Grace.....

For the past 4 years, I had been attending funeral from time to time….it creeps me but that is life…

2 years ago, one of my radiologist colleague past away due to a malnutrition complicated from a rare tumor surgery. He suffered from malnutrition and later passed away during an admission. A shocking news for all of us.

6 month ago, my classmate’s daughter passed away at the age of 14 due to cancer. 1/2 month ago, one of our church members was killed by her daughter in her sleep. Both the mother and daughter suffered from psychiatric illness…the daughter was arrested and currently under the custody of police.

I had a rough time both at work and my personal life for the past 1 year. At one time, I felt that I was tormented and wished to do something to ease my pain; either but letting other suffered or indulged myself on something which I don’t deserve. Well, I was lucky that I didn’t cross the red line. Grace had happened from time to time and I was reminded by those events. Thanks to the Great One which had mercy on me…

confuse....

It had been six months since I wrote down anything…tons of event had occurred and I was disturbed and not in the mood to write anything ….

From Yun’s choice of college, traffic accident, rabbits fallen ill till job disturbance…anyone of it could lead to an insomniac night…

I am glad most of the events were settled and I could take a temporary rest at the moment, but frankly said, there are still a few events which might get out of control anytime..

the journey to Chandpur

The small bus charted had picked us up at 6am from the airport and we were scheduled to board the 7:30am ship to Chandpur. It was a short trip of 5km but it had taken us 1+ hour to reach the pier. The last 500m was the culprit as the road to the dock was filled with peoples and vehicles. The small bus could hardly moved initially but the bus driver had squeezed our way and we finally reached the dock.

It was a double storeys boat which looked something like the ferry in the Huckleberry Finn. The missioner had bought us 1^st class ticket with cabin. Air-conditioned room with bed was allocated to us. Although I was very tired from the red eye flight, I couldn’t close my eyes as I was so disturbed by what I had seen. It is definitely a developing country; uncountable bricks company along the river back, transportation ship, fisher boat had filled the river. 

The ship's canteen was selling delicious food but I was reluctant to take any as the missioner had kept warning us regarding about dysentery they had been through eating outside food. Some prata was distributed among us and I found that it was nothing difference that what I had in the past.

We arrived at the pier of Chandpur 5 hrs later. A few tuk-tuk were hired and the ride was as dangerous as I could imagined; 2 person stuck at the front seat with the driver with 3 more person at the backseat. Half of my body was hanging outside the tuk-tuk. Luckily the ride was a short one.

The mission house was along the stadium road opposite the railway and river canal. It had a large pond besides it. 1 office at the front a small path along the pond led to a 3 storeys hostel.

A kiwi based foundation ran the facilities which consists a hostel for students from the mountain area. The students was recommended by the local village headman and sent to Chandpur which was 2-3 days travelling from their original village. The boys stay in the hostel and studied at the mission school 1+km away. The mission school is a foreign school which teaching medium is English. It is a private school which is available to those affordable only.

I had stayed in the hostel for the next 4 days...It was an eventful tour and I had learnt a lot. When I left the place, I decided that I would do something to change my situation.

The flight back to K city was smooth; red eye flight and I arrived in Survanabumi Airport early in the morning and made a transit back to K city later.

I acted to change my life after the trip....

Dhaka D1

his was not the 1st visit to Suvarnabhumi airport and I had done some study before my trip. There were 6 lounges for me to choose from. On arrival of the flight, I had gone to the transit counter to confirm that my baggage had been actually transported to the relevant flight as per directed by the ground staff at KHH airport. Well, after the hazardous check-in, I felt uneasy about the trip and double confirming my baggage was just what I need.

It was a long walk to my gate and I had chosen a lounge nearby the gate. The food served was simple Thai style green curry and I had taken a small nap. I was exhausted but yet was still worried about my trip. The next challenge waiting for me was the visa on arrival. It could take up a few hours for the application. As my team mate was Taiwanese the process could be longer as they might need to get a special documentation to verified their ‘unrecognized’ passport; that was what happened in Sri Lanka.

I left the lounge early and did a small tour around the shops. There were many shops in the airport but yet most of them sold similar products. I bought some biscuit for the team and headed toward the gate.

The boarding was smooth and I had met a lady from mainland on the flight. We had a great chat exchanging view about religious and condition in Bangladesh.

On arrival at the Dhaka airport, she had led me to the visa counter and I had gotten my visa in less than 30mins.

