Day 108! Today marks day 2 of hitchhiking from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. The first day was pretty successful, but today blew it out of the water. I don’t want to spoil too much, so we should dive right into it! Let’s begin another day of surviving off the kindness of strangers.

We woke up bright and early at 7am for another day of hitchhiking! We weren’t sure what the day would hold for us, so we thought the earlier start, the better.

Before we set out though, I FaceTimed my Bubbie and Zeidie (my grandparents). It’s always great chatting with them and catching up face to face… or as close as we can get to that right now.

After checking out of our hotel, we had a quick walk to the gas station where we were dropped off yesterday evening. Dan and Sam were on the hunt for coffee, but I on the other hand just needed more water.

There was no convenience store with the gas station, only a coffee shop with expensive water. So I went out to the gas pumps where they had big bottles of warm water. I asked how much two of them would be and they told me to have them for free!

This was a very nice way to start the day and gave me lots of hope that we’d find a ride south quickly.

We stuck out our thumbs just after 8:10am and started our day of hitchhiking. Dan had also forgotten to grab our signs off of the semi truck and we couldn’t find cardboard right away, so thumbs were our only option.

We went for 20 minutes and felt like we needed to potentially change spots. In this time, Sam actually found some cardboard and I walked back over to them to write a sign for Bangkok.

Practically as soon as I sat down to start writing, we looked up to our left and saw a car had appeared out of no where and was backing up to us on the shoulder of the road.

Dan and Sam quickly ran over to see if the driver was in fact there for us… and sure enough, he was!

He said he could take us to Nakhon Sawan, which was incredible! That was a 200 km, 3 hour, drive. Feeling incredibly lucky, especially since we almost moved spots, we piled into the nice air conditioned car of our new friend, Pol.

Pol’s English wasn’t great, but his generosity was unmatched! We talked as much as we could about Thailand and Thai food. We also spoke with him about where we were from and heard a bit about what he used to do for work and his family.

He used to work for Honda and had been flown around the world to learn more about the company. His daughter also spoke great English, so from time to time he’d call her to help translate. But for the most part, we used Google translate.

Pol let us throw on music, so we played classic traveling country and bluegrass tunes. For the first bit of the ride, we sang along, smiled, and laughed.

About an hour and a half into our ride we stopped for gas and the bathroom.

I finally had my first “meal” of the day. Two vegetarian gas station Bao buns. It was nice to finally snack on something, but I was left still craving more food.

But the road called and we set back out for some more driving.

It was at this point that we received another call from Pol’s daughter.

She asked us where we were going today and we told her we were going to try and get to Bangkok. She then informed us that her dad was actually going even further south to Ayutthaya. Apparently, he was willing to drive us all the way there!

We were so grateful and thanked them both over and over again. This was crazy! We were so blown away that this one hitch alone, that practically came out of nowhere, was going to basically take us all the way to Bangkok.

The rest of the ride was very chill. I read my book while Sam and Dan napped. We listened to more music and before we knew it 5 hours had passed by and we were 366 km from Tak… leaving us 80 km from Bangkok!

But before Pol let us part ways, he brought us to a restaurant in Ayutthaya! Apparently Ayutthaya is known for a specific noodle soup called Boat Noodles. Pol wanted to make sure we had it before moving on from town!

Pol’s daughter and friend joined us as well! She was super nice and friendly and was a nice translator to have on both sides of the conversation. She’s been running her bakery in Ayutthaya for the past two years, so if you’re ever there, you should go check it out and say that Elie, Dan, and Sam, the hitchhikers, sent you!

We enjoyed a nice meal together of this local noodle soup. It was already a bit spicy, but I added more chili peppers to my soup which impressed Pol and his daughter! I think my spice tolerance has skyrocketed since coming to SE Asia.

As we finished up our meal, our intentions were to pay for Pol and his daughter. But somehow, even though we had our money ready, we still weren’t quick enough.

We insisted and insisted that he let us pay and they both refused! This whole experience from start till now has just been a testament to the kindness of humanity. And the kindness wasn’t over yet.

We piled back into Pol’s car and he insisted that he would drive us to the bus station. Even though we were planning on hitchhiking the last hour of the journey, he wanted to make sure we had a way to Bangkok (also he didn’t fully understand what we were doing we don’t think).

