A long journey...

.....42 hours, 5 airports, 4 countries and 3 days (sort of)... The total time in the air was 25 hours and 25 minutes. I flew from Denver to L.A. to Taipei, Taiwan for refueling, to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, then finally to Perth, Australia.

It was dark for about 22 hours straight from Denver to Taipei. During the 14 hour flight from LA to Taipei, I kept expecting it to get light, but all I could see out the window was the blackness of night and some very beautiful stars!

A couple from Taiwan sat next to me on the flight to Taipei. I tried talking with the woman, but she didn't speak much English. Interestingly, she started talking with me in Spanish and we communicated imperfectly in broken Spanish! It was funny to me that we were able to understand each other as well as we did. Sometimes I think I understand broken Spanish better than fluent Spanish because the erroneous thought processes are the same as mine. She even used a bit of "Spanglish."


The layover in Kuala Lumpur was a little more than 6 hours so the airline provided a hotel and meal voucher. There wasn't time for a long stay, but I did get a refreshing shower and this delightful buffet lunch! Unfortunately, I didn't have room in my stomach to sample everything, but I tried. I haven't had Malaysian food before, but I heartily recommend it! The most different item I tried was probably corn ice cream. It was good, but the corn flavor was so unexpected in ice cream that it was a bit strange. A mother and her 2 daughters from Perth (who now live in the US) had my same itinerary. We traveled to and from the hotel and ate lunch together. During lunch, I learned about all of the "must try" foods from Australia. They even made me a list!