Those information I gathered regarding visa on arrival were outdated….In the past the payment should be done after the counter accepted the papers but yet the latest procedure was pay first. I was brought to the counter and paid up the fee. With the receipt, I was redirected to the application counter and got my visa with no hazard.

However my team mates were not that lucky. MAS had arrived slight later than the Thai airway and I saw them getting down the stair entering the hall while I was 2 persons away from my visa.
I directed them to the payment counter but the queue was long then. After I got my visa, I had assisted the rest of the mates filling up their visa application form; the form that they had prefilled was outdated and not usable. When they approached the counter they were however later redirected to another police counter where they were given a verification letter for their passport. The total process had eaten up almost 3 hours for everyone to get their visa on arrival.
I had taken my time changing my USD to TAKA and gotten myself a new sim card as the sim card I pre-purchased prior the journey was non-assessable. Everything was settled after 3.5hrs of struggling in the entry area. I considered it was a smooth process. My team mate apart from the three medical staffs, were all fresh travelers with no experience.
The local missioner was waiting at the arrival hall when we exit the airport.

A small bus was chartered and we headed to the local pier for a boat ride to our destination....

the mission - start 1

The mission would start after 10 days from our Kansai trip. It was a row of shifts after my return and physically I was exhausted. To make the situation worse; I had a very bad attack of asthma due to the dust from the room while we resided in Kyoto. I had been thinking from time to time during that period about quitting the mission. It was a struggle but after praying, I had gotten no sign of telling me to step back.

The final day had come after a long shift. I managed to pack my luggage and brought everything that I could remember to do so. I did not properly listed out what I need and just packed whatever I could think of. Food should not be a problem and there was a hospital nearby where we were staying; I thought I would be good. I was still worried about my condition and did not mention anything to Ving, Xian and Yun.

Most of my team members were residing up north and opted to depart from TPE; I did not joined their lineup and was able to find myself another flight route. They had taken MAS which would be flying TPE-KUL-DAC. My flight was Thai airway which would be flying KHH-BKK-DAC. Both flight was 30min apart arriving in DAC and departing from it on return. It seems perfect for the team.

I arrived on time at the airport and proceeded to the counter hoping that I could do a early check-in and have some snack at the lounge as my late lunch.

When I approached the counter, the ground staff had referred me to the payment counter after telling me that they would need a longer time to process my check-in. I noticed that there were 1 pair of mother-daughter and another senior lady waiting beside the counter. Apparently they were in the same shoe as I did. From time to time, the mother had anxiously approached the payment counter asking for info. The KHH check-in counters for foreign flight companies were mostly outsource to local flight companies (EVA or China airline) and there would be a foreign staff to lead the operation. The payment counters were mostly manned by the staff from the foreign flight company.

The Thai-smile air ground staff who was manning the payment counter had taken our passports (4 of us ) and was busy using her LINE to communicate with her counterpart in Thailand. As I saw the rest of the passengers completing the check-in process, our check-in was still stranded at the counter.

I had asked the local ground staff about the condition and she told me that our booking with the connecting flight operated by Thai airways from BKK were good but the booking from KHH to BBK which was operated by Thaismile was no way to been seen on the computer; thence we were not able to proceed with the check in. Apparently it was a database synchronization problem. Thai airway did not update our booking to the Thaismile database. 2 hrs had passed and the flight was 40min away from departure and the Thaismile ground staff was still struggling with the LINE and the check-in terminal computer. I was hungry and tired as I did not had my lunch. The local airport staff had approached the Thaismile ground staff and telling her that they were going to closing the baggage lane but the ground staff replied firmly that she would ask them to re-open if they dare to do so….

For a moment, I thought the great one had answered my prayer and let me rest for the next 7 days peacefully in my home. It was my fantasy of course and I finally got my boarding pass after 2.5hrs waiting at the counter. I proceeded through the immigration and security check. I had no time to grab any food and headed to the gate.

While waiting for the boarding, I had a strange feeling about this trip…It was a bad start; from the planning phase to the boarding part. However every obstacle were countered and I was about to start the most perilous journey of my life. The only thing that made me felt better was that I had remembered to triple my insurance coverage just in case….

I boarded the plane waiting impatiently for my meal and drunk a few refill of soda before I had fallen asleep. It was an uneasy sleep as I knew the most difficult part of the initial journey was awaiting me when I arrived at DAC.