As we recently completed a travel day from one country to the next, I was thinking about how "normal" it all seemed, but then realized it probably wouldn't seem normal to people who weren't on the World Race, or at least to people who haven't frequently traveled, so I thought I'd give you a little picture of what our travel day looked like.
Saturday, March 30
9:30 p.m. – Load up two large buses with our packs and find a seat on the bus. We've actually gotten pretty good at this (in my opinion anyway). Eventually climb aboard the bus for our 7 hour drive.
Sunday, March 31
Early morning- Arrive at airport a couple hours before the check-in opens. Sprawl out across the airport floor to sleep, listen to music, read, or talk.
Finally check-in and proceed to security. This is usually quite a long process with almost 60 people total.
Make it to our gate and settle in.
Board our plane from Phnom Penh, Cambodia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Disappointed because we don't have individual tv's on the plane. Take advantage of the "free" food on the plane.
2:00 p.m. ish- Arrive in Kuala Lumpur and soon take over two entire seating areas outside of the gate for our 8-hour layover.
3:30 p.m. -Have a church service outside the gate for Easter, complete with a message, worship, prayer, and communion (purple soda and bread). I honestly forgot this isn't normal until people stopped to see what we were doing.
6:00-9:30 p.m. ish- Burger King, Starbucks, hang out, sleep, brush teeth, talk
10:15 p.m.- Flight to Hyderabad, India. Again, no individual tv's. 🙁 Again, take advantage of the free food.
11:55 p.m.- Land in Hyderabad, India. Taken to a "holding room" because we don't have Indian visas (which didn't work out so well for me last time). Squad was split in half for the rest of the trip. Everyone with A-K was "taken" to re-check luggage and head for their gate, while the rest of us waited for our turn.
Monday, April 1
Early morning- Woken up by Bryan, our logistics leader, who told us "They don't have a flight for us. We are all being deported back to Malaysia." Mild panic moment before Bryan told us he was kidding and it was time for us to go recheck our luggage.
Go through security and taken upstairs to a waiting area, where they take us downstairs a few people at a time. Downstairs, we are taken to a room that was somewhat sketchy and most likely should never have been in to re-check our luggage. Said a prayer that my pack would actually make it to Africa, and went back upstairs.
Head to our gate where most of us slept, read, or talked for the remainder of our 10-hour layover.
10:20 a.m.- Flight to Dubai. Enjoy in-flight movies AND free food. Emirates might be my new favorite airline!
12:25 p.m.- Arrive in Dubai and explore a little of this amazing airport.
3:05 p.m.- Final flight to Kenya! Did I mention that I really like Emirates?!
7:05 p.m.- Land in Nairobi, Kenya!
8:00 p.m. ish- ALL our packs made it safely (Thank you for this miracle, God!) Picked up by our wonderful contact, Elissa, and head to Camp Chemi Chemi, our home for the month.
*All times are approximate…. you tend to lose track of time on 48+ hour travel days. 🙂
