As some of you might have already seen on Facebook, my team made it safely to Chiang Mai last night!
Instead of creating a travel VLOG I decided to take a picture almost every hour of our journey to capture our experience traveling 35 hours from Penang to Chiang Mai!
Five Multiplied arrived at the bus stop in Georgetown a little before 8am on May 2nd.
Around 9am our team headed for the Thailand border in a van that we had nearly to ourselves! While we did purchase 3 extra seats for all of our big packs (luggage), it was nice to be able to spread out for the 3 hour drive.
An hour into our drive, Tessa was already out.
At 11am we nearly reached the Malaysia exit border. Our driver pulled over to get our passports and paperwork ready. Here I had a very bad experience using a squatty potty.
An hour later (12pm) we entered Thailand! Poor Tessa was “interrogated” about our purpose for being here especially after a group of Americans came by earlier with the same passport stamps and the same destination (aka our other teammates)…we are just tourists! Tessa said she survived by smiling a lot and acting very confused.
Originally we thought we were going to need to find transportation via a tuk tuk or a songthaew (red truck) from the Thailand border to the next bus station (Hat Yai), but our driver surprised us when we asked where we were going and kindly took us all the way there which was a hour away! #blessed
We found out we gained an hour in Thailand so we briefly crossed paths with the other teams on our squad at the Hat Yai bus stop, but once they left at 1pm (Thai time) MaryBeth and I were holding down the fort (aka guarding our luggage) while Jess T, Jess L and Tessa went to the mall for lunch. It was QUITE hot!!
Ahhh bless! At 2pm Tessa brought me back some Strawberry Bubble Tea from the mall! I had my first sip of Bubble Tea back in Panama, but became addicted in Penang. Bubble tea is a Taiwanese tea-based drink. Most bubble tea recipes contain a tea base mixed with fruit or milk (I of course get fruit) to which they add chewy tapioca balls (little black pearls). It’s so great!
A little before 3pm our bus to Bangkok departed, a 15-hour overnight drive!
Yep, less than an hour into our drive, the aircon in the bus broke so we had to pull over to the side of the road while they worked to fix it. I was definitely saying my prayers and they were answered! At 4pm we were back on our way.
At 5pm a couple of us were taking advantage of time to work on blogs.
At 6pm it was time for dinner! Vegan traveling hacks: precook rice and beans and purple sweet potatoes ahead of time! Yum!
By 7pm we were all in our own little worlds listening to music and podcasts.
It was crazy how fast (sometimes) an hour would go by.
It was around 9pm when I found out the lights on our bus didn’t work, so I listened to my audio bible! Side note…I purchased this on iTunes a couple years ago and I love it! It’s actually how I would read my bible every morning before work while eating breakfast.
At 11pm our bus finally made a stop. An Australian who was on our bus kindly informed us that our bus ticket came with a free food voucher! WOO FREE FOOD! We were served authentic Thai dishes and it was delicious.
The next several hours looked like this: sleeping on and off while listening to music, so I’ll spare you a repeat of photos for the next several hours of our trip.
A little after 4am we arrived at the Bangkok Morchit Bus Station! Again, we were blessed in that we ended up not having to find and take transportation via a tuk tuk or songthaew because we ended up at the correct bus station for our next bus ride to Chiang Mai! #blesstheLord
Praise the Lord when He provides an actual toilet! Tears of Joy!
It’s currently 6am and we’re just hanging out for the next 3-4 hours before our bus taking us from Bangkok to Chiang Mai arrives.
Remember that first picture of Tessa sleeping? Well its 7am the following day and she still hasn’t woken up since then.
At 8am our ticket booth finally opened up! We got to the counter, Jess gave the lady her phone with the ticket information and a few moments later I knew something was wrong. As the lady showed Jess her phone, she pointed out that the tickets were purchased for the day before (May 2nd). Oh no…….that’s not good. But the Lord is GOOD and in control! She simply changed the date from 2 to a 3 and we were all set with the same seats and all! Praise God!! #closecall
At 9am our bus arrived! Off to Chiang Mai, another 13-hour bus ride!
It was an hour later (10am) so it was time to take another picture…I just have no idea what I was taking a picture of or why I took this picture…but uh hey this is our bus! For this ride, we all sat with strangers one behind the other, but it worked out nicely having the window seat for sleeping.
An hour later (11am), I was woken up to be given a snack and bottled water. I have no idea what this was nor did I try it.
On our long travel days, it’s really tempting to just listen to music and podcasts or watch movies and disengage, but I love taking advantage of spending time in the Word especially knowing my electronics won’t last the entire trip.
On our road trips I love looking out the window and seeing the landscape of the various countries we travel to and through. While this picture isn’t very appealing, driving to Chiang Mai I snapped a picture around 1pm which sums up a lot of what I saw: agricultural fields.
At 2pm our bus made a 30 minute lunch stop. Again, with our tickets we were given a free food voucher and we had a western toilet! Win Win right there!
After lunch I took a Friends break which also allowed me to charge my almost dead phone. Can you name this episode? Leave your answer in the comments!
After a few episodes of Friends, I worked some more on my newest VLOG about PenHOP, our ministry last month in Malaysia! Stayed tuned for that blog post!
You know how I said we had to sit with strangers? Well, all of our seat buddies got off a stop around 5pm so we had a row to ourselves the remaining 3 hours of the trip!
We got to enjoy a beautiful sunset!
A little after 8pm our team arrived in Chiang Mai!!
Our host told us we were going to need to find transportation from the bus stop to the hostel we are staying at this month, but we weren’t sure how easy it would be to flag down a songthaew (red truck). But thankfully, there were several songthaews waiting for us!
Just before 9pm we arrived at our hostel, Zion! WOO. We are literally located on a prime street. The night life is incredible!
There is a large food hawker center right across the street, so we topped the night off with some food! Just as we were sitting down to eat, we felt a couple large raindrops. Within 30 seconds there was a torrential down pour, so thankfully we were already heading for shelter!
10pm it’s time for a shower and bed!
Thanks for following along on this 35 hour travel photo blog!
Once I find out more information on what our month looks like here in Chiang Mai I will update you all!
God Bless,
Ally
