We have had our fair share of travel days in the past two months but no travel days have been quite like the ones from Thailand to Cambodia. We left Thailand on Tuesday March 3rd at 6pm. The whole squad was riding on one bus to the border of Thailand and Cambodia which was supposed to be about a 13 hour drive. Once we got to the border, we would switch buses and travel to our final destinations in Cambodia, getting there about noon on Wednesday March 4th. Now let me tell you how it actually went down. We left at 6pm from Zion in Thailand, with the whole squad, which means, 54 people on a bus, 54 day packs, and 54 normal packs. It was a tight squeeze for sure.
We drove about 10 hours before our bus decided it would totally shut down on us. N squad sat patiently waiting for 2 hours for a new bus piece to be delivered to us. After getting all that taken care of we drove for about another two hours before the bus broke down again. We continued to wait and just hang out for about an hour before they called a new bus to get us and take us to the border which was still about 2 more hours away. 7am was when we were supposed to be crossing the border….we ended up crossing at 745pm Wednesday. After getting to Cambodia we had to go through security stuff and had to walk down the street to get our passports checked, we were told to keep our bags on our fronts and walk very quickly and watch out for pick pocketers. Then we were separated onto two more buses and drove about 4 more hours to our destinations. Since we were obviously very very late we stayed the night in a hostel in the city and had our contact pick us up in the morning. This is where it gets real exciting. Our team was told to be ready at 730am to be picked up and naturally, it being the world race, that means 1030am. But we were ready at 730! We took tuk tuks to the church. One tuk tuk had all of our big packs and one had me and three other girls in it and then the last tuk tuk had three girls in it. And of course, just like in the Philippines, we got a driver that looked like he was maybe 14. We were riding in the tuk tuk when our driver started to go off the road a little bit and there was a moment of panic. And almost as if it happened in slow-motion our tuk tuk went off the side of the road and down into a ditch and flipped over onto its side. Luckily no one was hurt. I hurt my right arm and have some bruising and soreness and two girls hit there heads and another girl has a bruised arm. It was really scary but we are all okay. They picked the tuk tuk back up and rode it up the hill and then we got back in and continued on our way. After I knew we were all okay I yelled, “Welcome to Cambodia!” We all laughed. We made it safe and sound to the church where we had our first Cambodian meal. This month we will be working and living in our tents in a church, teaching english, and talking to people about the gospel. We have weekends off and some of the other teams are very close by so we will get to see them some as well! The best part about all of this, minus the crash, was it was a lot of fun. It was such a great experience. I am excited for month 3 and all the adventures that it holds. Keep us in your prayers! We will be taking bucket showers, living in tents, and enduring this heat every day for the next month. I am excited to see what God has in store for us and to see how he will stretch and grow us over this month. I have two new mottos that I think are fun and will help keep things fun and interesting.
“Welcome to the world race…”
and
“When in (insert country)…”
Good things to come.
Love you all!
