So it’s called “hitch-hiking”, not “thumb-picking” like I thought. I knew that in some countries, you can use your thumb to stop a car and get a lift, but I never thought that I could do it in Asia until I came to Chiang Mai last last Sunday.

I was there for a youth media camp which is cloistered in the middle of nowhere, about 40 minutes from downtown Chiang Mai. We were all arranged to stay in a very nice resort, with nice people.

Everything was perfect except the fact that it’s a RESORT! We all felt like we were in a 5-star prison.

There were 3 of us: Phuong (whom we jokingly call Phiona) – a cute Hanoian girl (all girls from Hanoi are cute); and Nickey – a cheerful half American half Burmese. We were standing in front of the resort.

Phiona: “I want to go downtown.”

Chip: “Agree.”

Nickey: “How? It’s very far.”

Chip: “Agree.”

Phiona: “There is no bus, no tuk-tuk, not even taxi here.”

Chip: “Agree.”

Nickey: “Let’s go back to the resort.”

Chip: “Agree.”

Then we all went back to the resort, had dinner and went to bed. Ladies and gentlemen, you just wasted 5 minutes on a non-sense story.

lol of course we didn’t do that, and I didn’t say any “Agree” word. Here is what really happened.

We were standing in front the resort. A pick-up truck passed by. We raised our thumb and to our surprise, the car stopped. We tried to tell the driver that we wanted to go downtown but he couldn’t speak English. After few failed attempts with both body language and map, we decided to just jump on the truck.

Every now and then, we had discussion like: “Where are they taking us to?”, “How are we going to go back?”; but generally, we were overwhelmed. The view was stunning. We shouted and waved at every car passing by. Some shouted back, some just stared at us as if they had never seen aliens before.

The truck stopped at a petrol station and the car driver exchanged us for 3 liters of petrol. But the lady at the station thought that we were not worth that much. She came closer and checked upon us. She asked us where we wanted to go, in English. It turned out that the driver took us here to facilitate communication. The driver was going to another direction, so lady instructed us to get down at the intersection, then take the yellow bus downtown.

Here we are, at the intersection with the truck driver and his wife. [Chip is not short, Phuong is just too tall T_T]

The intersection turned out to be a diverse pottery market, so we decided to check it out before heading downtown.

Thailand – the land of smile

I wonder if he got wifi there.

Nickey found his long lost twins.

After that, we tried to hitch-hike several times in vain, then we saw the yellow bus – “songtheo” in Thai. They have different colors to go to different areas.

It cost B10 ($0.3) each to downtown. We were immediately tempted by a wide range of street food near Chiang Mai Gate. Oii food!

Phuong tried out the salted & sour papaya salad. I already had it at Katay’s home in Laos during Lao New Year.

After fulfilling our stomach, we walked around downtown Chiang Mai. This part of Chiang Mai I didn’t go to when I was there about 6 months ago.

Please do ignore the dump on the bottom left.

Love the pun

Didn’t want to miss the introduction dinner nor get lost in the dark, we left the city at around 6.30pm. We took the yellow bus to the intersection area – this time it cost B15 each, then hitch-hiked again back to the resort. Hitch-hiking this time was much easier as almost all the cars stopped right when we hailed them. However, not all the trucks passed by our resort, we had to catch, jump and stop 3 times in total. Feeling happy and relaxed, we sang all the way home. There I discovered that Phuong had an amazing voice. She’s actually a professional singer.

It cost us only B25, less than $1, each to go downtown and come back. Isn’t it amazing?

Some take-away notes:

1. Pick-up trucks are very popular in Chiang Mai. May – a Thai friend I met at the camp – told me that it’s because pick-up trucks are very convenient. People can use it to pick up people and transfer goods at the same time.

2. Thai people are friendly and very helpful.

3. Hitch-hiking in rural area is much easier than in town.

4. Thai food is amazing.

Tags: Chiang Mai, Hitch-hiking, Pick-up trucks, Thailand, Travel and Write