Patience

Patience!

Not only is it one of the keys to the Socceroos winning the Asian Cup at their first attempt but also the key to surviving the unique experience that is Bangkok.

Put simply things you take for granted back home or even in a place such as Germany during last year's World Cup cannot be taken for granted when the world football circus hits Asia.

That is not to say Asia is not capable of staging major sporting events as we saw with the successful World Cup in Japan and South Korea in 2002.

But when you have a big event such as the Asian Cup being staged across four countries for the first time - problems are bound to spring up.

And when one of the host cities is a city the size of the Thai capital well it's easy to envisage how things could turn pear-shaped pretty quickly.

In a city of this size, one would reasonably expect all the key areas of the event to be staged as near to each other as possible - particularly as you can almost fly to London in the time it takes to drive two blocks in what is surely the worst traffic city on earth.

But instead the main stadium - venue for five of the six Group A matches and all three Socceroos' games - is about the equivalent distance out of the city centre as say the old Waverley Park in Melbourne or Telstra Stadium in Sydney.

In contrast the team is staying in the city centre but in a totally opposite part of this huge sprawling city - which seems to have no beginning, end or middle - to the official media hotel meaning that to attend even a routine press conference means leaving hours in advance and surviving the kind of hazardous taxi journey that would make even the most seasoned traveller feel a bit queasy.

It's enough to make you look back in embarrassment at all the times you cursed the traffic problems in Melbourne and Sydney because compared to Bangkok they carry about as much traffic as Birdsville.

Then there is the technology - put simply a reliable e-mail and internet service has not hit south-east Asia just yet.

But it's all part of the experience and just as the Socceroos will have to be patient in the coming days as they deal with underdog teams such as Oman, Iraq and Thailand putting ten men behind the ball in a bid to cut out their attacking threat - so will those whose job it is to bring you all the highlights and lowlights of one of world football's biggest events.

It's just that we might do it a little slower than we would like.