Day 107! Ever since hearing about people hitchhiking across SE Asia, it’s been high on my bucket list. But since I’ve been motorbiking for most of my trip I haven’t had the chance. But when my friends Dan and Sam told me they were planning on hitchhiking the 9 (almost 10) hour ride from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, I had to jump on the opportunity and say yes! And that leads us to our adventure today! This will be a fun one… sorry mom 😉

My alarm went off at 8am, today’s adventure needed an early start. Dan, Sam, and I had a long day ahead of us.

We finished packing and found a restaurant directly outside of our hostel that had been closed because of Songkran. This restaurant was 10 Baht per dish and 10 Baht for unlimited rice! I wish we could’ve ate here every day!

This was a nice place to eat and fill up because today had no guarantee of another proper meal. After spending just over $1 on a breakfast feast, we were full and ready to take on the day!

Today’s adventure was a bucket list item for sure. I’ve always been interested in hitchhiking and I couldn’t think of a better group to do it with. I was excited and optimistic as we hopped in a grab to position ourselves in a better spot to help our chances of getting a hitch out of the city.

Our grab driver dropped us off outside of at our chosen destination, a 7-eleven and Big C (supermarket) just off of highway 11.

Dan was a pretty experienced hitchhiker and told us that this would be a good spot to get our lucky first ride.

We stocked up on snacks and water, found some cardboard around back, and went to work making signs to hopefully attract the first car to stop for us.

By this time it was 10am and the sun was HOT. So we found some shade just outside of the 7-eleven gas station parking lot and posted up with our signs.

One sign said “BANGKOK/บางกอก” the other said “SOUTH/ใต้”

There were a ton of cars, trucks, and semi trucks flying past us. The breeze of them helped with the hot day and got me thinking that I would LOVE to ride in a semi truck. That would definitely cross off another bucket list item of mine for sure.

By 10:30am our first car pulled over! We were ecstatic that it happened so quickly. An older man got out of his car and asked us where we were going…

turns out he was just going down the road a kilometer to his house. He did offer to take us further down the highway, but we didn’t want to put him out of the way too much so we thanked him and decline his offer.

Turns out, we probably should’ve taken him up on his offer. We decided shortly after to go further down the road to where traffic was coming to a standstill. The slowed traffic might have helped our chances.

But when we got there, we found out why the traffic was slowing. There was a police stop halting traffic and pulling cars off to the side. I had done some research prior to this journey and I couldn’t find anything that said hitchhiking was illegal in Thailand… but having the police around for one didn’t help our case, but two made us feel a little uneasy.

After another 15 minutes of failed attempts at hitching a ride we decided to take the risk and walk past the police stop. We weren’t sure how the police would react to us walking down the side of the road, but luckily there was a sidewalk portion and they were too focused on the cars to be bothered by us.

We then spent the next 40 minutes on the opposite side of the police stop with our thumbs out and waving our signs around. Dan and Sam were on the road that led into the highway and I hopped over to the median to try our luck with the main part of the highway.

I was having a blast being outside in the shade, full of energy, and being goofy on the side of the road. But with every passing car my optimism that we would get out of Chiang Mai was dwindling. We got a lot of thumbs up back to us, smiles, and honks… but still no ride.

I had left my stuff with Dan and Sam and I was getting thirsty. I turned to go to them and get water and reevaluate the situation. When out of nowhere, a pickup truck pulled over next to Dan and Sam!

He asked where we were heading and we told him anywhere south or Bangkok! In his broken English he told us he was headed to, what we thought was, Lampang. This got us super excited because this would’ve taken us around 100 km outside of the city towards Bangkok. So we hopped into the bed of the pickup truck expecting an hour and a half ride.

The total trip is around 700km so this ride would’ve been 1/7th of our trip completed! However… I keep saying would’ve…

As we started driving we quickly realized that the driver didn’t say Lampang, but in fact said Lamphun.

This was about a 45 minute drive, but took us a lot more west than south. Even though we were going off course, we were super excited to have a ride and get out of the city. But we were a bit concerned we might be going too far off course.

It was a pretty hot day to be in the bed of a truck, but the wind blowing on our faces cooled us off. This truck bed was nice and spacious too and had plenty of room for us and our bags.

The driver kept driving and driving further into Lamphun and we questioned whether to ask him to let us out before his destination. But in the end we decided to let the situation just be and see where we end up.

He ended up taking us to a coffee shop and the owner was very excited to see us. So was the shops ginormous cat!

The cafe didn’t have any smoothies, so I decided to have my first Thai tea of the trip. I tend to avoid caffeinated beverages, but I felt compelled to buy something at this shop after being taken here for free.

The drink didn’t do much for my energy since it was already at a high, but it was nice to have a sweet, cold drink. Our driver took us pretty far away from the main road of the town that led to the highway, so after thanking him again, we set out on a nice long walk in the heat.

I also made a new sign while at the cafe saying: TAK/ตาก, this is a city south of where we were and on the way to Bangkok.

We left the cafe 5 minutes before 1pm and at 1:15pm a RodDaeng stopped in front of us and wanted to take us to a bus station. Originally we were just going to keep on walking because taxis always want money. But we decided to see what he had to say.

When the driver finally understood we had no money and we were trying to hitchhike his demeanor changed a bit. But in the end he was willing to take us the few kilometers down the road to the highway. This was a huge relief because we were not looking forward to walking that far in the heat with our heavy backpacks (but we were prepared to).

