Logisitics

Group travel generally requires a high level of organization, coordination and planning.  Group travel in Cambodia throws these basic tenets out the window, subsituting them with patience, luck and connections.

Passports, plane tickets, vaccinations, visas are the key ingredients to international travel and without these four checked off, the trip is going nowhere fast.  Puchasing plane tickets was the top concern for the trip to South Africa since airfare was rapidly rising as the official countdown to the World Cup had begun in December. 

Step number one, translate all team members' names from Khmer (Cambodian script) into Latin letters.  The Khmer alphabet has 33 letters and names don't easily translate into just one spelling.  Each time a name is translated, it typically has a different spelling and this isn't unusual in Cambodia.  To illustrate this point, one of the Cambodian Spirit of Soccer coaches has his name spelled differently on his passport, driver's license, facebook and email.  After stressing repeatedly that the spelling must be uniform and going back and forth on what the final spelling would be, each team member had their name translated into their "official" name for all future documents in English.  This is the name that each team member will identify with for the rest of their lives and it is a big responsibility to determine what that name will be.

Step number two, find cheap and relatively direct plane tickets for 12 people from Phnom Penh to Johannesburg during the last two weeks of the World Cup, the world's largest sporting event.  After exhausting routing options and airline choices with the local travel agent, with prices rising by the day, the most practical option was to buy directly from the airline in hopes of securing a group discount.  The group discount did not pan out after many emails, phone calls and pleas with the airline, all very difficult with the language barrier and lack of concrete contact information.  As we say in Cambodia, two steps forward and one and a half steps back (at least).

After finally booking the tickets, the question of payment was broached.  In Cambodia, almost all transactions take place in cash and if a credit card is used, a hefty percentage fee is tacked onto the price.  Option one - go to the bank and draw out thousands of dollars in cash, which is never an easy undertaking.  Option two - pay with a credit card and deal with ensuing headaches to make the transaction happen.  We chose option two as the airline waived the credit card fee and it is safer to have American Express on our side in case something happens with the trip.  After numerous international phone calls to American Express to get the transaction approved, at least five trips to the airline office and several phone calls to the airline's bank, we were able to buy the plane tickets.  All told, the ordeal took over 30 hours.

Cambodian bureaucracy is difficult to navigate, especially for foreigners.  Securing passports is a difficult task at best and monumental at worst.  Luckily, Spirit of Soccer works closely with the Cambodian Football Federation (FFC) and the FFC was able to help with the passport process.  After completing dossiers on each team member, something akin to what was compiled by the CIA on Jason Bourne, with letters from the parents (many who do not read or write), letters from the regional Ministry of Education offices okaying the trip, letters from each local commune council and letters from the Football for Hope organizing committee, the passport process had begun. 

All in all, the process was running smoothly until a last minute request required all parents and team members to travel to Phnom Penh for a visit to the Passport Office.  Phnom Penh is over four hours away from the provinicial capital, Battambang, where the team meets every other weekend.  The team members live one to three hours away from Battambang, many coming from villages on dirt roads with no running water or electricity.  Assembling the bewildered parents in Battambang to travel to Phnom Penh, where most of the parents had never been, happened quickly and efficiently.  With the parents traveling by tourist bus and the team traveling by Spirit of Soccer vehicles, the group of 26 pulled into Phnom Penh late Sunday afternoon and was already on its way back to Battambang at 2:00 Monday afternoon with photos taken, documents signed and fees paid. Passports were issued within the week!  A night's stay in the Capital in a hotel with air conditioning was a once in a lifetime experience for many of the parents.

The team now has plane tickets and passports for South Africa.  Watch out Festival for Hope 2010, the Cambodian delegation is on its way!