There were five tired and hungry travellers hunting down breakfast at 8:30am on Vang Vieng's main street after Lao National Day, the sleepiest morning that Vang Vieng ever saw. About one two three* month ago, that was us.
*I've been terrible with uploading photos so this has changed from one, to two, to three months. #cries.

From our last day in Vang Vieng, Laos - the day we hired motorbikes for a second time, went to a cave and proceeded to sit on platforms with our feet dangling in the river. And yes, I'm the tiny one at the back.

Thinking back about it, those precious few weeks overseas feel like a lifetime ago - I've settled back into Sydney, gone back to work, struggled to sleep for the right amount of hours and somehow being in another country feels very normalised. In hindsight, I feel like my experience as a volunteer at SAE LAO (read it first) wasn't very impactful as a short-term volunteer due to the circumstances with the government banning SAE LAO from teaching during the time I was there, but I do think that it was a heavily eye opening experience about the world we live in and how lucky I am to have all the opportunities I've had as a kid and the luxuries we take for granted in the first world.

Day 14 to 16: Luang Prabang, Laos

Midday, Main Street Luang Prabang.

Evening, Main Street Luang Prabang.

Luang Prabang is my favourite Laotian city. It's located four hours north of Vang Vieng by bus on an albeit very bumpy and at times, broken, road through some amazing, picturesque mountains and the quaint city is located on the intersection of two rivers - the Mekong River (which we spent a decent amount of time in when we were in Vang Vieng) and Nam Khan. It's more developed than the other areas we visited in Laos - the streets were cleaner, there were school children on WeChat on their phones and washing my feet in the shower was finally worthwhile. The tuk tuks there were smaller - usually three wheeled affairs - and we put our Lao haggling skills to the test, haggling our way through the markets for anything from silk (or so they say) scarves to bookmarks to keyring elephants. Everyone sells the same stuff - and some vendors will offer you a price that can be haggled down by almost half if you push hard enough.

There's also a food alley where you can grab dinner (noodles, BBQ meat, dumplings etc) and Lao desserts - except I was plagued by crippling stomach cramps that made me want to hurl over the last two days #travelbug. Quite sure I got sick more times overseas than I have in the last while with the fever and the stomach cramps.
We also saw a huge avocado (two times the size of the ones we see in Sydney) which ensued some frenzied photo taking. We also managed to find a solid cafe that served Lao coffee (with condensed milk of course) and some decent pastries.

Cakes at the night markets.

Lao Coffee!

Luang Prabang seems like a sleepy town during the day - but at night it comes alive thanks to the daily night markets, crowds and the Luang Prabang Film Festival that was running during the two nights we were there. Watching a film in Lao (we were too far away to read the English subtitles) was an interesting experience - the film was quite melodramatic and long, but it reminded me of Asian dramas (albeit production was much cheaper) and telenovas in terms of values and entertainment. In all honesty I was quite tired by the end of the first day so I ended up falling asleep partway during the film (it was over two hours long) but I'm glad we stayed til the end.
We saw Christy off at the airport the next morning before getting picked up by Elephant Village Sanctuary for our 1 Day Elephant Mahout Experience - another surreal experience on par with the kayak-zipline-tubing day tour we did in Vang Vieng and well worth my $142AUD. I learnt how to climb onto an elephant (the elephants are well trained to lift their foot up to help you but wow still took strength haha), say the Lao words that mean 'go', 'stop', 'left', 'right' etc and we rode the elephants into the nearby river & gave them a bath later in the day involving a lot of splashing.

Fun fact #1: Elephants flap their ears when they're happy.
Fun fact #2: Elephants splash you back if they are enjoying their bath. 

Me and my elephant for the day (and Mahout guide riding on top).

Baby elephant! (like 3 years old though)

Riding an elephant for the first time.

Bath time!

Our guides also ferried us down the river by boat to a local waterfall/natural looking swimming pool - I managed to graze myself climbing up the waterfall but the water was super refreshing and the falls made a great massage. Comparing the facilities here to Blue Lagoon in Vang Vieng also made me realise that this area was definitely much more developed - but in terms of overall I hear Laos is still behind their neighbours Vietnam and Cambodia.

Being a third wheel #noshame.

Practically a natural swimming pool with included waterfalls that are great for massages.

Day 17 to 19: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia & home
I was sad to leave Luang Prabang - but at the same time I was eager to be rid of the stomach pains and spend some time in Kuala Lumpur as well. We got to traverse the city by foot and metro (their metro system isn't that great tbh) and we were treated to a beautiful view of the KL skyline in the infinity pool in our Airbnb apartment block. We also did a decent amount of makeup and skincare shopping, ate street food, sussed out the best places for exchange rates and made it to Batu Caves - but couldn't climb up the stairs to the top because I wasn't wearing the appropriate clothing.

Batu Caves! Protip: Wear long pants and a shirt covering your shoulders when visiting Batu Caves and other places with cultural significance.

Infinity pool by day.

Infinite lights by night.

Arriving home was an odd experience. It felt good to be back but at the same time I felt disconnected with the people from the life that my friends led when I was away and it was hard to just explain to others how I felt and how life-changing these kinds of experiences are. You always here about how travelling changes you and how you perceive things back home - but this is the first time I've experienced it. There's something about walking in pitch darkness in the country, staring at how bright the stars are and being scared shitless about getting jumped that brings people together and it's not something you can easily share. People back home don't really hear about how exhausted/lonely/bored you might be, and similarly it's hard to describe how exhilarating it is to zipline through the tree tops knowing that the only way to brake is to reach up and clamp down on the rubber tire bit with your hands.

For weeks after I got back, I felt like I'd caught the travel bug. I wanted to go back to SE Asia, visit Japan/South Korea like a lot of people my age were doing and someday traverse South America. I read an article recently about 2 guys travelling for 8 months across SE Asia, China, Russia and into Europe and now one day I want to travel Russia via train. I always wanted to go on exchange as well - and hopefully one day soon I'll make that happen, even though the thought of going overseas and living there for at least 4 months scares me. My one solace was my family road trip to South Australia via Broken Hill, Adelaide & Melbourne which was really cool as well, even though so many hours was spent in a car and I despised fast food by the end of it - but I did get to spend NYE in another city.

But hey, I believe that one day I'll make it.

Where do you want to travel to?

With love, Sarah x

Read Part 1 of this trip.

Thanks for being great travel buddies & for all the great mems - and credits to these guys for some of the photos I posted (especially the higher quality ones since I took all of my photos on my phone).