We were dropped off at a busy corner of the on and off ramps. So we started walking towards an area with a bit more room for cars to pull over if they wanted to give us a ride. Off in the distance we saw a humongous Buddha statue and that’s the direction we started walking.

5 minutes of trying to get a ride, a Thai local and his kids pulled up to us and gave us a pineapple and some ramen. We thanked him profusely and tried to give it back but he wouldn’t take it (eventually we snuck the ramen back into his bike). He then went on to give us plastic beads and stones and then asked us for 100 Baht… it went from being a very nice and kind gesture to being a strange and uncomfortable situation.

We tried giving what he gave us back but he wouldn’t take it… eventually he smiled, thanked us, and drove off. It was a super odd encounter and we’re still puzzled about what happened now.

After this encounter our hitchhiking luck wasn’t working. So we decided to walk to the Buddha, see it up close, and hope our luck would change.

What’s crazy is I literally said, “maybe people will be more inclined to pick us up in front of the Buddha.” And sure enough, 2 minutes later another pickup truck pulled over infront of us and waved us over.

We were so pumped to have another ride that we ran the couple hundred feet to meet the truck!

This truck had a lot less room for us but we cozied in because the driver told us they were heading to Lampang! And this time, we heard them correctly.

We took a quick detour to stop for gas and then set off down the road!

Dan thought this would be an opportune time to brush his teeth. He’s a pretty goofy guy but this took it to the extreme.

Now, what we thought was going to be a 45 minute drive to the city center of Lampang ended up being a 24 minute drive to the outskirts of Lampang. The couple that picked us up had an adorable puppy which I’m assuming is why they were headed to this area.

What’s interesting is that I wasn’t even upset that we didn’t get to where we were planning on being. There’s really no room to be upset while hitchhiking because you’re just blowing with the wind. Also it was just a blast and felt so freeing to even get someone to give us a ride.

We thanked them and hopped out. Fortunately, there was a 7-eleven where they left us so we decided it was toasty time!

But before we got our toasty, some nearby locals ran over and gave us ice cold bottles of water which was super kind of them! I’m always blown away at how friendly and kind the locals are. It’s one of the reasons I love SE Asia so much, community and looking out for each other is such a big part of their culture.

We snacked on our toasties while enjoying the AC of 7-eleven. Then we set back out to try and hitch another ride.

No less then 7 minutes later a semi truck saw our sign and pulled over. We weren’t sure if he pulled over for us, but when we saw his head stick out of the door way and wave us over we ran over to him! I was so pumped because I had been thinking about riding in a semi truck all day and it was finally happening!

The driver told us he was heading to Mae Sot, which is a Thai border town with Myanmar. He told us he could drop us off at Tak which made our freaking day! He was willing to take us on a 3.5 hour long ride… for free!

We were amped! We piled our stuff into the front cab of the semi truck, Sam climbed onto the bench seat and Dan and I took the remaining two seats. It was a bit cramped but we didn’t care, we had AC, a very nice Thai truck driver, and beautiful views to see!

Being in a semi truck was everything I had hoped it would be. We were the big dogs of the road! No more did I have to worry about the semi truck hitting my motorbike… I was the semi truck now!

But in all seriousness, this made our day. The kindness of this man was unmatched. Not only did he give us a ride, but he also gave us snacks and water! We of course shared our snacks with him as well.

While riding, Dan realized that we had traveled in SE Asia by a number of different transportations. Plane, motorbike, bus, boat, and hitchhiking! We’re really making use of all the means necessary.

We passed through Lampang and continued on to Tak. We drove through weigh stations, sailed through police checks, and ended up in Tak around 5:30pm where we had a decision to make.

Keep hitchhiking today to try and get closer to Bangkok… or call it quits and enjoy a night in Tak.

Ultimately, we decided to spend the night in Tak. It had already been a long and successful day, there was no need to rush and push ourselves more (kind of a similar feeling to motorbiking across a country).

We thanked our semi truck driver over and over and over again. This man took us 220 kilometers, which was way more than we could have asked for.

We stood in the parking lot of the gas station, where we were dropped off, and discussed our plan. We found a hotel down the road for relatively cheap. It had an available room with 3 single beds which was perfect!

We set off on a 10 minute walk down the highway to our home for the night.

We checked in and plopped down on our beds. We were all starving but had no desire to go out again. So we ordered food through the Grab app and ended up getting an insanely good meal for super cheap! I paid 66 Baht for a huge portion of curry fried chicken with rice and an egg.

The rest of the night was spent hanging out at the hotel and then calling it a night early. Our plan is to set out even earlier tomorrow and make it all the way to Bangkok… but we’ll see what ends up happening!

Today was an absolutely crazy adventure. It brought me so much joy and fulfillment and every new ride brought an immense sense of happiness and euphoria. Hitchhiking is one of the biggest tests of proving and showcasing the good in society.

As most of you know, I’m a firm believer that 99.9% of people are good. There’s just a lot of factors that hold them back from letting themselves be fully open to the people (strangers) around them… negative media being one of them.

Hitchhiking is inherently “scary” to most of us. Why is that? We have this notion that everyone around us is “out to get us” or “wants to hurt us.” When in fact we all just want to be accepted, helped, and loved. Our parents always preached to us to not get in a strangers car… and in some cases I’d probably agree with them… but not today!

Today proved to me that my faith and optimism in humanity is correct. I’m so grateful to all the strangers that trusted us and let us into their cars. I’m going to remember this day forever and I can’t wait to continue our adventure tomorrow as we continue onto Bangkok!

– Elie