A funny thing happened on Saturday night.
There I was at the pub, halfway through my 10,000th schooner, as the referee blew full-time on the Wallabies' rugby world cup campaign. I should have been miserable. I should have wanted to glass my 10 cheering Pommie mates that I'd foolhardily agreed to watch the game with.
But I was just jealous.
Because there, in the crowd, I could see a whole bunch of Wallabies supporters filing out of the ground. Sure, they were feeling a bit down. But, that night, they were going to get to drown their sorrows in a Marseille bar. They knew they could get up the next day and shoot up to Avignon, or maybe hire a car and drive to Aix-en-Provence. They could sip a few wines and relax in the sun. Maybe sample some foie gras.
They'd managed to combine two of my favourite things in the world: travel and sport.
So yeah, I'm a big sports fan. But you don't have to be to enjoy a game overseas. There's something about watching sport in a different country that gives it a special appeal.
For starters, it's like a window into another culture. If you pick the right game, you'll see locals at their passionate, vocal best. You'll eat the snacks that they eat, drink the beer that they drink, and howl at the players that they howl at. You'll start to "get" them a bit more.
The absolute must-do sporting event for travellers is going to see a soccer match in South America - more specifically, a Boca Juniors game at La Bombonera in Buenos Aires. If football is a religion in Argentina, then La Bombonera is its Sistine Chapel, and Boca Juniors are its cardinals.
I went earlier this year, and the crowd was like nothing I've ever seen before - a seething mass of singing, cheering, screaming and dancing Boca supporters, almost lost in the dense fog of smoke from the fireworks being thrown from all tiers of the stadium. That Boca won the game 3-0 was almost irrelevant.
The River Plate game I went to was tame in comparison. Fortunately, I found the football matches in South America surprisingly safe - just make sure you're cheering for the right team.
Another absolute must is watching a cricket Test in India - preferably featuring Australia.
I saw a Test in Mumbai a few years ago. Not being part of the old boys' wankery of the Fanatics, I had to buy my ticket from a scalper outside the stadium, and took my seat in amongst the hardcore Indian fans.
I needn't have worried about my safety. Throughout the Test the Indians sitting around me treated me like a member of their family, constantly swapping places so they could talk to me about Australian cricket, and politely standing up and clapping with me whenever Australia took a wicket (as long as I did the same for them). I met more people there than I had in the previous two weeks.
But it's a waste just going to see sports that we play in Australia anyway. The more bizarre the sport seems, the more fun you'll have.
I went to a Boston Bruins ice hockey match once in the US, and in between munching a giant hot dog and trying to explain where Australia was, I found out that it's a game played, and watched, by a bunch of psychopaths. It was brilliant.
My old travelling companion, the Hilton Hippy, once went to watch a game of elephant polo in Galle, Sri Lanka, which he says was quite an experience.
"Funniest bloody sport I have ever seen," he told me. "The elephants had no idea what was going on. Every now and then one of them would stand on the ball without realising it, and all these people would come over and push it to try to get it off the ball."
The Hilton Hippy also had a distinctly South African experience while watching a game of rugby in Cape Town - he had his wallet stolen.
On top of that I've also witnessed the bizarrely long camel races in Dubai, and the just plain bizarre cow fighting in Switzerland. Who hasn't dreamt of seeing two cows go head-to-head in the ultimate battle for bovine supremacy?
So now I find it impossible to watch an overseas sporting event without being dead jealous of the lucky bastards wedged in among the locals in the stands. This year's cricket world cup in the Caribbean was torture - last year's football world cup in Germany nearly killed me.
There are plenty more sporting "must-do's" that I'm yet to check off: watching a grand prix in Monaco, seeing an FA Cup final at Wembley, going to a Superbowl in the US, watching a surfing event at Pipeline in Hawaii, watching kick boxing in Thailand ...
And it's not like I had nothing else planned.
Ever been to a sporting event overseas? Would you recommend it?
Hope you're enjoying the Backpacker blog. There'll be a new one up on smh.com.au every Wednesday, for a bit of light relief to remind you of why you went to work in the first place: to save up enough money to get the hell out of here! If there are any good travel topics you think I've missed, drop me a line at bgroundwater@fairfax.com.au.
Combining the two best things in the world
