I think, "If only Japan didn't have winters, I'd go back there." If, for example, I could get a job on Ishigaki island, a rural semi-tropical Japanese island, I'd leave today!

Life in Thailand is a bit like living in a poorly furnished trashcan. What tour agents tell you is utter hogwash: the "tropical paradise" is defoliated, overbuilt, trash-strewn, and rude as hell. The "land of smiles" is the invention of a tour agent; the reality is "the land of the melon-drop" where foreigners are fleeced.

To the Westerner's way of thinking, prices should drop when customers are few. Yet, in the current global economic meltdown, with Thailand being labeled by the BBC as one of the top 5 most dangerous places in the world, Thais are RAISING prices. Perhaps in Thai thinking, it's best to raise prices so that fewer customers doesn't equal a loss in overall profits.

Phuket markets itself to tourists as the land of cheap beer, bribeable police, rentable girls, and Thai kickboxing training camps. It's no surprise, then, that the Western tourists coming here are... not the most peace-loving, generous, civil representatives of Western culture. Further, it's no surprise that Thais in Phuket see these tourists and think "Westerners are a pack of lazy, rich, rude jerks".

Thais here are paid about US$ 300 or less per month to work 10- and 12-hour days with demanding Western customers.

The language barrier is steep, and cultural differences are huge, causing lots of misunderstandings.

On a daily basis, I think it's the roadside trash-- especially its smell-- that bothers me most. In this land hoping for tourists, an hour's drive through Phuket town forces one to grimace and hold one's breath about 5 times. It gives no moments of "Ahhh, what a nice smell!" Compare this to ultra-clean Japan, when the only bad smell seems to come when neighbors are burning leaves...and the daily GOOD smells coming from the ubiquitous corner bakeries seem to have about 500 calories per delicious, wonderful lungful.