It is entirely possible to visit Thailand and to learn only one word - farang. Farang can be used perjoratively ('birdshit farang' is a popular colloquialism for backpackers), or as a neutral description, but it usually refers to Caucasian foreigners.

Whilst in Chiang Mai last week, we went into a 7-Eleven to buy icecream. There was a tiny Thai boy waiting at the counter while his mother paid for the stuff she was buying. He was absent-mindedly swinging from the counter-top like a little monkey and trilling away to himself in a happy little soliloquy.

As we approached, the kid's eyes alighted upon Andrew. With his eyes growing big as saucers, he stared and stared. Finally, he exploded with a big gust of astonishment: 'FARANG!'

7-Eleven ground to a halt as every customer (including us) and all the staff fell about laughing. The kid looked satisfied, and continued to look Andrew up and down, as if to say, 'Yep, I've got your measure.'

This was additionally amusing to me and Andrew as he is constantly dealing with the issue of mistaken identity when we travel. His being part-Chinese, part-Caucasian tends to mean that his appearance confounds a lot of people. Both in Burma and in Thailand, we have only narrowly escaped offending people who have been chatting away to him and then wonder subsequently why he doesn't respond to what they've said.

Staying at a predominantly Thai guesthouse in Nan, in northern Thailand, one young Thai guy finally got up the guts to ask me in English, 'Why does your boyfriend ignore us? We call out to him in Thai all the time and he never replies!'

Similarly, in Mexico, Turkey, and Egypt everyone was at pains to ask if he was local ... upon finding out that he is not, the next thing people tend to guess is that he's Japanese.

All through the Middle East, walking through the markets was a comic experience as everyone would call out to me in German and to Andrew in Japanese - until the day in Cairo, when one man asked me, 'You are Japanese also, yes?'