His daughter joined us to help make sure we were sorted out and even with us thanking them and telling them we’d be okay without a bus, they persisted and got a bus for us to come within the next 10 minutes.

We thanked them over and over again and said our goodbyes! We had a bit of last minute planning to do now… do we take the bus or try to hitchhike the last bit.

It turned out the bus was only going to be 80 Baht each… we weighed the pros and cons of hitchhiking in the heat vs spending 3ish dollars for a bus ticket. Ultimately we decided that our hitchhiking journey had been VERY successful and fulfilling and it was okay to take the bus the last leg.

We were the only tourists on this bus! On top of that, we weren’t exactly sure where this bus was taking us… so it still felt like we were hitchhiking or at least having the local experience.

An hour and a half later of stops and starts we arrived at where the bus driver said it was our stop. We ended up paying 100 Baht each, we’re not sure where the extra 20 Baht per ticket came from but it was still a very cheap bus ride.

The bus dropped us off at the Mochit Bus Station. This was around 8 kilometers away from our hostel or about a 2 hour walk. We decided to call a Grab, but as we were about to, a taxi offered us a ride for less and we hopped in with him.

The ride took around 30 minutes. Our taxi driver’s English was pretty good and him and I chatted for most of the ride! He had been driving this taxi for 23 years, we were in good hands.

He dropped us off right outside of Khaosan Road, the famous backpacker walking street of Bangkok!

We didn’t lollygag on our walk to the hostel. We were ready to have a room and set our stuff down. But I was excited to be back in Bangkok and specially this area that was so instrumental to how amazing my last trip was!

We found a hostel that had a 4 person room for 200 Baht a night and dropped our stuff off in our room.

We immediately set back out to the streets to a nearby smoothie stand for a cheap, refreshing, delicious drink.

We walked and drank our smoothies as we looked for a cheap place to eat. We toured around Khaosan road and started looping back towards our hostel when a hole in the wall restaurant caught our eye.

This restaurant was truly in an alleyway between the two buildings next to it. But it had amazing cheap food!

I got a stir fried chicken with chili sauce that was quite tasty!

After eating, we wandered around the clothing stands for Dan because he needed a new shirt and shorts. But once he was finished shopping, it was time for a nap in the AC of our hostel!

After a nice nap and hang out at the hostel, it was time for more food! Not eating much all day definitely messed up my eating schedule.

We got another smoothie along with our new friend, Jin from South Korea! I also got a cheap doner kebab while we walked around.

We walked around for a bit before settling down at a cheap roadside bar. We shared some beers and chatted the night away. Until a man with an interesting food cart caught my eye.

He was carrying bugs, scorpions, and tarantulas on his cart and I had said to Dan and Sam recently that it was a goal of mine to eat one this time around.

So for 100 Baht I got 2 small scorpions, I ate one myself, and shared the second one with the others. I’m not going to lie, I kind of enjoyed it! It wasn’t as gross as I thought it would be and the seasoning on it was very good.

After enjoying ourselves at this bar for a bit we got up and walked to Khaosan Road to see it in all its glory!

Being on this street was bringing back a lot of great memories. But it was even more fun this time around because I knew the area!

The buzz, craziness, and being surrounded by so many foreigners is electric. The music blasting on both sides of the road plus all of the food stands are overstimulating, but it’s a must see while in Bangkok.

We found a live music bar and enjoyed a few more beers listening to covers of american classic rock.

I also ended up getting “harassed” by this little girl for about 10 minutes as she tried to get me to buy flowers from her. We then proceeded to make faces, throw condensation, and poke at each other. Eventually she went away!

We found one last live music spot for the night and we split another beer. I found a pad Thai food cart nearby and paid 50 Baht for an egg pad Thai. This isn’t the cheapest I could get this for… but for the time and craving, it was well worth the extra 10 Baht.

We then went back to the hostel to enjoy the rest of the night relaxing…

But before that, it was time for one last smoothie!

WE MADE IT TO BANGKOK! It was a super long day, but another very rewarding one. I still can’t get over how generous Pol was. On top of that, I can’t believe how easy this journey was. The kindness in this country and region are just top notch. Everyone is looking out for each other and community is the root of it!

I’ll be in Bangkok for the next week waiting for my cousins to arrive… I currently have no plans! So we’ll see what these next few days hold.