In honor of E Squad’s first travel day, which consisted of four flights and multiple countries, here is a throwback blog to last year (that I never finished) when we went from Honduras to Thailand. I hope you enjoy all the craziness that took place over those four days.
We traveled for 4 days – through 4 countries, 4 planes, 2 buses, 70+ hrs, and 5 time zones.
It has been a rare experience; I’m not sure if I even comprehend what all happened. Our travels started in Valle de Angeles at our hotel, Villa del Valles. We woke up before 6am to take showers (HOT showers, a rare treat on the Race) and get ready for the day. Bags were packed by 7:30 and we were on the road by 8. Our first mode of transportation was the most common seen in Central America for large groups, a school bus that in America would seat around 45 people. That means we had to cram 50+ backpacks, 50+ daypacks, and 50+ people into what already smaller than what we needed WITHOUT luggage, but don’t worry we have gotten good at this. Our one hour ride down to the airport went by just fine and we arrived with enough time to spend our remaining Lempiras on some coffee and Little Caesars pizza, mmm.
We were headed back to America and people were excited to have their feet on home soil again, but our first flight and customs in Miami were between us and “home”. After three hours on the plane and making it through customs we are greeted with free WiFi, fast food, and English, which all seemed very foreign to me. A few brief hours in Miami and we are on our way to Hollywood, LAX.
We landed in L.A. at 11pm and are told to be back at the airport by 9 am to check-in with Air China. This is where the real adventure begins. We had just slept four hours on the previous flight so Jenn and I decided to pull an all-nighter out on the town; most of our squad mates did the same. We rented a car and started searching for places on our to-do list. First stop, the laundry mat! It was now 1 am and the only thing open around the laundry mat was a tiny bar, so Jenn and I went inside to hang out until our clothes are dry. At 2 am we headed out for our next stop, Walmart! However, there were many diversions in between since it wasn’t until our 3rd Walmart that we found an open one. In between, God blessed us with Krispy Kreme donuts and Jack in the Box tacos! Finally at Walmart at 3 am, we spent the next 2 hours restocking supplies and buying breakfast/brunch/midnight snacks – I’m not sure what meal we are on any more. We made our last stop the post office (after bouncing around between McDonalds and Starbucks to steal WiFi) to mail home souvenirs and things we no longer needed. By 9 am we were back at LAX and through security with our whole squad by 10:30. At this point Jenn and I go into business mode. Jenn finishes filing our taxes (extra spending money/funding for our next mission trip) while I start calling our banks to get our accounts turned back on. Apparently, when you are traveling around the world and charges start showing up from America they get suspicious.
We board our flight to Beijing, which will consume the next 12 and ½ hours of our life. This was passed by playing poker, watching The Bourne Legacy, reading, and sleeping. We landed in Beijing to a creepily empty airport where I found a shower and Starbucks before boarding the next flight to Bangkok.
We landed in Bangkok at 11:30pm and after grabbing all of our bags we were whisked off to the parking lot where multiple YWAM trucks were awaiting our arrival. They drove us through the city and to the bus station where we spent the night in a large pile of 50+ people on the floor waiting for the station to open to buy our tickets at 5am. We were able to purchase the tickets but had to be split between 2 buses bound for Chiang Mai. After over 10 hours on the bus, we arrived in Chiang Mai where our squad split up and all went to their respective ministries. My team was picked up, taken out for dinner and finally made it our “home” for the month at 8:30pm Friday night.
From Tuesday morning in Honduras to Friday night in Thailand. That is what travel days on The World Race can look like.
