Exactly one year from departing Australia, I returned to Adelaide on an overnight flight from Singapore. It was a beautiful March day - as most March days in Adelaide are - and I was excited to bring my trip full circle, as it were. Despite my lack of sleep the night before I was chatting enthusiastically to my Eritrean taxi driver as we left the airport to go to the city.
As we left the airport, turning onto Sir Donald Bradman Drive (Adelaide's most famous son, but you wouldn't know that if you didn't follow cricket)...I nearly fainted when I caught sight of the taxi meter.
OH.
MY.
GOD
...SEVEN dollars?????
I mean, I knew Australia was expensive. I knew Asia was cheap. I had just been to Singapore and Bali which, by Asian standards, are not at all cheap.
But...SEVEN dollars?? To get OUT of the airport? That would get me nearly all the way from Bangkok airport into town! That would buy me a mid-level budget accommodation in most of SE Asia! That would buy me at least 7 very large bottles of Beerlao!
42 very large bottles of Beerlao later, I had picked up the keys from the first of many friends on whose hospitality I would impose during my time in Australia and arrived at her house to freshen up.
Forty-two.
Very large bottles of Beerlao.
I just couldn't get over the shock of the prices - especially strange considering I was back in the US for Christmas after India, which is even cheaper than SE Asia, and felt reasonably little shock about it all. Perhaps that's because I was imposing on the hospitality of my parents and bought relatively little during my time away (shopping in Nepal and India makes for cheap Christmas presents!). Perhaps it's because I knew it was temporary, that I would soon be back in the land of the $2 street meal (entree and main). Regardless, I just didn't have the same reaction a few months back that I did when I returned to Australia.
And this scene repeated itself on and off for the next week as I adjusted to western pricing.
Sarah at the pub: Eight dollars! For a beer! And it's not even 400 mls!
Sarah at the cafe: Eighteen dollars for pad thai?? Are you kidding me? And how much for rice?
Sarah at the bus stop: Screw it, I'm walking, no way I'm paying $4 to get 2 kms up the road.
The sticker shock did finally wear off and I was eventually able to look at a menu without hyperventilating (and irritating the hell out of my friends). And, it was probably a necessary reality check regarding my future income & employment status (currently: nil).
On the plus side, my hair and make up were done consistently for 3 weeks straight. But it also made me think about how carelessly I'd spend money in the past, on my singlewomannokids professional income - mostly on stuff I didn't actually need but thought was essential at the time. I've lived for the last year out of a backpack and a carry-on - all up around 20 kilos of luggage - just fine, spending between $20 and $50 a day depending on the country and agonising over parting with $5 for some creation at a market stall. Sure, when you have your feet planted somewhere there are other things that are necessary ...furniture ...cutlery ...a Cuisinart food processor...but so much of it is just clutter and excess.
I wonder how I'll get on trying to maintain my streamlined lifestyle as I re-enter the West. Walking around the streets of Adelaide, and Sydney, it was hard not to get caught up again in the consumer-driven lifestyle of "I want" and head straight back into buying thoughtlessly. Shopping in the US is even more irresistible, with its concrete super mega ultra shopping meccas full of recession sales, bulk buying bargains, and floods of cheap merchandise from - of course - Asia.
Hopefully I can resist by remembering what I had when I sold 90% of my possessions a month before leaving on my trip...the feeling of freedom.
(And more money for very large Beerlao.)
