Back at those times when Air Asia was not even anywhere in the picture of our aviation industry (in my country Malaysia), New Zealand felt like far far away and beyond reach. I remember somebody told me how he had to fork out some MYR7000 (around USD1500 by current exchange rate, probably around USD2000 back then) when he went to New Zealand and that was on the flight tickets alone. I couldn’t imagine myself coming to this country because well…
So I was in Sandakan on the East coast of Sabah to visit my relatives over the weekend. One of my uncles (elder brother of my late father) passed away while I was in New Zealand so I decided to visit the family after I returned to Kuala Lumpur despite having missed the funeral. But I’m not going to talk about the visit. It all went well. I did not get to tour Sandakan as much as I had wanted…
I had always wanted to go to Vang Vieng. When I first heard about a place with peculiar rock formations scattered among valleys and vast paddy fields, I knew I was gonna be heading there sooner or later. And true enough, when I finally set foot in Laos – the very last country in ASEAN that I went to – I decided to go there after Vientiane the capital city and Luang Prabang the UNESCO town. After spending the first…