I left Koh Lanta on a sunny day around 11 in the morn­ing. My mate, who had been over from Aus­tralia, dropped me at the little car fer­ries that oper­ate between the two Lantas and the main­land. My plan was easy. Hitch­hike to Trang and then get a train up to Bangkok. On the ferry I sat down on a little bench next to some Thais and chat­ted to them a bit. I decided that rather than try­ing to hail a car straight away I’d walk a bit first. After maybe ten meters a car with the Thais I had been chat­ting to pulled over and they offered me a lift to the next ferry.

You can’t say no to an offer like that, really, so I squeezed in the back with my back­pack. The four guys in there didn’t really speak much Eng­lish and my Thai is more than a bit rusty after years away, so con­ver­sa­tion was a bit slow, but in the end Thong and his friends offered me to take me to Nak­hon Si Tamarat, where I could get a train as well and where they were headed. Obvi­ously I agreed. Once in Nak­hon I was invited for din­ner and met the fam­ily of Thon, his wife and their 6 month old son. That day a train would have left around 5 pm, but then Thong offered me to stay the night at his place. These guys had been so kind already, that I didn’t really feel I could say no, even though I had been want­ing to get up to Bangkok that night so I could see my mates again, before they flew off to Germany.

From the moment I stepped into Thongs house his mum was fuss­ing over me. Every two minutes she made sure that I had enough to eat. She obvi­ously thought I was far too skinny. Because of my hair style she thought at first that I had just under­gone a monk cere­mony, bless her! Thongs house was set in the middle of a rub­ber plant­a­tion and the air was unbe­liev­ably fresh and clean. As it got darker we sat out­side chat­ting away and drink­ing Thai whis­key with some of Thongs friends. I felt a little like a celebrity. Around 11 pm the boys decided that they were hungry, so we caught a chicken, went round the back, got some onions, lem­on­grass and chil­lies grow­ing wild and set out to make what would become the worlds best Tom Yam Kai.

Even though my head was pound­ing the next morn­ing I got up at around 9 in the morn­ing. Thong had already been up since 4 am to work the rub­ber trees. It didn’t feel right to offer the fam­ily some money (which I didn’t really have any­way… people with lots of money don’t usu­ally hitch­hike, do they?), but what I could do was help Thong with his work. So I made rub­ber mats. First you col­lect the rub­ber, then you get rid of all the rub­bish so you end up with almost pure rub­ber and mix it with water and some­thing that makes it con­geal a lot bet­ter than on its own and fill it in con­tain­ers. Once the rub­ber has turned gooey we star­ted press­ing them into mats with the help of a metal bar.

The last bit, press­ing the mats and dry­ing them fur­ther, I couldn’t help with as that had to be done in the even­ing after most of the water had drained away. Once the mat is fully dry Thong and his mother get 30 Baht per piece, not really a lot for the amount of work you put in. Thong can make around 20 mats a day. After a shower it was time to leave. Thon and his fam­ily came round in the car and we vis­ited a water­fall and a temple. Then I was dropped off just in time to catch the 16.45 train to Khrung Thep.

Hitch­hik­ing might not be the safest way of get­ting around, but if you’re care­ful it can lead to some truly unfor­get­table experiences.