Australia - Day 18 to 21 - Mooloolaba and Travel Days

6th to 9th January, 2009

The end of the trip was quite relaxing in many ways.  We moved from our home exchange in Currimundi to Mooloolaba.  Some of our friends own a condo there and we accepted their offer of staying there for two nights to finish the trip.  Mooloolaba seemed to be what I imagine Surfers Paraidse was about 10 or 15 years ago.  It's got a nice beachfront drive with lots of great restaurants, a good boardwalk for walking along the beach, and of course, great beaches.  We really enjoyed our time there just hanging out.  On the second day there we grabbed a bus for Maroochydore and saw Madagascar 2.  It was nice to see a movie all in English with no subtitles getting in the way.  Dinner was at a local Mexican restaurant.  We'd been craving good Mexican food, as we really can't find much in Thailand.  So we found a place inside a mall that looked decent.  We got there around 5:10 PM and it didn't open until 5:30, so we were checking out the menu and about to sit down to wait when a local came up to us.

"Are you tourists?"

"Yep."

"Well, if you don't mind me saying...there's a better Mexican restaurant up the street just a bit..."

And so we were guided to The Jungle Hut for a wonderful dinner of tacos, tostados, taquitos and a quessadilla for David.  Wow, it was wonderful. 

After two days in Mooloolaba we caught a train to Coolongata to stay at a hostel for a night before leaving early Friday morning for Thailand.  The first flight was over eight hours from the Gold Coast up to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  We were scheduled to have about a two hour layover, until we discoverd our flight had been cancelled.  We had trouble getting onto the internet the last two days, so we missed the e-mail that told us we were booked on a different flight.  Of course, the flight we were booked onto left the airport about the same time we got through immigration and into baggage claim...so there was no hope of making this flight.  But we got onto a later flight and found a spot to relax for a few hours and grab some dinner.  Finally we made it to Bangkok late Friday night, bargained to get a taxi ride home and survived a few wrong turns with a driver that wanted to spend more time watching David than driving...  But we're home safely after another wonderful holiday.  We're already plotting our next trip:  April, to Kuching, Malaysia on the island of Borneo.  Should be fun...and I'm sure we'll post pictures and share stories.

A few pictures below.  Click on the image to see a larger version.

The view from the condo in Mooloolaba.	David and Lowell sitting in the condo after David painted his face.  (Christmas present...)	David asleep in Devin's arms at the airport in KL.