So much ridikulusness: Cambodia edition - Explore Archived World Race Alumni Blogs

So many great stories this month, and I’m sure there are so many that still didn’t make it in here! Life with DTM is always an adventure. So thankful for this team I get to do life with, and all the crazy things we get ourselves into. Hope ya’ll enjoy a little bit of what our life looked like while living in Cambodia!

When you’re walking down the stairs at your hostel and right in front of you Tommy slips and slides down basically the entire set of stairs and about takes Ronny out along the way. Im’ tellin ya, these Asian staircases are a struggle. Definitely not meant for regular sized feet. They’re basically a vertical ice skating rink.
Sometimes you just want to go to a coffee shop so you can get out of the heat, drink some real coffee, and read a good book. Instead you find yourself in the strangest mall you’ve ever seen with only two coffee shops in it. One coffee shop has loud construction going on right outside of it and is not air conditioned. The other coffee shop (which is the one we chose to go to) has blaring Asian music playing, yelling children in the lobby, a screeching voice over the loud speaker, construction work going on outside, and about a million flies that won’t stop landing on you. Definitely not what we had in mind, but at this point we’re kinda used to it. This is when the headphones you’ve learned to cary around on a regular basis, and your worship music on your phone come in handy. #worldraceprobs
Sydney: “I don’t care where we go, I just don’t want Asian food for dinner.”
Tommy: “I don’t want Asian food either… I just want fried rice!” Um ok Tommy since when is fried rice NOT Asian food?
You know you’ve been out of civilization for a little too long when you walk into an Apple Store and you see this cool device looking thing on the table. “What is this!!?” Kaitlin exclaims while examining it closely thinking it’s the latest new Apple product… Only to find it’s actually just the stand they use to hold iPads and iPhones up.
I officially love Cambodian children. Especially when you wave to one driving by on a scooter, and he waves back and quickly follows it by blowing you a kiss. Ok sweetest child ever!!
Most epic Tuk Tuk rider ever. We’re on our way home from a lovely dinner at Mike’s Burgers. The ground is covered in rain puddles, it smells of fresh thunderstorm mixed with pollution, and the traffic is so heavy everyone’s at a standstill. There are scooters driving the wrong way on the road, semis are honking, cars are jammed in the middle of an intersection, and thousands of scooters and bikes are crammed in every inch of the road, and our Tuk Tuk tries to make it up this slippery hill. The tires are skidding, our driver is attempting to gracefully push it up with his foot, but still no progress. We’re stuck in the center of this busy intersection with an angry semi coming straight for us who is not happy that we’re blocking him off. So naturally, Jake is asked to get out of the Tuk Tuk and push it up with pure chaos going on all around us. After a few short minutes the Tuk Tuk takes off and Jake jumps in as he’s driving off with the flow of traffic. Basically, I decided 2 things. 1: I’m not a city girl. 2: I’m not leaving the hostel again or I’m gonna die.
Sometimes the World Race gives you the opportunity to meet incredible men who have an even more incredible story. Like Mike, the owner of Mike’s Burgers (CNN’s travel list), who grew up in Cambodia and experienced things I couldn’t even imagine. After surviving the mass genocide in the 70’s, he moved to America, learned how to cook, and developed a heart for entrepreneurship. Hearing the call on his life to go back to Cambodia after 30 years, he started his own restaurant in Phnom Penh, and continues to bless people in this nation on a daily basis.
Jake is carrying on in some small talk with our hosts sister in the living room when she suddenly throws a big question like “How do you know God?” at him. A little surprised by the question, he proceeds in telling the story of how he met God. After about 5 minutes she awkwardly says “You must have misunderstood me. I said how do you know Garth?” Well, it’s a good thing he went with the shorter version of the story. Gotta love those awkward missionary moments.
When you’re sitting in the room after a long day of ministry and Sydney pulls out her two PB&J sandwiches she had made for the day. She quickly realizes both have mold growing in different places on them. Well that doesn’t stop them… Kaitlin and Sydney begin discussing which parts of the mold they could just eat and which parts of the bread they need to pull off and throw away. This goes into the list of… “Conversations you’d never have in the states.”
