GO GO GLOBAL GRINGO!: Six Countries in Seven Days: a.k.a. Filling Up That Passport Part II

This is part two of my post on crossing Asia (with a quick stop in Europe) in seven days. Click here to read part I; You'll be glad you did!

The Cinquantenaire Monument in Brussels, Belgium

Tuesday 21, July until Thursday 23, July: Belgium

Bienvenue en Belgique/Welkom aan in Belgie! Nathalie and I made it without problems. By this point, we've become expert fliers and really, once your butt falls asleep, all the flights are more or less the same (note: I have only flown in economy class. I'm guessing it's a bit different in business). We arrived in Belgium on the 21st of July. For those of you unfamiliar with Belgian history, it's the national day. This means three things in Belgium: a day off from work; BBQ; and a bit of rain. We spent the holiday with Nathalie's family in the town of Namur, where her mother lives. It was great seeing her family and being back around familiar faces and familiar places.

Jupiler: Belgium's national pilsner beer and a welcome treat after
six months of terrible beer.

From here out, we had two days before our next move. We hadn't been in the country for six months and while pleasant to be away, we had a backlog of administrative affairs to attend to. Instead of being able to sleep off what was the admittedly light jet-lag, we were up early and heading into Brussels. I won't go into the details of what I needed to take care of, but in short, it's telling to see that Belgium can be just as chaotic as Southeast Asia.

Towards the end of the day, we went and visited our current apartment which we are sub-renting while we travel. We had blocked off the office which we filled with some of our personal belongings, including our clothes. Opening up that door, Nathalie and I both came to a common realization: we had entirely too much stuff. Spending way more than the 15 minutes we thought we would need to grab a few new outfits and a couple of documents, we instead poured over what seemed like a mountain of books, DVDs, clothes (for some reason, I'm the proud owner of 40 pairs of socks), documents, kitchenware and other random bits of our past last life.

Having spent the previous six months living out of a backpack and with the same 9 days worth of clothes, we were both overwhelmed and baffled by the amount of stuff we had amassed. An hour later, we left with what we had came for. On the ride back to Namur, we both tried to drill down through our past to pinpoint the moment we thought it would be a great idea to have a mass collection of personal belongings we really had no use for. We're still awaiting the outcome of the investigation, but this passive over-materialization is definitely one of the lessons learned from our trip.

The next day, we were able to see a couple of friends for lunch. Nothing too special, but again, it was great to see familiar faces. Oddly, it was strange to be back in social situations. Nathalie and I have more or less spent the past six months just the two of us, with a few notable exotics. To be back with people we know and to interact with friends who we've made deep connections with was admittedly a little bit overwhelming. I think it's comparable to jet-lag, where the body needs time to re-adjust to different time zones. Like traveling great distances in one go, returning to 'normality' is another aspect of life that takes time for the mind and body to re-adapt to. Finishing off lunch and afternoon coffee, we said our good-byes and headed back to Namur, getting ready for the long day of traveling ahead of us.

All the random stuff we left behind in January...and had to come back to in July

Friday 24, July: Amsterdam, Netherlands

Friday morning started off sooner than we had expected. We were heading to Istanbul, Turkey for a wedding. Back in mid-May when we decided we would go, we started researching how to get there. After spending over a day looking at the various possibilities, we decided to exercise the flexible return option on our Thai Airways flight from Bangkok to Brussels. From there, we would book a flight to Istanbul and transfer from within Europe instead of flying directly to Turkey. Looking back on it, it probably wouldn't had made much of a difference if we had gone directly from Southeast Asia, but at the time that didn't seem so apparent. Looking for cheap flights from Belgium, it became evident that weren't going to be able to get a direct flight between Brussels and Istanbul for under 800 USD. After researching our options, we found a flight with KLM, that would take us from Brussels to Amsterdam via high-speed train, then fly us to Istanbul on a codeshare with a Turkish airline. The price was right and we decided to book it. In hindsight, that wasn't the best choice.

