Spit

Two noises you hear a lot in Asia are throat-clearing and spitting - both loud and both very sociably-acceptable. Although as Sarah points out if blowing your nose in public is considered rude in Turkey but not Britain, is it nothing more than historical custom that determines what's rude and what's not? Does this mean we shouldn't have minded being woken at 5am sharp on the Annapurna trek, by the cook in the next room clearing his throat consistently for about a minute whilst preparing to make our breakfast.

Spitting often follows shortly after throat-clearing, although all our guides were smart to the fact that many westerners find both noises pretty surprising.

Until I saw one by our Hotel swimming pool in Kathmandu, I never thought that signs forbiding spitting actually existed. My Dad spent many years in India and I half remember the following, which he often quoted on family holidays when explaining what a limerick sounded like:

There once was a man from [West Ealing],
Who got on a bus for Darjeeling,
It said on the door,
Don't spit on the floor,
So he looked up and spat on the ceiling.