When your morning Insanity workout gathers quite the audience complete with 2 little girls, a little boy, 4 goats, and a few chickens. I mean, I guess watching us foolishly workout in front of a computer screen is entertaining haha.
Sometimes team time turns into team lice checks. That’s what happens when you realize all the children jumping on you and snuggling up to your head are carrying thousands of lice. I wouldn’t stop loving on them anyway, but hey… That’s the price ya gotta pay. #wortheveryminute
Those nights when your host takes you out for a special dinner. You’re not sure what to expect, but you’re ready to embrace culture. As you sit down, you notice burners sitting at each table, (Melting Pot style) and then all the sudden they just start bringing plate after plate of all sorts of different veggies and meats (including squid). Well, our table was rather uneventful (except for the time when Tommy and Brad tried to eat the chunk of fat that wasn’t actually supposed to be eaten, and Brad about tipped the burner into his lap), but… Kaitlin, Ronny, Jake, and Sydney’s table was eventful to say the least. They had grease catching on fire, huge flames singeing eyebrows, and meat and veggies getting burnt. I kept hearing screams from their end of the table, and I’m pretty sure the boss put a waitress on duty to specifically monitor their table to ensure they didn’t burn down the restaurant. I’m just glad they all lived to tell about it. I thought we’d have a few casualties for sure.
Hammock city under our host’s relatives house in the bush of Cambodia? Yes pleaseeee. Gotta love the hammock pillow talk with your teammates.
Sometimes on the World Race you find yourself spending a week living in the bush of Cambodia. Well that’s not gonna deter you from your morning Insanity workouts so you find yourself a flat(ish) spot in the middle of the neighboring field, lay out your tarp to protect your hands from the debris covered ground, and set up your computer on the tarp. With cows grazing, water buffalo wandering, chickens clucking, dogs barking, roosters crowing, and Nissa watching you, Brad and I successfully completed 4 days of Insanity workouts in, quite literally, the middle of nowhere.
Sometimes for breakfast your hosts family surprises you with a hearty American breakfast of French toast, and then for lunch they make you French fries. They have done everything they can to make us feel right at home and it’s the sweetest, most thoughtful thing ever.
For dinner you’re just quietly eating your meal when one of the elderly ladies at the house comes up behind you and watches you eat. When she realizes you have no noodles on your plate and you’re not doing it the “Cambodian way” she proceeds to take your chopsticks out of your hand and fill your plate with a generous amount of noodles, top it off with a large spoonful of sauce, and finally douse it in hot sauce. Haha I just sat there and looked at her, and then of course I ate… Even though I was absolutely positively stuffed.
Drop the Mic always finds ourselves in Von Trapp family singer kind of scenarios. Like the night of the Khmer New Year when we had the opportunity to stand on stage in a Buddhist temple, during one of the largest Buddhist celebrations of the year, in front of a village that has never seen white people before and sing “How He Loves Us” and proclaimed Jesus’ name. Ok, that was cool, and I’ll basically remember that for the rest of my life.
I love the moments when you find a spider the size of your hand chillin on the bathroom wall along with 4 scorpions. Your host decides to come over and kill them. He succeeds in killing the scorpions, but he misses the spider completely… As a result it jumps off the wall and runs at me. You can best believe I screamed loud enough for the entire Province to hear.
It’s pretty sad when it takes you 30 seconds to figure out if the car you’re looking at is driving on the American side or if it’s backwards. You mean I don’t even remember what side of the car is the drivers side anymore?
Sometimes you get the privilege of going to the beach with your host. When you get there, you quickly realize you’re one of the only white people on the entire beach. You notice every Cambodian is either swimming with all of their clothes on or if they aren’t swimming they’re standing on the beach covering every part of their skin so they don’t get any sun. And then there’s us in our tankinis/shorts and laying out on the beach soakin up the sun. Besides the endless stairs and awkward photos, we felt also very scandalous. Never thought I’d feel scandalous while wearing a tankini and shorts. Can’t imagine what they’d think if we were actually wearing bikinis.
Spontaneous worship sessions late at night with your host, his mother, his wife’s entire family, and your team. Those are the kinds of nights on the race I’ll remember forever.
