The time bandits

With 15 minutes to go before our flight to Phuket leaves, Six is in a flap. "Come on Biggs," she says, slinging her Double Bay bag over her shoulder and straightening her bright pink maxi dress. We are sitting in the glorified food hall at Suvarnabhumi where a cup of coffee costs half my weekly salary.

Despite the airport's impractical expanse, there's not five minutes between here and A6, the farthest gate away where our flight to Phuket allegedly takes off at 11am.

Six is one of my nearest and dearest friends who visits Thailand annually to escape Sydney, where she is a TV celebrity known as much for her acute journalistic abilities as she is her Queensland accent. Because of such roots, she has a mouth on her like a Lumpini Park public toilet that flushes incessantly in the company of those who are near and dear to her.

Anyway, she is starting to get toey (anxious). As she stands up I just shake my head. "No need to rush, Six," I say. "The plane won't leave for another half an hour, at least."

"You don't know that, Biggs! Come on. It's a quarter to 11."

"Six, sit down and relax," I say. She is the only person in the world who addresses me by my last name; I am the only person remaining who calls her by her nickname of 25 years ago. "The ticket says 11am, but the plane won't leave till at least 11.20."

Her eyes widen and more Queensland vernacular spews forth in and around the following words: "How do you know that, Biggs?"

How do I know that? Where does one begin to tell a highly-strung Aussie used to Germanic precision that time in this country is fluid? And that fluidity need not be another source of stress, and that in fact, it could be the Thais have it right and we westerners are the ones barking up the wrong tree?

I was just like Six (minus the obscenities) when I first arrived here 20 years ago. I came from the world of Australian newspapers where missing a deadline meant your job. In Australia, a 5pm deadline meant 5pm on the dot. In Thailand, a 5pm deadline also meant 5pm on the dot ... but if you should send it at 5.30, or 6, or thereabouts, that's okay too.

I initially threw Six-like hissy fits, but soon realised nothing I could do would change the relaxed, carefree attitude Thais had towards time. It was a good 12 months before the next step - realising that attitude was generally the way to go.

Generally. Once I had a starring role in a Thai horror-comedy movie called Sars Wars, about a new strain of the SARS virus that turned you into zombies. I had 11 shooting days and on the first, they told me to be there at 8am for make-up for a shoot that started at 11am.

This was only five years ago, so despite a full 15 years in Thailand my western genes dominated and I foolishly woke at 6am that day, caught a cab at 7 and was in at the designated high-rise on Asoke by 7.45am. Foolish, foolish Andrew. Not even on time. He arrives before time.

Of course, I could have switched on the lights and air-conditioning since I was the first to arrive. By 9am the first of the make-up staff trickled in. I was in the chair by 10am, as three people started to work reconstructing my face with latex as the first scene to be shot was the one where my head gets blown off (Dammit! I should have written 'Spoilers' at the top of this paragraph! Now you know what happens!).

It took three hours. By 1.30pm I was ready to go. "Just take a seat over there and we'll call you when we're ready," a staffer told me. Unable to read owing to painful red contact lenses, I just sat and sat until 6.30pm. That's right. A full five hours sitting doing nothing but dabbing my eyes with Visine. And they told me to get there at 8am!

"Biggs!" Six is now giving birth to a litter of Siamese kittens. "It's five minutes before take-off! Get a move on!"

There is an even better story I could have told Six. Ten years ago I did an ad for yoghurt, and again the staff went to great pains to tell me the schedule was tight and expensive so please be there by 10am "on the dot". I was, and to my surprise the Thai staff ushered me through to the make-up room quickly and efficiently. By 11am I was in the studio, standing in place while sound and lighting crews meticulously went through their preparations. You try standing on one spot for an hour while slabs of technical people adjust lights and boom mikes. By 11.59am everything was ready to go. Because the scene was static and thus not difficult to film, I figured in my head: "This'll all be over by 12.30."

Ding dong. Midday. The director announced: Kin khao. Time for lunch.

Everybody dropped tools and made their ways to the buffet, leaving me standing like an idiot, primed up, made up, lines learned and ready to go. The one time everything went according to schedule - only to be foiled by the one thing that can disrupt even the best laid plans: Kin khao.

Like I said, I think the Thais have it right. While we stress ourselves out with a life of Rolex-like schedules, the Thais are happy and relaxed with approximates that only a Rolex watch purchased for 400 baht off Patpong can offer.

On a recent TV shoot I happened to meet a gorgeous Thai-Swiss model who grew up in Switzerland and only recently came to Thailand. Over lunch she lamented: "You know, I had to get up at 6.30 every morning to catch a bus to school that left at exactly two minutes past seven. If I got to the bus stop at three minutes past seven, the bus would have gone!" She shook her head. I could literally see her dominant Thai genes shouldering themselves past their western counterparts in what only can be described as Punctuality Disgust.

"You're not always right, y'know," Six is saying as she hurtles down the Suvarnabhumi people mover towards A6, her Maxi dress flapping as it tries to keep up. "Surely 11 o'clock means 11 o'clock."

Nothing I can say can persuade Six that I'm right. We arrive at the gate with only one minute to spare. After which we sit down and I again try to explain the civility of life in a society where time is not of the essence.

I have more than enough time to do this. Our plane takes off at 11.30.