Good morning everyone!! Today is travel day!! One of the best days to be on the logistics team!! We had spent the last night at our AIM Base in Cambodia, with our whole squad. It was all 48 of us sleeping in a 4 bedroom home with no air conditioning and the temperatures above 100°. We had my 8 team members sleeping in a room together. There were four of us sleeping on a full sized mattress, and then there were bunk beds with 2 of us on each mattress. We’re so lucky that we’re all best friends!! When we woke up at 3am, we were able to get all of our packs ready to go and finish last minute cleaning of the base. At 4am, we loaded all of our packs on to the bus, which held 42 of us, and the remaining 6 went in a minivan. Then we drove 3 ½ hours to the Poi Pet border of Thailand. On the drive from Siem Reap to the border, we passed through Sisophoan, which is where we had been working at a school and building a community for the past 6 weeks. My team had grown incredibly close with our hosts and it was so hard to say goodbye so we devised a plan. When we got close to Sisophoan, we texted our host family to meet us at the 7/11 near their church, where we would always go for ice cream runs together. We then asked our bus driver for a bathroom break, and directed them to pull over at the 7/11. Our host family and many of the church members were all waiting there, wanting to wish us one last goodbye. Our host mom, who cooked all of our meals, made us all a breakfast for us to take with us and eat on the road. The family again told us how we are a part of their family and they want to look after their daughters, and which lead to all of us crying once again, not wanting to leave. After spending as much time as we could with the family, eventually we had to get back on the bus. We had about an hour left until we reached the border so my team all shared our breakfast our host mom had made us. We had fun reminiscing about all of the moments we had with our family.
We finally reached the Poi Pet border and began to unload the bus. We have to carry all of our belongings with us across the border which includes our big pack (40-50lbs) on our backs and then our daypack (15lbs) on our front. To leave Cambodia, there was an office that was reasonably fast to get through. However you have to show your passport and receive a stamp that you are leaving within your visa window. One of the girls on the squad then realized that she did not have her passport with her. She and the squad leaders had to stay behind while I took the rest of the squad through the office. We then walked about 100m to the Thailand entrance. This entrance had a line that took us 4 hours to get through, carrying both packs the whole time. Halfway through the line, I received a call from one of our squad leaders that the missing passport had been found, but it was back in Siem Reap. This left me to decide whether the squad would catch our bus and continue on our 16 hour drive to Chiang Mai, or if we wait the 3 ½ hours for the passport to be driven up to the border, and then an additional 4 hours for them to enter Thailand. Of course no one is left behind so I was able to call our bus drivers and explain the situation, and ask them to wait with us. Then once it was our turn in line, we got up to the officers station and we were able to get our passport stamped. This finally allowed us to officially enter Thailand! We then walked a mile from the office to where our next bus was picking us up. I will say this was the worst mile I have ever walked. We got our next bus loaded, which was super cool because it was a double decker and had some time to kill while the squad leaders met up with us. Near the bus, there was a KFC, an Amazon cafe, and a 7/11. We all were hanging around these three stores for the next 7 hours. Finally, at 7pm we were able to get everyone on board the bus and drive to Chiang Mai. Originally we were supposed to get to Chiang Mai at 10pm so we had booked a hostel for us to spend the night at, however due to our delays, we arrived at our hostel at 4am. This gave us 3 hours of sleep before we got up at 7am the next morning to all drive to our various ministry locations in the city.
My team, along with 2 other girls teams went to the Bella Goose coffee shop, that has a hostel on the top of its building. Bella Goose was founded to provide jobs and incomes to surivors who are freed from the sex trafficking industry. This coffee shop was planted by a couple that met on the World Race back in 2014! They have several safe house locations, including the hostel on top of the coffee shop that is used to house women when World Race teams are not staying there. I then got set up in my room that I shared with 11 other girls, running on 3 hours of sleep, when one of my friends suggested we go to see the elephants at the Elefin Cafe! We took a Roedang (similar to a tuk tuk but a truck) up into the mountains, driving about an hour to get into the cafe. Upon arrival we see elephants roaming freely everywhere and we get the opportunity to actually pet them and hang out for a couple of hours! Such a fun end to a crazy travel day but couldn’t be happier at how everything turned out !
December 1- December 2, 2023
