Hitchhikers guide to Thailand

The bus

We set off for the bus station by Tuk-tuk, it wasn’t far, but 2km with backpacks and the humidity of Chiang Mai made it a worthwhile £1 spent. On arrival at the bus station, our very nice driver toured around until he found the bus to Tha Ton – the Indian tuk-tuk drivers should take a leaf out of the Thai book of tuk-tuk service. The conductor was there and waiting to take our bags and load them under the bus that was plastered with Chiang Mai to Tha Ton signs,so we thought to ourselves, this is really easy, but wait….
He then directed us to the ticket counter and using my best English I requested two tickets to Tha Ton, the response I got was not eligible, but I could have sworn she said something about Elephants?! A kind lady behind got involved, and translated that what I heard as “Elephants” was in fact “Only Fang”. Still slightly confused I grabbed the Lonely Planet and realised that Fang was in fact a town 30km short of Tha Ton, it all becomes clearer….. The kind lady said that she was also going to Tha Ton and she would help us get the right sawngthaew (a covered pickup truck with two benches in the back) onwards to Tha Ton. All good, I purchased the tickets.

On the bus

The bus ride was pretty standard and we immediately got a sawngthaew on to Tha Ton. We spoke more to “kind lady” and told her our ultimate destination was Mae Salong. She told us that we need to get another sawngthaew from Tha Ton, no problem we thought. When we got off at Tha Ton, we spoke to some sawngthaew drivers who said that we needed to get a sawngthaew to a junction 13km from Mae Salong and then another up the side of the mountain to the village. Ok we thought, maybe we might break the record for the most sawngthaew trips in one day, but at least we would get there.

In the sawngthaew

As usual, I requested a price from the driver and got back a response of 130Baht, or I thought and gave he some bemused abuse that it was too much, only to realise that he actually meant 1 person = 30, oops, he seemed ok – or so we thought – and we got on our way. He stopped at a layby by a junction with a sign to Mae Salong and as driving away smiling said ok, sawngthaew here……

A really cute kid

We again spoke to some drivers and people, none of whom could speak English, but the general laughing and shaking of heads was not a good sign – NO more sawngthaew to Mae Salong – oh bugger. After 10 minutes or so, some crook offered to take us for 400Baht and I politely laughed at him, and decided it was time in our travels to try hitchhiking. We set off up the steepest of hills with our bags and 13 km of mountain ahead of us, showing the internationally recognised (I hoped) sign of a thumb out. Car number one, two laughing people.

Crammed in the back of the pick-up

Finding this very funny!

200m in to our journey, Charly had nearly passed out and requested a stop, it was going to be dark in 6 hours, I wasn’t sure it was a good idea. At that moment a chariot was sent from the skies to rescue us, I say a chariot, more like a mini pickup with about 15 kids in the back. They pulled up and asked us where we were heading, and quickly got all the kids to move up to fit in all our clobber and us. We travelled about 8 km and it started to rain, why wouldn’t it, no problem they pulled over and told us to wait in a shelter while they run the kids back to their home village, promising they would be only 10-15 mins.

Chris drenched from the rain

Waiting for our lift to return

Loads of locals behind us travelling like us

As they said, they came back sans kids, and loaded us up and drove us all the way to Mae Salong, and to the doors of the guesthouse we wanted. I’m pretty sure they weren’t even heading this far, but were extremely kind and generous people, who would not take 1 Baht from me for their trouble. We thanked them profusely and they were on their way. The guesthouse was lovely with the friendliest happiest owners and once again realised that getting away from the tourist hoards is definitely the way to go!

written by  chrischarly on July 18, 2011 from Fang, Thailand
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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