So I think I just need to go ahead and blog about every travel day from here on out. They are always so adventurous. So, our last travel day we went from Siem Reap, Cambodia, to Darwin, Australia. Here’s a little of what happened along the way:
We took a private bus from our hotel to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. Sounds pretty simple right. Eh, not so much. Never mind the fact that we had our own bus that picked us up, but we also had no bathroom on the bus, had bags piled all over the floor and seats. Yeah, not so fun sitting in the very back of the bus and you have to hop, trip, jump over 40 huge bags to get to your seat every time. Our ride was suppose to take about 5-6 hours, b/c our driver knew a shortcut. However, when we got to the Vietnam border, each person had to pay a $20 fine for having expired visas. This was fun. The border patrol even wrote each person a nice little receipt showing that we paid, which took a couple of hours to finally cross over. Oh, and we couldn’t use the bathroom, while we waited b/c we didn’t have the Vietnam currency (yes, you have to pay to use the toilet here). Dehydration or pee your pants? You choose.
We finally all cross the border though and I have a nice little chit chat with the bus driver as I help the last few people with their bags. He seems like a nice guy and asks me about America. The bus starts to go again and no more than 2 minutes later we hit a guy on his motorcycle. Kind of ironic that a bus full of Americans take out a Vietnam guy only 2 minutes in their country. The guy finally gets up and everything is taken care of after another 30-40 minutes or so.
We finally arrive at our hotel in Ho Chi Minh, in which a 5-6 bus ride had turned into an all day affair. A girl loses her wallet on the bus, and I have to exchange money so we can have some to eat dinner, but hey, we finally get to go eat at a Pizza Hut and listened to Eminem rap songs blaring in our ears. The next day we are loading the bus up again and getting ready to fly to the airport when a guy on our squad drops his passport on the ground. Some Vietnamese guy picks it up and refuses to give it back to him unless he pays him $30 as a finder’s fee. Really? So, this goes on for entirely way too long, until we finally concede to give him $10. To the airport!
So we get to the airport about 7 hours before our flight and play a hackey-sack kind of game they play over here, until about every security officer at the airport tells us to stop. So the moment finally arrives to check our luggage in, but then the lady at the counter tells us we are required to have visas. Panic time, right? Well our squad cooly fills out the visa applications online, and get them printed out with a little time to spare even. Yeah that would have been nice to know about ahead of time.
We finally board the plane and are offered a cool, refreshing beverage. Thanks flight attendant. What wait, that was $3? So we fly overnight, and it’s impossible to sleep b/c the seats are so close together, but we arrive safely. Thankfully, our team is doing ministry about a 15 minute car ride from the airport and we could go to our base and sleep, but other teams weren’t so lucky. Insert 12 and 24 hour layovers at the airport. Ha, thanks for being team players guys.
Sounds like a nightmare, but it’s amazing at what having a positive attitude will do for you, as well as trusting God to provide. There wasn’t a second that I got stressed out or worried, but was filled with a peace definitely stemming from the Lord the whole way. Thank God I am still somewhat young and adventurous. Maybe next time will go a little more smoothly, but then again where would the fun in that be?
