Thursday May 5, 2017.
I woke up at 5 am, finished packing, and brought my massive pack, day-pack, and purse downstairs.
At 5:30 am, I talked briefly to my logistics partner Matthew about a few last minute details about our first travel day as logistics.
At 5:50 am, I had a squad-mate pray for our day.
Soon after, Matt led the way because about 50 yards off, our two buses and a car with our wonderful travel guide Sophoan awaited.
By 6:30 we amazingly had 55 people and their packs all loaded up.
We took a 3 hours bus ride to the Poipet Cambodia/Thailand border.
Our travel guide helped me take the first half of our group that was ready to the departure office for them to sign our departure cards.
As my group continued a couple yards away to beneath a bridge so our group wouldn’t block peoples way, our guide told me to go straight until the road ended, turn left, grab a departure and arrival card at the Thai building and go upstairs to get our visas. Then he ran back to help the the second half of the squad.
At this point, I realized our normal quick border crossing would not be a thing. In fact, we had about half a mile walk if not more to the building. So I shouldered my 46 pound pack, daypack in front of me and we journeyed on. I got my squad to the road where it ended and turned left as instructed, but then I ended up taking half of the squad that was with me on a wild-goose chase trying to find this building (there were many official looking buildings).
Thankfully, all the locals pointed our way. Perks of being a massive group of Americans–people know when you are lost. We got upstairs to the building and thankfully it was air conditioned. Then, we all started frantically filling out the information for the arrival card, made it through, and got downstairs. I waited a bit for more of my group to come and then we continued on, had our bags scanned, and made it through to Thailand. By this time, my whole shirt was another color from how much I was sweating.
We waited for another bit and soon our trusted travel guide came to direct us to the 7 buses that would take us to Bangkok. We had another decent walk and dropped our bags off. At this point, from when we stepped off the bus to when we reached our vans, we had hiked a mile. Our hard-working guide told us where food, bathrooms, water, and air conditioning was. Then he and two of my squadmates went bacm to make sure the rest of the group made it to where we were (because having such a large group takes time to move through everything).
I breathed for a moment, a bit dehydrated, and super sweaty with my adrenaline running high. Then one of our van drivers asked if he could start loading bags. At first I said no because I wanted to wait until we had everyone. But I quickly realized having to figure that all out once 55 people were around would be rough.
So grabbing a couple squadmates, we did the math and I figured out a strategy of where people should go. When everyone got there I grabbed the TLs, told them our plan of putting roughly a team in each van. We had 45 minutes for the rest of the group to get food, etc. After that and talking to some Sqls, my partner, and others about some other details, we loaded up the vans and headed to Bangkok. Six vans were headed to the same destination and one filled with our squald leaders and raised up squad leaders who were going to a different destinatinon for training.
To top it all off, though, as our caravan started, our van acted as if it wanted to stall several times.
This sounds like a a lot–and it was. But it also was SO much fun for me. In an odd way, I love that kind of chaos and running around communicating and planning details. Although, the 4 hour van ride to Bangkok I was trying to get my adrenaline to calm down.
But we did it! Somehow, by God’s grace, my partner and I had a successful first travel day.
And there were so many good points in the day:
-An SQL bought Matt and I pringles and oreos.
-Our travel guide was SO incredibly sweet, hard working, helpful, and so much more. He bought drinks and gave some to us and then wanted to take a selfie. He was an angel.
-My squad was/is so willing to help, is full of grace when I made blunders, etc.
-People were so encouraging the whole time (which is great when you have to try and make quick decisions and when no one knows what is actually going to happen on travel days).
