Eating Curry In Bed In Bangkok…

I am sitting in a hotel bed in Bangkok, eating my leftover green curry with chicken (yep. In bed), and it got me to thinking about things.

Like, how I always feel so comfortable in Thailand…

even for a few days in Bangkok before the noise and chaos chases me out.

Perhaps there is something in the air here in the land of smiles, or more just that I love being in Buddhist cultures, or the feeling of being home when I am in Thailand.

I am not exactly sure what it is, but I love it.

Especially in the more off-the-beaten-path type places.

Which, strangely enough, brings me to my feelings about our last five months in Europe…

Europe simply did not resonate with me. Yes, the beautiful places abound, but, what we didn’t realize is that you can’t actually see them…

The main problem that we had was that we were there in the heart of summer.

So was the rest of the world. Every last person .

There was nowhere to park.

Tam and I are always pretty motivated to find the interesting places. We try to do some research about where we are going (well, Tam does more than I do. I tend to wing it more), but it seems in this modern social media-connected world that everyone else has access to the same information that we do. And I mean everyone else.

The crowds were unbelievable. The beaches were crowded. The surf was crowded. The caves, the waterfalls, the cliffs, and the lakes were crowded.

And there wasn’t one single fucking parking spot in any of those places.

Oh, and parking was prohibitively expensive.

But everything was expensive, so I guess it all fits.

We payed, on average, 45 Euros per meal (for the two of us), for three squares a day. Yep. Just over 150 US dollars a day to eat, and we were most definitely not eating off the fancy side of any menus. Just the basics.

Hotels were another big one. On average we payed about 135 Euros a night (151 US dollars), and, much like our food choices, we weren’t staying at the Hilton. Ireland was even more, averaging more like 180 US dollars a night. We also payed 4,000 US dollars to share an Air B&B in Portugal for a month with friends from Germany… and that was the cheapest, kinda rough one we could find within a few kilometers of the beach.

Gas was ridiculous. We were paying, on average, 2.05 euros a liter. Yep. That is 8.2 euros a gallon, which converts to a shocking 9.19 US dollars a gallon. Holy shit! And we drove 10,600 kilometers on the European portion of our trip (with at least another 5,000 in Ireland). It added up.

Our poor budget was hemorrhaging.

Okay, yes, I am in danger of setting off on one of my rants… I will stop here.

Some positives? We did manage to see some stuff.

There were castles. And cliffs. And castles on cliffs. And lakes. And castles on lakes. And beaches. And castles on beaches. And there were waterfalls. And castles next to the waterfalls. And, well, you get it…

There were an awful lot beaches where you couldn’t actually see the beach (or the castle) through all the beach-goers.

We saw a ton of parking lots… while driving through multiple times looking for one single vacant spot. It was the equivalent of unicorn hunting, or searching for Bigfoot, and we would cheer and celebrate on the rare occasion that we did find one. There were a lot of places that we just didn’t see. There were also so many places that we were excited to check out, then turned around in the parking lot and left because the crowds were so oppressive that it just wasn’t worth it.

Okay, If I really admit it to myself, it wasn’t all bad. We did love the Northwest coast of Spain. Rural France was lovely. Germany is still so… neat and tidy. The French Riviera was pretty, and good people watching, but far too crowded. We did have a good cappuccino while people-watching on a beach on that one rare occasion that we managed to park the car.

Monaco was a marvel, but a nightmare of traffic and low-clearance parking garages that our surfboard-laden Opel Meriva was about two inches too tall to get into. We took three hours to drive into and right back out of the city that day, but I did get to drive about a hundred meters of the formula one circuit (yes, I used the curb on the apex of the Loews hairpin).

The beaches in Portugal and Spain are beautiful if you can see them through the crush of humanity sprawled under their brightly-colored umbrellas.

The food was mostly average, quite often much too salty, but we did have a few outstanding items:

The fish and chips in Ireland.

The croissants and most other baked goods in France (yep, the stereotypes are true).

Cappuccinos everywhere.

Pasteles de nata (little egg custard tarts) in Portugal.

Oh my god, the cheese in France. All of it. And it is ridiculously cheap.

The Guinness in Ireland (Yes, it is better there).

The whiskey in Ireland, which is the same as it is at home, just more expensive for some reason.

The roasted lamb, potato dumplings, and boiled red cabbage at the Oktoberfest in Munich.

But, after so many full-Irish breakfasts, French pastries, and German meals of meat, cheese, and potatoes, we left Europe twelve pounds fatter, and craving some Thai food.

So, sitting in bed eating my curry as I write this…

In going back and rereading this, I realize it all sounds a bit negative.

Yep.

Am I glad that we went to Europe for five months? Yes. Yes, but? Okay, yes, I am glad we did it.

Will I ever have the burning desire to see the Western parts of Europe again?

Probably not.

We did experience a good bit of the culture there, in Spain, Portugal, France, Switzerland, and Germany, each distinct in its own way, yet so closely connected. We saw some beautiful places and we walked trails through great landscapes on many occasions.

But it just didn’t resonate…

So, as we start the process of chasing tourist visas around SE Asia for the next year or so, I look forward to saving some money to transfuse our poor budget (it’s in poor nick after hemmorhaging for five months in Europe), losing a bit of weight, and getting back in warm, comforting saltwater again.

All the complaining aside, yes, I am glad we got to see it all, and I did manage to get some pictures of… well, castles. When we get a chance to settle in one spot for a couple of months, I will post some of the good stuff from our European road trip pictures and a few silly stories in here..

probably while I am eating delicious Thai food in bed.