The Great Big Southeast Asia Blog – by Rosa

Laos was … tropical. I mean, I didn’t know what I expected, but honestly even from a tropical place, I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so stereotypically tropical. The earth was red, and there was an overwhelming abundance of green wherever you looked. Strange and fantastical tropical flowers peeked out from the overflowing undergrowth, and thousands of bugs and butterflies of all shapes and sizes imaginable dominated the landscape. You could not escape the sound of crickets.

It was all incredibly beautiful, and it was all  far too much for me to handle. At this point, I was feeling pretty homesick. I didn’t know how I was going to make it the rest of the way to Australia, or how I was supposed to keep finding the energy to be excited by each new stunning place we encountered. The culture was new. The language was different. The landscape was wholly unfamiliar. And all I really wanted to do when we landed in paradise was hide in our hotel room and pretend I wasn’t there.

The sad reality is that these feelings just happen, especially when you’re a homebody like myself, and there isn’t much you can do to change them. After discussing my complicated feelings with my family all morning, we decided that my parents would go out giving me time to spend the afternoon by myself in the guest house while they explored the town. And you know what? It really helped. That whole afternoon spent watching YouTube and pretending I was back at home and not in some unknown tropical country really gave me that chance to rest and forget about everything, a chance I had been desperate for since we had left Guilin.

After that day, I was much more willing to go experience Laos again, no longer resenting the country so much for being yet another new place. I was even willing to go on a 20 kilometre bike ride in the full on heat to go to an elephant sanctuary, where we then got to feed and bathe real Asian elephants! And then… we had to cycle all the way back. But we survived, and were able to take it easy the next day (which was greatly appreciated by me who was still feeling fairly homesick). The elephants were truly incredible, but I think my favourite thing we went to do in Laos was swim in a jungle waterfall. It is a tourist destination and is set up as such, but that didn’t at all take away from how stunning it was. The water was pale turquoise, and it spilled around the twisted roots of the jungle trees to form pools that were perfect swimming spots. Me and my family even found a much more secret swimming spot which made us really feel like we were swimming in a river in the wilds of the jungle. It was like something out of a dream.

By the end of our stay, I had come to terms with Laos. No longer did I find it overwhelming. Still a bit strange and definitely not like anything I’m used to, but no longer unknown. But the traveller’s mindset I have adopted over the past few months meant I didn’t find it hard to leave. After all – the purpose of travelling is to keep on going, keep on exploring.

Next, we would head out to Thailand.

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Our first experience of Thailand was pretty intense, as it was a whole day (and night) of rough train travel across the country to get to Chiang Mai. But it was worth it when we arrived. Picked up by our cousins who we were visiting and whisked away to a cafe that served delicious breakfasts, the exhaustion of the night we had just spent on a very uncomfortable train was starting to fade away.

It was so nice to stay with them. First, I finally got my own room! I had almost forgotten what it felt like to have a space all to yourself, and I certainly relished it. I befriended their pet bird, Blue – a little pale blue parrotlet who was extremely talkative and very friendly, and she would give me little kisses – and I got the chance to spend time with my five-year-old twin cousins who I had last seen when they were barely a year old. We had so much fun playing games and going swimming together.

We were treated so well when we were there by our family, and I was very grateful for the hospitality and the chance to just stay somewhere and not have to worry about doing anything or going anywhere for a change. It was a much needed two weeks.

We went up to their place in the mountains for a few days as well (over Halloween – I had to carve a grapefruit instead of a pumpkin), and it was truly a gorgeous place. They were growing all kinds of things on the land, and we even got to pick, shell, and roast our own coffee beans! I also nearly stepped on a very large black snake while we were going on a walk, and I was simultaneously excited and shaken by the encounter. My mum was incredibly frustrated that SHE hadn’t been the one to almost step on the big dangerous snake, and that it had rushed away too quickly for her to see it. It was amazing to see it, if a bit frightening.

It was hard to leave our cousins and go on the road again, knowing we were going to travel into another unknown territory. But I was comforted by the fact that this was the last stretch to Australia now. We had come so far, and we would be with our family in Australia before we knew it. And after that, we would be heading home.

The pangs of homesickness have become commonplace to me now, and as amazing as this travelling has been, I just know when the time comes, I’ll be so happy when I return home.

But that’s not now. For now, we’d be heading through Malaysia into Indonesia – the next big leg of our journey.

Another step into the unknown.