Our travel began around 4:00 am Sunday morning. I got up to
shower for the last time before we left. Whenever I have a really nice shower,
I have to take advantage of it; I never know when it will be the last time.
We met as a squad at 5:00 am to wait on vans to take us to
the bus station. They vans were supposed to be outside waiting for us, but they
never showed up. Big Mike on our logistics team scrambled to get vans to come
pick us up. They arrived around 6:00 and it would take an hour to get to the
bus station. Our bus was leaving at 6:40.
Andrew and me drowning in the water next to the red flag.
We got to the bus station around 7:00 am and the bus was
waiting on us. We praise the Lord because it was a government bus and could
have left whenever it wanted, even though we booked every seat except for
three.
We rode on the bus for 7 hours to Hat Yai, Thailand. It stopped twice,
once to go to the bathroom (yay!) and once for lunch. After we got off, the
squad separated. My team and three others would be waiting several hours for
our next bus to leave, so they walked us to a restaurant and we waited there.
At 3:30 pm a tuck-tuck arrived for us to be taken to the bus station in the
city. Once we got there, we waited and napped until 7:00 to board and leave for
Malaysia. We would be arriving at some bus station around 3:00 am to wait on
another bus, and then arriving in our ministry city around 1:00pm.
We get on our next bus and were really excited about it. It
was really nice with big cushiony seats, A/C, no bathrooms but promises to stop
whenever, and it was quiet! We sat on the bus for one hour and it stops at the
border. We get out of the bus with our passports and see the rest of our squad
waiting outside to get through. The border closes at 11:00 pm and we weren’t
going to make it through in time for our bus.
Hi Parents!
So we got a hotel and stayed there for the night, only to
wake up at 4:00 am again to go to the border that would open at 5 the next
morning. We would now have to pay a late fee for staying in the country two
days longer than we were supposed to and buy another bus ticket.
We are some of the first in line at 5 am and the border
decides we need to wait until 8 before they can check us in and lets the 30
people behind us go through. We finally get through border patrol around 8:30
and have a 10:00 bus ticket. We sit and wait, and use the rest of the Thai
Baht we have left before leaving Thailand.
The bus comes around 10:30 to pick us up. We get settled and
start making our way. We finally leave Thailand! Just after we pass the border,
the bus stops. The driver tells us to get off with our passports and all our
luggage. We all get off, walk with all our things into some building where they
stamp our passport and we put our bags through a scanner, but no one checks
them or the computer screen, and repack the bus. We get settled in again and
stop 30 minutes later for lunch.
Beautiful Phuket beach
After that, we have stop every now and then for who knows why
and make it six hours later to Kuala Lampor, Malaysia. We said goodbye to two teams and
made a mad rush to the tram, which took us to the bus station. We had a two
hour wait for our bus to arrive, so we grabbed dinner. Everything is more
expensive than we expected, so we couldn’t afford much, but I got an egg
sandwich and an AW RootBeer for dinner. I miss my RootBeer!
We got on the bus at 11 pm and drove straight to our
destination, Gua Musang, Malaysia. We waited about 30 minutes in the middle of
the parking lot for our contact to come get us.
We finally arrived at our ministry location at 3:30 am
Tuesday morning. The other team left us the next day to their ministry location
for the month. They are staying an hour away.
This travel day beat India for sure. What an Adventure!
