Hello friends, it has certainly been a lonnnng time since I last blogged. In the time past I have been in Malaysia and Cambodia! In the past 3 days of writing this (November 5th), I have traveled by ferry, bus, motorcycle, tuk-tuk, and plane.
The main reason why I haven’t blogged or even reached out to my prayer team (sorry to all) is that my ministry was super secretive and I was in a closed nation that monitors the internet.
This is one blog in a series about Malaysia. I am currently writing this while sitting in my bed here in Siem Reip – 15 minutes away from Angkor Wat – Cambodia, with a fan pointed at me.
Last month was incredible. We started the month off by being stranded at the Thailand-Malaysia border. We had to get off of our bus, that we already paid for, to get an exit visa to leave because we overstayed our stay by one day. The office was closing in the next hour that we arrived so we allowed the teams on our squad that had farther to travel to go through before us. My team as well as a couple others remained at the Thai border and stayed at a hotel. Oh yeah, I also pulled a muscle in my back from the constant loading/unloading of bags… I really hate my backpack.
I slept on the floor in our room with Carm and Beka – our new team member! because I was too lazy to pull out my sleeping pad and then pack it up at 5 in the morning when we were going to trek back to the office at the border. The floor was not the worst sleep I have had on the race, surprisingly.
We wake up early and walk to the border with all our stuff again and get everything squared away. We buy tickets for a bus with the other teams and wait for an hour or so. Jason, Carm and I bought delicious fried chicken from a street vendor (btw, mom and dad, food is the thing I spend most of my personal money on because our team budget is usually something ridiculous like $1 a meal).
Our bus arrives and it is super comfy, basically full of Racers. I had a seat to myself at the very back. The ride was not bad at all – nothing compared to Nepal or India *convulses at the though of Indiat*.
I watched some episodes of Adventure Time and almost all of iRobot after I was bored of reading and tired of sleeping.
The movie was about to end when I notice everyone pulling the curtains back and pointing outside. We finally made it to Kuala Lumpur, or ‘KL’ as everyone in Malaysia calls it. The architecture is amazing. We glimpsed the Petronas Towers in the distance but also were amazed by dozens of other unique skyscrapers. I was pumped to see the awesome city and I know Carm was geeking out as well. We city folk have been dealing with rolling pastures and stinky cow smells for enough of the race by now.
We get to the bus station and say goodbyes to the other teams, our contact booked us a couple nights at a hostel. Our job was to find the hostel. The world race is like a Mission Impossible movie in that all you get is a phone number and instructions from that person on the other end of the call; your job is to complete the task in the most efficient way possible without any collateral damage.
We got grossly overcharged for 2 taxis and get to PODs: The Backpackers Heaven. The best place we have stayed at by far on the race, and I am including the mansion that Jason and I stayed at in Hyderabad.
Hostels are cool in general because of all the different cultures under one roof. Jason and I had our own beds on the 4th floor and the girls were on a floor below. There was cool art work all around, the showers were wonderful and the floor in the showers were black pebbles that massaged your feet when you stepped on em, we had western toilets secluded in their own rooms, real air conditioners (not a lie that equates a/c with a FAN!!), your own pillow, blankey, bed, bread for toast with jam and pb in the morning, hot water for coffee or tea, super fast internets for uploading pics, huge windows to see the buildings around us at night, locked doors and lockers to protect yourself from crazies and hide your things, and cool foreigners to talk with. PODs was super fetch. Don’t judge, for some reason I have quoted Mean Girls consistently for the past month – at least 8 times a week – without watching said movie.
I really loved it there. As you should probably be able to tell. Oh and someone working there sported a Liverpool FC jersey and supports the Reds, we were friends.
That was all in 2 days.
