“Such beauty, he thought, was too perfect to have come about by mere chance.”
–Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
We rise early and put the finishing touches on our packing. After breakfast and a briefing from our ministry contact, Pi Emmi, we are off to the bus station. My team and Team Overcome will be going to the same village this week. We have about an hour until our bus leaves so we makes a monstrous pile with all our backpacks and then grab some snacks at 7-Eleven. We board the bus, squishing into seats that are so small they should probably be illegal. We begin the four-hour trek to the village of Mae Ai. As the bus climbs over hills and mountainsides, I stare out the window, sip a Blue Magic soda water, and focus on the view and the music in my headphones. I wish I could send some of this soda water to my friend, Anna, who loves flavored soda water. We are dropped on the side of the rode and my legs are happy to finally have a chance to stretch out. A tractor hauls off our big packs to the village and after lunch we walk to the village to meet up with our packs and our host families. We settle into our new homes for the week, explore the village, and play with the local kids.
Tuesday morning we are greeted with rice and veggies for breakfast. Knowing that Thai people love clean plates, we all agree to finish everything but when we do, our host mom brings out a second portion of all the food. Honestly, how are we supposed to eat all of this food? After breakfast, we meet up with the other girls and their host mom and follow her out to the rice paddies. We work to drain the rice paddies for the morning using a tool made from a coconut attached to the end of bamboo. Since we only have two tools and ten girls, we work in assembly lines to make long trenches for the water to drain from one paddy to the next. As we walk back for lunch and look across the fields we can see all the water that has drained since we started in the morning. We have the afternoon free, an unexpected treat. I sneak in a nap, we have team time, we head to town, and then Mercy, Beth, and I go for a run. Following the run, I brave the bucket shower – cold water and nothing but a pale to pour the water. Thanks to my run, the experience is almost enjoyable.
We hop in the back of the tractor and ride out to some fields about 10 minutes from the main village. This morning we are playing in the mud. Standing in flooded fields, scooping wet mud up with our hands and then placing and smoothing out the mud to build up the walls of the rice paddies. I always knew that all my days playing in the dirt would come in handy. As the mud gets stuck between my toes, I am praying there are no leeches. I don’t mind mud but the thought of blood sucking creatures on my toes makes me squirm. As I watch people place mud on the wall and forget to smooth, the perfectionist in me comes out and I decide to be the cleanup crew and go around and smooth out all the walls. I find this task oddly therapeutic. We clean off as much of the mud as we can in a nearby stream and head back for lunch and another free afternoon. My host mom invites us to a local Thai dances class. When we arrive at dance class an old woman comes up to me, grabs my arm and compares our skin and veins. Apparently I am very white. Eventually we get around to the dancing. Have you ever had about 30 Thai women laugh at you at the same time? Welcome to my life as I try to dance these Thai dances. At dinner, tales from the week get back to our squad mentor Scott who has been gone for a few days and he decides that my new nickname is White Long. We’ll see how long this sticks. As I am about to leave dinner I see the women who cook for us eating something at their table and go to check it out. The next thing I know I’m treated to some escargot-a-la-Thailand–snails, straight from the rice paddies to my stomach.
We wake up to catch the sunrise over the rice paddies and come back to find chicken wings for breakfast. These are a welcome change to our past mornings of cooked veggies. We spend the morning sweeping the village streets and doing a prayer walk. As we are sweeping the main street square in the village, a woman comes out of her house and brings us water. I am thankful for her kindness. In the afternoon we make the walk to town. We go to a local coffee shop and are all too happy to have air conditioning, cold beverages, and Internet. My inbox seems to have overflowed with emails since we left on Monday morning. We head back to the village with a bit of time to spare before dinner so I hop in the shower and then head to play games with the kids. Our final night in the village is a great time with food, feedback, and worship as a big group. It is hard to believe our time in Thailand is rapidly drawing to a close.
Friday morning we are hoping to catch one last sunrise before we leave but the sun is even sleepier than us today and in order to not be late for breakfast, we miss it. As 7:30 approaches we quickly do the dishes, snap some photos with our host family, then throw on our packs. My sweet host mom gives me a hug and then I walk down the street to meet up with the group. We are directed to stand on a seemingly arbitrary spot on the road in town. We can only hope the bus will actually stop for us. The bus arrives and I grab a seat next to our translator, Ting. She has been with us all week in the village and is an amazing friend and help to us. We stop about half way through the trip and just as we are about to leave the station we see another team from our squad pull up and get on our bus. It feels like we have been reunited with a lost limb! We arrive back in Chiang Mai, have some lunch, and Aly and I spend some time working on logistics. Our first big travel day is tomorrow! The afternoon quickly slips away. We have team dinner and then a squad meeting. Aly and I give a briefing for our travel day and safety and security in Cambodia.
As I watch the sun inch higher into the sky over Chiang Mai for the last time, I hear Shaun T yelling through Beth’s computer screen — nothing like some Pure Cardio Insanity to start your Saturday, right? I can only hope this will make me tired enough to sleep on the bus tonight. My latte and croissant at the French bakery cancel out any positive affects of the workout I just completed. From one favorite spot to another, we are off to Ma-Chill. This is my final chance to indulge in excellent wifi and Thai tea before the unknown of Cambodia. Around lunch we head back to the hostel where I meet up with Jay and trying to soak the last bit of Thailand before we leave, we go get massages. I try not to pull my hair out as I spend the afternoon packing. This constant packing and unpacking would go under the “cons” of quitting my job. I transition into go-mode as Aly crosses the street to flag down some sung taos and I make sure no one is left behind. We make it to the bus station in one piece and with plenty of time to spare. In our usual World Race fashion we find a place to congregate and make a giant pile of our backpacks. We use the free time to start our China Visa Applications. It is time to get on the bus and I am playing caboose again. I actively pray for patience as people move at what Miranda Priestly might describe as a “glacial pace”. We load onto the bus and settle in for a long bus ride to Bangkok.
Our bus rolls into Bangkok sometime around 5a.m. on Sunday morning. Leg one complete. Tired but in one piece we pile out of the bus and into vans to drive another four hours to the border. We reach the border unload the luggage into another large pile. Leg two complete. With some difficulty everyone picks up his or her luggage and starts the trek to cross the border. I am suddenly so thankful that I can easily carry my entire luggage. As I walk next to Sara and see her teeter-totter with every step, I worry her arm might break off so I give her my small bag and take the bag she is carrying. We soon come to stairs and as I walk up with a pack on my front and my back I decide this will count as my workout for the day. After exiting Thailand we drop our bags at a new bus and then head to get Cambodian Visas. Soon we are successfully and legally in Cambodia. Not before they took all my electronic fingerprints and my picture though — can’t be too careful these days, I suppose. Back on the bus and heading to meet our ministry host. We stop for lunch and I eat the strangest burger of my life. I’m not even sure it was meat. The bus stops on the side of the rode and we give big hugs to everyone we won’t see until the end of the month. We pile our luggage into a little tuk-tuk and then we are told to also pile all six of us into this same tuk-tuk. I squeeze myself into a space so small next to our luggage that I can’t move an inch. We start driving and eventually turn onto a dirt rode. We keep driving…and driving. We finally arrive at a little church. The person who drops us off leaves and we are relatively alone in the middle of nowhere Cambodia. Welcome to month 2.
