Among the traditions I won’t be bringing home with me:

At first I resisted, but now I can’t drink my beer without ice. It’s just too hot and the beer tastes so good when it’s (literally) ice cold. It’s the way everyone drinks beer around here and now that I know -or choose- to order ice with my beer I always get a nodding smile of approval from Thai waiters. And no, it doesn’t get watered down, not unless you’re nursing it. And we locals have a theory that the ice means we’re drinking “responsibly” since we’re consuming so much water as well. True or not, I just can’t drink my large bottles of Leo unless I’ve got a bucket of ice to help keep 'em cold.

However, the one thing I still haven’t conformed to doing is drinking my cans of beer with a straw. Ice in my beer is one thing, drinking it out of a straw is another.