Chiang Mai, northern Thailand

Passport stamped 26 Nov 2006: exactly one year since I last entered Thailand. Jumped on a plane to Chiang Mai, found a guesthouse in the centre of town, and slept all afternoon.

In Bangkok airport they were just opening up the shops as I wandered from international arrivals to domestic departures. I had about 2 hours to kill, and needed a coffee. The coffee was good, and I went to pay at a till near the exit.

The cash-till woman was engrossed in an eleborate doodle on a small sketch pad, and was completely lost in her own thoughts. At first, I didn't realise this, and thought she was totting up an urgent bill or something, so I said nothing and waited. My flight wasn't for an hour, so I wasn't in a hurry. As her sketch grew, it became obvious that her hard pen-work was a distraction that disguised something that was occupying her mind, which was elsewhere completely: maybe thinking about her boyfriend, or sick mother, or unpaid bills, or boddhidharma, or whatever people think about when they are filling in time between tasks in the job they get paid to do.

I stood for about 30 seconds, the comedy of the situation growing with each passing moment. Her colleague on the next till noticed and said something in Thai. My till-woman looked up, registered a sort of self-conscious surprise and gasped in apology.

"Why you not tell me?!" she says.
"I though you were busy" I say back.
'No, no, not busy! Sorry sorry!"
'That's OK, there's no hurry!". We both smile, she embarrassed, me a jet-lagged tourist who was doing a job at a desk, in front of a computer not so very different from hers, less than 36 hours ago in a town several thousand miles away in a different culture on a different continent.