The last time you heard from me was when we were at Stephan’s place in Hatyai in the south of Thailand. Since then so much has happened. I shall try to keep it short as I run you through Angelo, Henro and De Necker's adventures.
Sunday the 8th marked the start of our Luke 10. That meant that for the duration of the journey we had no access to personal or team money, no extra clothes than those that we were wearing and no plan. We did have Bibles, toothbrushes, passports, I took the computer for blogging purposes and I decided to take a poncho… something we would be very thankful for later.
We all had different thoughts on where to go, but it all dove tailed nicely in the end. God’s plans are perfect. Angelo felt the “10/40 window” (an area between the 10 and 40 degrees latitude
markers north of the equator) on his heart. Northern Thailand fell into this area. Henro had a great burden for Myanmar (Burma) on his heart, but because of civil war, it is virtually impossible to enter. I had a dream about the Thai-Burmese border where the Burmese side bulges into Thailand. I took a map and found such a part just north west of Bangkok. The border town of Mae Sot was put on my heart. Later I read about the Karen people of Burma and their fight for independence. A lot of them live in refugee camps on the Thai side of the border. So we had consensus and off to Mae Sot we went.
From the start we were blessed when Stephan dropped 500 Bhat (Thai currency amounting to just over a R100) in Henro’s hand and Letitia and JP gave us each a bottle of water. Now see how God multiplies.
To get to the highway, we had to hike a good 6km. This was not in vain as we met a cute Thai family busy eating lunch and
we couldn’t walk past them without at least capturing the moment on film. They couldn’t understand us, but did smile very broadly. For the last 3km to the highway a man with his side cart gave us a lift.
On the highway a trucker picked us up and gave us an 8 hour lift to Chumpon, 450km from Bangkok. He also blessed us with a traditional Thai meal, and I don’t mean fried noodles or green curry, it was “rural traditional!” There was something they claimed to be cow. That might have been the case, but it seemed more like the intestines than the fillet. The other dishes were just as interesting, but Luke 10 tells you to eat what is set before you and we had no clue where our next meal would come from, so we ate!
He dropped us on the highway… good. Then, out of nowhere, it started raining… bad. Luckily, not too far down the road, we found a petrol station where we asked
people for a lift. Two guys gave us a lift on the back of their bakkie and we had to weigh up our options… wet and cold or static. Having done some hitch hiking before, I knew how demoralizing it could be to be stuck in one place for a long time, so we opted for the rain.
Here the poncho made its appearance and all 3 of us were quick to snuggle in under it. No place for egos at that stage, sitting tight was a blessing. A good 5 hour drive, cold and wet, got us to some sort of Bangkok slum. It was dawn by then and as our drivers got out at what I assumed were their home, some other guys made their appearance and they opened some cold ones. If the Boeing went over, I was probably too tired to see it. Luckily we were blessed with a coke each to ease our parched throats.
After a while we realized that these men were not going anywhere in a hurry, so we started signing to them that we wanted to go to a highway or a petrol
station. One of the guys got the idea and took us to a nearby station, luckily right next to the highway.
It was at this point that we felt we needed to eat as our last meal was 20h00 the previous night, about 11 hours earlier. We opted for the cheapest (in true GCEX style), bread and condensed milk (in true work Your way style). This was the first bit of our money that we had to spend… almost a day after leaving the safety of home with nothing! We brushed out teeth, washed our faces and started planning for the day ahead.
We needed to get out of Bangkok to Nakhor Sawan where the main road forks and we would head NW to Tak. From Tak, west to Mae Sot. The petrol station owner ‘s son took us to a nearby bus stop. B19 each took us to Hua-Lampong, the central train station. We enquired about train tickets to Nakhor Sawan. B98 per person on the 3rd class train was the answer. We had a budget of B110 per person, so
we took it. When the lady entered 3 tickets, the amount due was B144, B48 per ticket. I asked if the B144 was for all the tickets or just one. “Just one”, she said. This is God!!!!
Five and a half hours on the train through the northern Thai farmlands was beautiful. The big, grey rain clouds and the mountains in the distance, with the huge patches of Ireland-green rice paddies, that sustains so many people in Thailand, were breathtaking. It was a long ride though as it was sit only and we were dead tired after not sleeping the previous night.
We arrived in Nakhon Sawan just as it got dark and found out that we were about 10km away from the bus station and the highway. Here we paused, bought 2-minute noodles from the 7-Eleven and started looking at maps. Soon we had a crowd and everyone wanted to help by pointing us in all different directions. Finally a local policeman told us to get on the back of his
bakkie and off we went to the bus station. At the station he took us to a ticket office, got the price for a bus to Mae Sot, B120pp, and with a nod of the head prompted us to pay. When we told him that we could only afford one ticket with our measly B140, he was baffled. He sat us down in true interrogation fashion and asked us where our money was. We then explained our situation and he seemed to understand. After walking a big loop through the bus station, he pointed to our money and we handed it to him. He walked to the window of the ticket officer and took out his own wallet. We all looked at each other and started praising God aloud. This praise got even louder as he gave us 3 tickets to Mae Sot and B70 “change.” How do you explain that? It can only be God!
It is at this point that I’m going to cut the story short and make it to be continued. Partly because it will get way too long and then you’ll get
bored when reading it and also to keep you guys interested for tomorrow’s blog.
Check out the video:
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTJ6UUMMBFM 400x400]