I'm not going to go into the details now (that's for another post, which I am gladly going to share with KLM), but suffice to say, we were sold a product that wasn't agreed upon either between KLM's own management nor it's business partners. Between the miscommunication and the delays, what should've been an 8-hour door-to-door journey turned into an 16-hour one. It probably wouldn't have been so bad, and indeed, Nathalie and I are 'battle-ready' when it comes to day-long trips, but the fact that we were repeatedly misled and had to make a choice between paying 100 EUR/110 USD to check in one bag and tossing the multi-tool that got me through all of Southeast Asia was a particularly hard pill to swallow (in the end, I tossed the tool).

Traveling through Europe, Nathalie and I expected it to be easy. We didn't have to take a bus six hours to go 250 Km/155 miles over mountain roads. Trains and planes generally run on time. The infrastructure is some of the best in the world. The list goes on. To our major surprise, we found that traveling here was much harder than it should've been. We got the impression that people over here tend to make things way more complicated than the should be. Almost paradoxically, in a part of the world where many employees are practically unfireable due to labor laws strongly favoring the worker, no one wanted to take responsibility for the mistakes at hand. Instead of getting a sympathetic apology (which honestly goes a long way), we were told "it's not my fault" or "blame someone else because it's not my problem." But I digress; this is merely a rant that serves as the prelude to what I hope is a constructive article breaking down what happened on both the outbound trip and the return.

Highs-speed train to Amsterdam

Right, so after arriving in Amsterdam two hours earlier than initially foreseen and having the flight delayed by an additional two hours, Nathalie and I got our chance to take in ~~the historic surroundings of~~ the airport. Once we were finally on board our "KLM flight operated by Pegasus Airlines," we sat back and tried to get comfortable for our three hour flight back to Asia. The aircraft we were on had been leased to Pegasus by none other than Air Asia; the eponymous low-cost airline that we took on a few occasions to hop between countries during the past six months. For us, it was almost fitting that the final leg of our Asian tour commence by sitting on airplane that spent much of it's time in Southeast Asia.

Once on the ground in Istanbul, we proceeded to our 5th immigration line that week. Right off the bat, we noticed that this part of Asia wasn't like the one we had grown accustomed to. Instead of whisking through passport control, we were instead treated to a near hour-long wait to get to an agent. Once at the counter, I waited no more than two minutes before I got the green light to go through and enter Turkey. Nathalie followed shortly thereafter.

We collected our bags, which had long since arrived on the carousel, and headed out past customs and on to the arrivals hall. By now, it was approaching eleven in the evening and we were nearing our limit. We had initially planned on taking the airport bus into the center of Istanbul and taking a taxi the rest of the way to our apartment (we rented a place on Air BnB to share with friends). By this point, our sense of adventure took a backseat to our desire to be done with traveling and just get to where we needed to be. In that spirit, we found a shuttle service willing to do the hour-long transfer for a mere 15 EUR/17 dollars a person. Sold.

Saturday 25, July: Istanbul, Turkey

Nathalie and I booked our transfer with a shuttle company. Over the past six months, we learned that these types of transfer services will only leave one they have a full vehicle. For us, this meant that we were going to spend some time waiting at the airport. The clock had just rolled over to midnight when we got the green light from the shuttle company that we were ready to go. Heading out onto the surprisingly busy roads, we set out for our apartment, back on the European side of Istanbul.

45 minutes later (the driver had no problems with doubling the speed limit on certain roads), we arrived at our apartment and our home for the next week. We were the first in the group to arrive and met the housekeeper who had graciously came out in the middle of the night to greet us. Settling in, Nathalie and I breathed a major sigh of relief; finally having reached our 'final destination' for that week. I wound up staying up until four in the morning waiting for our friends to arrive who had also experienced similar delays in getting to Istanbul.

Some Sort of Conclusions

Seven days, 15,000 Km/9,300 miles, four times zones, six countries, four flights, and one high-speed train ride later, we had finally finished our marathon. The past six months have been a giant exercise in epic traveling. It made complete sense that the final week of our Asian leg would finish off a semi-suicidal trans-continental trip. Was it worth it? Without doubt. Would I do it again? Only with good reason. Why is that? Because, unsurprisingly, this type of adventure is beyond tiring. The effects of which we only began to feel during our excellent week in Istanbul.