46 hours, 3 Countries, 44 expired visas, 1 moto-accident, 1 hostaged passport = just another World Race travel day.
U-Squad has made it to month 3! This month we have landed in Australia and have started our ministries Down Under. Before making it the land of kangaroos, koalas, and vegemite we stopped off in Vietnam for some delicious Pho, air-con hotel rooms, and french bread by the baggette. While crossing the border from Cambodia, it was discovered that we had overstayed our visa’s by 4 days, resulting in a $20 fine per person for which they wrote individual receipts, making the border crossing process last 2 1/2 hours. After walking to the Vietnam border and getting stamped in we loaded back onto our bus and headed to Ho Chi Min City. Five minutes into our 2 hour ride our bus hits a guy on a moto. Welcome to Vietnam. Thankfully it was more of a graze and not a direct hit so the man walked away with only a torn shirt and potentially terrifying flashbacks. After arriving in the city we split up in search of Pho, because it’s just not right to spend 18 hours in Vietnam and not partake of this scrumptious soup. The next day our hotel provided breakfast, an egg, iced coffee, and a small baggette. Hey bread, nice to see you again. Our budget for three meals in Vietnam was $5 so for lunch Callie and I split a big baggette and walked around the city eating bread and loving life. Callie, Jessie (Team Absolute Abandon) and I found a Catholic church and tried to go inside, we could see that there were beautiful stainglass windows inside but we couldn’t find a way in, we walked around the entire building trying to break in but it was locked up tight. There we lots of cars and people around but there we outdoor monuments and places to pray so I guess the building is only used at Mass times. After our Catholic adventure we headed back to get our things and head for the airport.
After loading all the luggage and half the squad we realize that something is not quite right across the street and there seems to be some sort of situation involving some of our people. One of our guys had dropped his passport and a guy picked it up and was now demanding $30 to return it. It was an intense few minutes but finally we had the passport, $10 was paid and we were on our way. We arrived at the airport about 7 hours before our flight and 4 hours before check-in began. After checking weight restrictions everyone started chucking out things in their packs that were putting them overweight. It’s still amazing to me that everything I own fits in a backpack that weighs 21.3 kilos.
After a 4 1/2 hour flight we finally landed in Darwin, Australia, sailed through customs and arrived at our new home at YWAM-Outback about 6:15 Friday morning.
So, that’s what our travel days and bonus country number one looked like. We are settled in here in Darwin and excited to be working with an aboriginal community this month…stay tuned for more =]