Sometimes you’re just taking a leisurely walk to see a pretty view of some mountains and rice fields when along the way you see the neighbors slicing the throat of their dog. Not sure what they killed him for, but I sure hope he doesn’t end up on our dinner table in the next couple days.
Some days on the race you find yourself living in the bush proclaiming Jesus’ name in their Buddhist temple and making friends with the monks, and other days on the race you find yourself swimming in the Olympic pool, diving off the Olympic high-dives and platforms, and then eating dinner at Mike’s Burgers with Bree’s team so they can meet Mike himself and get free t-shirts. The adventures are endless.
When you’re sitting at the Blue Pumpkin restaurant and every 5 minutes either your or Kaitlin clears her throat, sniffles, blows her nose, coughs, or any other sign of major illness. By the end of lunch we had literally every eye on us passively telling us to either stay at a really really far distance or leave so we didn’t contaminate the entire restaurant. Sorry not sorry!!
For team time one night we decided to have dinner at the Pizza Company. I mean nothing weird about that… Except the table next to us intently starred at us for literally the entire dinner. They were either shocked at our impressive ability to each order AND eat our own pizza or they were fascinated that we were white. Whatever the reason, I felt very uncomfortable.
Walking back to your house isn’t usually scary but one night it was nearing the end of a torrential downpour and the roads were all the sudden rivers. As we get to the tracks, we find that everything has turned into thick deep mud, and there’s nearly no one out to greet us like usual. As we’re maneuvering around and through the mud, Sydney suddenly hears footsteps behind us that are definitely getting closer. She hesitantly flashes her light behind us to see a tall, slender man dressed in dark clothes with a hood on and his hands placed behind his back. Tommy and I both quickly look back, and the man begins acting strange and asking us questions. We’re trying to keep a distance because we can’t see his hands. That’s when Sydney slips on the muddy bank and scrapes up her knee on rocks and who knows what else. The man awkwardly disappears into the dark. Relieved, we continue walking the rest of the way back to the house slipping on the mud and rocks until we get there. I’ve never been so relieved to safely arrive at the house that night, and I’m not sure what that man wanted, but I have a strong feeling that if Sydney hadn’t heard that man’s footsteps, that night would’ve ended very very differently.
So I was asleep before Kaitlin and Sydney got home one night. When they walked into the room apparently there was a lizard sitting right above my head on my pillow in his ready-to-pounce stance. So Kaitlin naturally tries to swipe him off my pillow, but he continued to borrow himself into my pants and shirt that are sitting next to my pillow. When Sydney comes in, they both begin to search for the little fella only to scare him farther into our mattress and eventually under the mattress completely. Meanwhile, I’m still sleeping on half of the mattress while apparently they are lifting the other side up until finally Kaitlin pounces on him and takes him outside.
When you’re eating dinner at Mike’s with your new friend Samaya from the guesthouse and suddenly this man and several secret agent men surrounding him walk into the restaurant. I mean curiosity gets the best of ya so obviously we ask who it is. Come to find out, it’s the Kings brother and his grandkids, and he tells us to send the picture we took with him to Bill and Hillary Clinton because they’re his BFF’s. Talk about a typical World Race encounter— spontaneous and random.
Tuk Tuk rides in Cambodia aren’t complete until…
A. Your tire pops because your entire team of 7 is crammed into it,
B. You coast down hills because the motor bike is turned off as a result of the engine overheating while riding up the hill,
C. You stop on the side of the road while your driver takes a potty break on the wall next to you,
D. You cut of 11 lanes of traffic to turn around and go the wrong way on the road,
E. Or countless other unexplainable turn of events because driving in Asia is terrifying!!
Spontaneously breaking out into song is something that happens pretty often for DTM. I think my ultimate favorite is after church when we broke into a 3 part harmony of ‘This Little Light of Mine’. Besides all the fascinated stares from the church congregation, Rathina asked us if we were a band. Yes, in fact we are are… We like to call ourselves Raw Broccoli and our hit single is ‘Veggin Out’. We’re also sometimes known as Hillsong- World Race. #celebs #worldtour