On our way to Poipet

I'm writing this blog from the Christian Guest House right in the middle of Bangkok, where the team is spending a night after a journey full of adventures. The three members of the Irish team: Gavin Cameron, Jono Pierce and myself, arrived at Belfast City Airport on Tuesday afternoon expecting a flight going out to Heathrow at 5.35pm. Well, to cut a long stoiry short, we left at around 7pm, arrived about 8.10pm, tranferred as speedily as possible to Terminal 3, met the other three members of the team, and got on the plane just in time. Then that plane was held up for two hours, mostly because the 'jetty' (walkway) had got stuck to the aircraft! So we arrived here in Thailand two hours late at around 5.15pm this afternoon (Wednesday). Then poor Jono discovered his hold luggage had not arrived. They have it in London and will send it tomorrow. So searching for a tee shirt in Bangkok for Jono was some fun - not all possible tee shirts would have been suitable!

All in all, my experience of travel is that there can be many things which go wrong, and I have to learn to 'go with the flow' and discover again and again that it is people who are important and not timetables - not an easy lesson for a Myers-Briggs 'J'!.

Now to the team: we have three English people on the team, along with the three Irish. The team leader is Billie Anderson, and she has the great privilege of leading five men, all of whom are happy to be led. Along with her are Michael, a leader of a drama-based fresh expressions of Church near Reading, and Peter Barrett, who is a buisinessman who has just hit 50 and is celebrating his birthday by going to Cambodia with Tearfund. Michael is very involved with the Greenbelt festival, and is a bit of a writer. The team was met at Bangkok Airport by Mao, from the Cambodia Hope Organization, who will be organizing our travel tomorrow morning on the three-and-a-half-hour journey to Poipet - i was wonderful to see a friendly Cambodian face.

We had great fun eating at a street cafe tonight- everything from Green Curry to Snapper, and then going for a half-hour walk in Bangkok - a vast and in many ways very westernized city of 20 million people, with all thse issues of such cities- and more. I took lots of photos, and the question now is whether I'll be able to find a way of sharing them with you. If I can manage blogging and twitter, then the world is my oyster......