Thai Taste in Belgium

Belgium = amazing, homemade Thai food. These will forever be connected in my mind thanks to Filip and Pat and their sweet son Simon, our friends we met at the gym in our Bangkok apartment who have now moved back to Filip’s hometown— Turnhout, Belgium.

We wanted to visit them while in Europe, but traveling from Germany to Belgium, although close, isn’t cheap or easy. We looked up the train tickets while at Luise and Peter’s: 125 euros each. One way. What?! And it was only 390 km away.

But before we went to Europe, I researched cheap ways to get around and stumbled upon car-sharing, a.k.a organized hitch-hiking.

There are websites like this which many university students or people on a budget will advertise where they are headed, when they are leaving, and how much it costs to catch a ride with them. Usually the fare goes towards their gas money.

Luise looked on the website and found us a ride, for only 25 Euro each, that would leave from a town 20 minutes away, and go to Maastricht, Netherlands, where we could catch a cheap Belgian train to Turnhout.

It was fun to chat with our driver, who was going to grad school in Maastricht, majoring in European studies. Dom and he got into a serious convo about the Euro, and the EU. I listened and enjoyed looking at the deep, lush green countryside flying by.

We arrived at the train station in time to make a train to Turnhout. But we missed one of our connections because the train ran late. There ensued a long night of Belgian angels helping us find our way to Filip and Pat’s home:

a considerate train ticket man gave us directions to a safer connection that wouldn’t land us in the middle of Brussels Red Light district.

a kind woman in Turnhout who at midnight was the only smiling person we found who let us use her cell phone.

a friendly passer-by who stopped to help us, a bewildered bunch who couldn’t figure out what numbers to type in the phone. He showed us the right way, and Filip answered.

He arrived quickly, and we and our stomachs were delighted to have finally arrived at our destination.

Pat, Filip’s Thai wife, had Thai food ready and waiting. We ate super spicy chicken with bamboo shoots, and a Thai omlette with veggies. It was so authentic we felt like we were in Thailand, but we were in Belgium?! Yeah, Thailand’s cities don’t have the humble, noble quality that Belgium’s do or castles everywhere.

My dream to go to a castle came true over and over in Belgium and Germany.

Het Steen in Antwerp

The Turnhout one had a moat around it. I felt like I was in some medieval fairy tale.

Castle of the Dukes from Brabant in Turnhout

Dom and I both connected with our family history in Antwerp—me at a cafe called Den Engel (my maiden name is Engel which means Angel in German and Dutch), and Dom at a Thai grocery store in Asia town.

And of course we checked out all that Belgium is famous for:

Chocolate. Oh Belgian Chocolate. I’ve never had chocolate so artfully created as the box Filip generously bought us from The Chocolate Line.

The peeing boy, Manneken Pis, in Brussels. One of the oddest tourist attractions I’ve seen. Legend has it he apparently saved the city by peeing on an explosive that was going to blow up the city…

Wonderful, warm, waffles that perfumed the air with their sweet goodness wherever we walked.

And between the touristy stops we feasted on good ol’ Thai home-cooking. Pat let me be her sous chef, and I learned some tricks of the trade that I brought home to Austin, much to the delight of Dom’s taste buds, and mine.

We were too mesmerized each meal to actually take photos, but here is one of our Thai chef and me.

But after a few days, all the yummy Thai food and Belgian fun had to come to an end. Luise had found a ride for us from Brussels to Frankenthal.

After anxiously waiting at our chosen pick up spot by the train station, we miraculously connected with our ride. We rode in a small car packed with three students and us. It was another fun adventure, but long, and we were so happy to see Peter when he picked us up late that night in Frankenthal.

What a journey of igniting old friendships, delighting our Thai taste buds, and exploring a new land.

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