  This means that you can be the  President o
   f a major Thai corporation and still visit the fortune teller to ensure that you do important things on auspicious days.
5. Never ending supply of taxis:  Some people say it is over supply, but I say it is is great that I can walk to the top of my soi and there will be a taxi driving by.
6. The cheapness of said taxis:  OK so not exactly helping with  carbon emissions, but cheap taxis make it almost impossible for me to think about travelling in another way.  And I am well aware of how sentence that sounds.
7. Food, restaurants, home delivery:  I can not think of another country that is as obsessed with food as Thailand, and I say that as a positive.  The cliché that says Thais are either eating, talking what they have eaten or deciding what they are about to eat is true.  Food is central to people's lives in ways that you can't comprehend in the west.  Food stalls, cafes and restaurants abound.  From high end to 'cheap as chips' food available for almost everyone's budget.  Best of all most places deliver!
8. A safe city:  For the most part Bangkok is a safe city. There are very few places in the world that are as safe to be a women in as Bangkok.  I do not think I will ever be quite as confident about jumping into a taxi at 3am knowing that the driver will get me home.  
9. The rain:  Watching the storms come in from the west from the balcony at home.  Seeing parts of the city disappear behind a wall of rain is still exhilarating.
10. Warm rain:  A tropical country means tropical warm rain.  I don't mind getting wet here as I never get cold.

Bangkok Skyline

Things I will not miss when I go:

1. Scuzzy men:  Leaving behind the sexpat, lost, western man is going to be welcome.  If I have to see any more such men walking down the street looking smug while their small, young Thai wife/girlfriend, 8 1/2 months pregnant waddles beside him I will scream.  Well done you managed to get a woman pregnant - you do know that her 'brother' is in fact her husband don't you?
2. Thai price/Western price:  Double pricing is just not fair and it pisses me off.  I tried hard not be irritated when I went to national parks and had to pay up to 4 times the 'local' price while the Thai woman with the real Louis Vitton bag who was staying in the resort that cost $200 per night slipped in for 30 baht ($1).  I don't think I would have minded so much if the money charged actually went to preserving the park but it didn't...
3. Crap pavements:  Why is it so difficult to keep a pavement walkable?  Loose paving slabs, uneven surfaces, sink holes and food stalls all conspire to make sure that walking in this city is an unpleasant as can be.
4. Traffic:  I once waited for 45minutes in a taxi for the light to turn green so we could turn right.  I couldn't get out and walk as I had 4 boxes of wine in the boot....   Bangkok traffic jams are legendary.  It is while stuck in these jams for no apparent reason that Jai yen is a state of mind I strive to achieve.
5. Blatant queue jumping:  Just because I am a foreigner does not mean it is OK to push in front of me and get served first.  This used to happen a lot when I first arrived, less so now.  Perhaps I look like a long time foreign resident or maybe people have got better.
6. Filling out departure cards:  The incessant need to record everyone's movements.  Yes you need to check-in to a country, but do you need to be checked out?  Surely by now are my details are in the system.  Why do I have to write all my passport details onto a form if what you do is scan my passport anyway?
7. Exclusive shopping malls:  Apart from the respite they provide to people who do not have air conditioning during the hot season.  I still have not worked out why every new large scale construction seems to be the famed "shopping mall, office space, exclusive condo" offering.  Are there not enough already?
8. Humidity: Not the heat so much as the humidity.  It means I am forever sweating and I am fed up of never having a break from constantly feeling overheated (and damp).
9. Having to run at set times:  This has been a huge issue for my budding running habit.  I could of course run any time I want, as long as it is on a treadmill but I hate that.  If I want to run outside it needs to happen post 6pm or pre 7am.  Which is not always convenient.  I have lost count of the number of times on a weekend that at 3pm I thought at 'wouldn't it be lovely to go for a run'.  Well yes if I wanted that run to happen in 34C heat and beating sun.
10. Walking idly:  Somewhat controversial but I am not going to miss the groups of Thais just wandering down the street and stopping for no other reason than to carry on the conversation.  Flipping around to walk back or insisting on walking three abreast on a crowded narrow street.  People you need to learn to walk with purpose!

Glass, metal and commerce

That then is Bangkok.  The past 8 years in 20 points.  But as with anything, there is of course so much more to it.  More than can adequately be expressed here.  I was 32 years old when we arrived and I will be 41 when we go.

In those 8 1/2 years Mr Lapin and I have lived a life.  We got married.  We lost friends and family members.  We supported others through serious illness and injury.  People we cared for got divorced and gave birth.  We witnessed a (thankfully peaceful) military coup.  A city flooded and a country in the midst of social and political upheaval.  There will be much more that I will miss about this city and country, but the time has come to say goodbye.  New adventures await Mr Lapin and me in the USA.  Just think of the fun we are going to have there!