Goal: To go from point A (Battambang, Cambodia) to point B, (our hostel with the squad in Bangkok, Thailand), and then to point C (our ministry location in Phuket, Thailand).
Nov 24. Travel day 1 starts in Battambang Cambodia. We are at our ministry site for the month preparing to leave at midnight. We have received very little information at this point (typical world race style) and have only been told that a bus will arrive to pick us up around midnight. We are spending the day cleaning our site and packing, as well as shopping for travel food. Our team leader is also frequently on the phone in communication with other leaders and our ministry contact trying to determine where we are to meet the bus in the middle of the night and how we will get there. We also find out that our squad leaders will need to be picked up as well at a separate location in the same town. Much conversation ensures.
Sometime late into the evening our ministry contact arrives, and one of the local staff who can converse with the bus driver, and after much conversation on the phone we find out that our squad leaders will be coming to our location to be picked up with us, the bus will not arrive until about 3 am, and Visal (one of our super sweet and kind local contacts) will stay up and drive down to meet the bus and lead it to our location (which has no actual address).
Nov 25, 2:30 am. The bus arrives at our location. We board, and struggle to find seats as the teams already on the bus are sprawled out and passed out. We drive for about another hour or two.
Some ungodly hour of the morning. We arrive at the last stop to pick up the last few teams. The bus is now completely full, and there is not enough room for all our bags under the bus, so we fill the aisle with bags, which means I can no longer sleep on the floor. We continue our travels.
Some time later…after falling in and out of sleep I realize we have been sitting still for over an hour. We are woken up and told that we are 1 mile from the Thai border, but the bus has broken down from the weight of us and our bags, and we will need to take a different bus to the border. Half of us get off and load another bus, and the rest of us follow on a third bus. We are unfazed at this point on the Race.
Once at the border we unload and wait for further instructions. Our big packs are loaded on two carts and taken to the other side of the border to wait for us. We are told they will be there after we get through, but watching them drive away is a bit concerning. We get in line to get stamped out of Cambodia. This series of lines is outside, so it is quite hot, there are just a couple of fans circulating. Movement is slow as people jump in wherever they want to try to get through as quickly as possible. We sit in the line for probably about an hour, maybe less. Once we get stamped out, we walk a fair distance to the Thai border.
Thai border. We gather at the bottom of some stairs where an official is limiting how many people can go up at a time. The “line” is a mob of people that continues to press in to get as close to the stairs as possible. ines aren’t really a thing in Southeast Asia. Once we get closer we see that lines of people will sneak in from the side and try to get preferential treatment and let in before the rest of us. Still others will slowly sneak up the other side when no one is looking. After about another hour we finally break through and get to the top of the stairs and we are sure the worst is over; we are sorely mistaken. We enter a large room filled with people, and try to figure out where the line is. There are a few fans, but it feels hotter in here than it did downstairs. There are no officials to be seen beside those stamping passports, so everyone does as they please. After some trial and error we get in the line and assess the situation. Everyone is in the same line that weaves back and forth all the way to the front of the room where we will get stamped into Thailand. We also notice that the line is not single file, and many people press in and push ahead and slip under the barriers to try and get to the front. We settle in for the long haul and try to make the best of it. After about 3 hours I finally make it to the front, where an official decides to finally make the line single file, so all personal space is lost and everyone tries to claim their spot in line. I finally get to the front, get my passport stamped in a matter of seconds, and head out the door. My backpack goes through security down the hall and then I find myself outside in Thailand! But now we have to find the rest of the squad.
A few of us walk down the road looking for a group of foreigners amongst all the Thai people, which proves rather difficult. We finally locate them in a building by the bus station where there is Dunkin donuts and KFC. Praise the Lord for cold drinks and donuts. By now it is about 11:30 am, and we are told we will meet at 12 to board the vans and drive to Bangkok.
12:30. We depart the border and head to Bangkok. The drive is fairly smooth, one long stop made at a 7/11 on the way, and we arrive at our hostel in Bangkok around 5:30 pm. We spend a couple of days in Bangkok to celebrate Thanksgiving and reignite for the next month of ministry.
Nov 27. Our team leader spends the morning figuring out travel from Bangkok to Phuket. We are later informed that we will meet at 4 pm to head to the bus station for a 12 hour overnight ride to Phuket.
4:00 pm. We meet to load into taxis and head to the bus station in Bangkok rush hour traffic.
4:30 pm. We actually leave in said taxis
5:30 pm. Arrive at bus station. Grab more dunkin donuts (it’s a thing here) and wait for bus.
6:00 pm. Load onto buses, figure out that we are needing to get off the bus in a town about an hour or so before Phuket town, so we have to let the bus drivers know so we don’t get skipped en route. We get into the bus and are blown away by the luxury of overnight Thai bus life. Seats are huge, the lay back very far and have footrests, and there is ample leg room. There is AC, snacks, a toilet, and no blaring Asian music or movies to be found. We sleep hard.
11:00 pm. We stop for our one break, and grab a free meal included in our bus fare, then we take off again.
Nov 28, 6:30 am. We arrive at our stop on the side of the road where our contact is waiting to pick us up. We rub our eyes, get off, and reload our stuff into our contact’s truck and jump in. We ride a few minutes and arrive at our ministry site for the next month.
For some perspective, google maps says it takes about 5 hours to get from Battambang, Cambodia to Bangkok. It took us 15 hours.
**Sorry about the lack of blogs! We have been on the go and busy lately so I haven’t spent much time putting my experiences into words. I hope to do a lot of catching up this month, as it seems it will be a month of rest for us. We are currently in a small village about an hour from Phuket town on the Island of Phuket, Thailand. We are within sight and walking distance of the beach, and there are no tourists for miles. This month will be spent supporting a local missionary couple originally from the States who have been here since after the tsunami (which wiped out this village). Ministry looks like a variety of things, but will include teaching English, hanging out with the neighborhood kids, helping out around the church, sharing testimonies on the radio, and providing some company and relief to the local missionaries, as well as spending as much time on the beach as possible!
**Financial update!!
Our final deadline for all funds to be raised is the end of this month!! I have about 600 USD left to go, and would appreciate any and all help that you are willing to send my way. Just click on the “support me” tab on the left side of my blog. All donations are tax free!
Also, many of my teammates are in greater financial need than I am right now. Some of them are listed on the left side of my blog, but due to some technical issues you will have to search for the rest of them. If you click on “Meet my squad” on the left, it will take you to a page with all of our teams. Look for team Marvel and click on Andie Cortez, Kortney Gulley, Lauren Mitchell, Danielle Steuve, and/or Corrie Walker, they would definitely appreciate your help!
