Monday, May 4, 2009

The End of An Amazing Trip...

When we arrived in Vientiane, we went on our search for a hotel.  We quickly found one, and although it was a little more than we had been paying for accommodation ($12/night), it had air conditioning and warm water, so we were elated!  We cleaned up and chilled for a bit before heading down to the banks of the Mekong, the major river that divides Thailand and Laos and runs throughout SE Asia.  There were a couple of markets along the river, and we found a cool restaurant three stories up from the street where we decided to eat for the evening.  The restaurant overlooked the Mekong, so we were able to watch the sunset!  We enjoyed some Laotian beer, and the restaurant had really good food.  We had a great time meeting people at the restaurant and even ran into a young couple from Wisconsin who were backpacking across Asia together.

The next morning, we took a tuk tuk to the Wattay International Airport in Vientiane and flew from Laos to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  When we arrived in Malaysia, we grabbed a taxi to a nice resort close to the airport.  To save money, we decided to stuff 6 people in one room, meaning 1 guy on each loveseat and 4 girls in a king sized bed… a formidable task!  The actually city of Kuala Lumpur is about an hour away from the airport, so we took an airport shuttle to Chinatown and perused the hundreds of vendors, who were all selling exactly the same products, and bartered for knockoff souvenirs.  (I came away with a cool orange Prada purse!)  We found a cool African restaurant named Nando’s and spent the rest of the evening at the restaurant chilling, chatting, and laughing.  Later, we flagged down a taxi and took it back to our resort for the night.  The next morning, we enjoyed a complimentary full buffet breakfast, where we hoarded fruits, rolls, and sandwiches for our 8-hour flight back to Australia.  Our plane miraculously left on time, and we arrived back in Australia at around 9:00pm on Sunday evening.

My trip to Thailand, Laos, and Malaysia was an absolutely amazing experience, and I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to have this trip of a lifetime within my experience of a lifetime in Australia.  Enjoy my pictures!

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