18th October, 2023.
Walking to the main road, I pass by a star fruit tree. What? For some silly reason, I don’t stop and grab one.
At the main road, in a few minutes, a couple in a pick-up stop and offer to drive me to Sukhothai new town. I know that this is the best way to start moving, so I get in. The wife, Tuk-Tuk, is driving and she is lovely. I see a lot of me on her. Apart of being a wife, of course. I believe she is my Thai version. Even though she cannot speak much English, we manage to have a conversation. They drop me off in a very busy and 4 lanes highway. But it is the beginning of it, so the cars are still slow.
I get a piece of cardboard at a garage, and ask the lady owner to write “Chon Buri” in Thai. I think it will be way more productive.
In a little while, a car with a man going to Pthitsanulok stops. It is the next bigger town. Due to the not so good spot I am at it, I decide to take it.
He has a fancy car and himself is like a fancy senior man. He also can’t speak much English, but I manage to explain to him that I am going to Chonburi. Even so, he manages to drop me off in the opposite side of Pthisanulok, and not where I need to be to go to Chonburi.
To make matters worse, when I ask to a young lady from a shop to check Google Maps in her phone, she has huge issues with it, not knowing at all how to use it and sending me in the wrong direction. Seriously, this new generation only knows how to access social media, and are useless to real important things. What a shame!
After so much wrongness, I finally get to a point where I can start hitchhiking. But not before being picked up by a lovely young woman, and drives me to a great intersection.
While I am still walking, trying to reach a bit more out of town, a car stops. A lovely family, with a lovely young woman driving (and eating some noodles), asks me if I want to join them until after Bangkok. What? Are you for real? Unbelievable! It is all I was asking for: to get someone going after Bangkok, so I would avoid all the main highways. Could it be that if I had wished for a lift all the way to Phanat Nikhom, I would have got it?
Aor, the driver, is 42 years old but she looks just like me. Her mother, sitting in the middle seats with me, is 72 but doesn’t look over 60 at all. Her father is sitting in the passenger seat; and her younger brother is sleeping on the back seats. They are going to visit Aor’s older brother, to spend the weekend.
Aor’s mother is such a sweet heart! She keeps giving me food, to which I cannot say no. Fruits, snacks, biscuits, drinks, sweets and everything! And I keep eating it! Aor tells me that she always does that to every one of them, but they never eat, so I was probably making her very happy for accepting and eating it all. She even gives me some things to bring it home, like sweet crisps in the shape of flowers; sunflower seeds (really big ones); green tea with lemon; many candies; and homemade pumpkin muffins, made by Aor. I am so overwhelmed!
Aor and I chat almost all the way. Again, I have so much in common with her. She plays Bee Gees at certain point, and then The Beatles after. She only recently learnt how to drive, just so she can go and visit her niece, the daughter of her elder brother. She is unmarried and without plans for it. The same for having her own children: no plans. Aor also tells me that, only two years ago, she moved from Bangkok back to her parents’ home, so she can look after them. For that, she had to quit her job and she is leaving out of her savings. But the plan is to open a food stall soon.
We stop to have lunch at a local restaurant. I have noodles soup and everybody else has something with meat. Laugh. But I am actually so full from the snacks that I can barely finish the Thai dessert I am offered, a type of Sagu (sago), just as we have in Brazil. It is the same principle of a Rice Pudim, but instead of rice, you have tiny balls which are made out of the starch of different palm stems.
This wonderful family drops me off somewhere in Samut Prakan, where our journey together comes to an end. I felt so happy to have met them and being able to spend some time together with such wonderful people. They all seem sad to see me leaving, and keep saying goodbye for a very long time. I give goodbye hugs in Aor and her sweet mother too.
Meeting people like Aor’s family is one of the reasons why I cannot stop travelling by hitchhiking. Even though it might be possible to meet nice people in buses, trains and airplanes, nothing replaces the feeling, the extreme lovely behaviour of someone who decide to stop their car, and take inside a complete stranger from the road, and help this person, sometimes driving together for hours. It is an act of pure generosity, goodness and love.
The same happens with the next couple who picks me up. Toiy and her boyfriend, are going to Pattaya. I accept the lift telling them that I can get out at the intersection to Phanat Nikhom. But it seems impossible to convince the boyfriend to drop me off in the road just like that. He is a taxi driver, so he manages to find a passenger in Phanat Nikhom, just so he can drive me all the way there with an “excuse” for it. Toiy gets me a black jelly puddin from 7-eleven and a bottle of water. How sweet! She can speak English, so we manage to chat a little bit. She is very surprised about my travels and tells me that she would like to do the same. Her boyfriend is over 10 years older than her, and she mentions that to me as it was a good thing. I tell her I totally agree, and then confess that I myself am in love with a man who is 25 years older than I.
When they drop me off at the exit from the main road to my apartment, it is already dark. One more lift, and I am back home. I can’t believe I am not only back in time, but with some days to rest and get myself in order before the second semester at school starts. Yay!
10 Years Around the World 