After working 5 continuous years as a mechanical engineer, one year ago I decided to quit my job with the target of starting a low budget trip across Asia; There was not much support from some of the people around me. I vividly remember one of the managers of my company telling me “You sure have balls, you are the only guy in the company doing this right now.” I look back, convinced that it was a great decision.
I started my trip in November 2014, after visiting some countries in South Asia as a warm up with my German friend Jorge, we flew to Bangkok and hitchhiked through all of Northern Thailand finding on our way happy and incredibly smiley people, I was amazed how easy hitchhiking was here.
There was so much kindness during these trips, where we were offered food, drink and sometimes even money.
After 3 great weeks together, me and Jorge separated. For the first time in my life I started travelling as a solo traveler.
I was heading to Cambodia where I heard about some scams on the border to Cambodia I decided to cross it hitchhiking finding that it was easier and cheaper than taking a bus. I was picked up and driven by a Thai family to the border and once in Cambodia I found a guy who, after helping him fill his pick-up with goods while all the family and neighborhood stared at me, eventually drove me in the direction to Siem Reap.
I found a cheap tent in Battambang and on my way to Phnom Penh I tried to Hitchhike a small boat in Tonle Sap lake, I couldn’t believe it but it worked, after a while we made it to the floating village and boat then dropped me suddenly onto a floating hostel, with no option to reach mainland at this time I bargained hard and spent the night there for free in my tent. I hitchhiked all over Cambodia for 3 weeks and absolutely all my experiences were positive, I especially enjoyed being invited to a local wedding.
On my way to Kampot I began to feel sick and started looking for a place to stay. After 2 hours my condition was even worse, I asked the others for help, a girl offered her support but wanted to be sure I had money, once confirmed a motorbike brought me to a town clinic, they couldn’t speak English and every aspect of the place was absolutely terrible.
The doctor took my temperature and started shouting to others, I had no idea what he was saying.. within 5 minutes I was in a taxi with 9 people, direction Sihanoukville the nearest big city; yet the taxi was so crowded and more people jumped inside, I could count 12, incredible; but this expounded on my awful trip to the hospital, nobody understood me and nobody wanted to help me.
When we arrived the taxi didn’t want to take my US dollars; the note was a little bit broken, but after much convincing he took it.
In the hospital the doctor told me i had dengue fever before seeing the results of the tests, he scared me for sure; put me into a hospital bad and the next day he came back and told me it was just a strong stomach infection, relief set in yet it was a difficult moment, 2 sickly nights in the hospital, 2 nights in a good hotel and the next day I hitchhiked to Kampot.
When I got Cambodia-Laos border to spend the last night before crossing I found extortionate prices for accommodation.
Walking through a Buddhist temple I asked if I could camp there Instead. This was a great feeling as the monks brought me to the abbot who told me i could stay, i couldn’t imagine it being that easy.
All the monks wanted to talk with me and they were taking pics with the tent. In the morning I woke up surrounded by black scorpions, one relaxed monk asked me “what’s the problem, this?” while he took one of them by hand to place it in the field beside.
Once in Laos I found that hitchhiking was very hard, much harder than before; people understood the concept but they didn’t want to help, I almost walked the whole way to Don Khon after crossing the border. In most of the Buddhist temples they didn’t allow me to camp, tell me I should pay for a hotel. As local people neither wanted me to camp in their fields or gardens, isolated free-land spots were the only option in this country.
Despite this, I also had several nice experiences in Laos, on my way to Vientiane one family invited me to stay 2 nights with them, I spent time with the generous and happy family, helping them to cook food for poor people in the streets, celebrating the birthday of one of the daughters, drinking beer and eating fried crickets, It was a perfect local experience.
Just after crossing the Vietnam border, one guy wanted me to buy some food for him, I offered him to take a glance an my broken clothes to convince him that I was not buying anything and suddenly he gave me a bread for free with a big smile, I felt like I was in a new country. I took a bus to Sapa, which arrived 3.30 am no open places, deep night, I placed my tent in the bus station square, when woke up, I was surrounded by lots of surprised locals freaking out.
Some days later, while hitchhiking in Ha Giang province suddenly a long snake crossed the road, the driver braked and the people in the car ran out trying to hunt it for the evenings meal. North of Vietnam is one of the top interesting places I’ve never been; especially due to the friendly and generous people who is living there.
In Vietnam I was so comfortable hitchhiking that I was doing it also at night time trying to beat these roads under constructions in the day 30 km/h While walking in Ho Chi Minh City a Vietnamese couple stopped on a motorbike and gave me 2 sandwiches for free.
I was totally shocked after they went and one man was staring at me, he just made some affirmative movements with the head as telling me “yes this is Vietnam, this can happen here” I ended up sharing the sandwiches with him.
Back in Thailand, I hitchhiked all the way Bangkok – Singapore, the first part of the way I traveled with a Vietnamese girl I met in Bangkok, she was new hitchhiker, we did 600 km the first day, we jumped all kind of vehicles, even a ferry and a police car, crossing the border from Thailand-Malaysia helped by a lot of nice and happy thai people.
Then we separated and I kept going solo. Arriving in Malaysia I was afraid about all the rules that people told me they have, yet I still started walking to Singapore, I thumbed and the second car passing picked me up, they dropped me into the city, that easy.
Visiting Melaka, already in Malaysia, I had my first juggling busking experience outside Spain, I met there Jose from Spain, we did some juggling busking in the roads, I could feel that the reaction of the people was very good and was great until one cop came and told us in a very relaxed way without getting off the motorbike “I arrest you?” He was very nice.
Then I flew to Kuching and hitchking completely to Tawau, crossing all Brunei borders. One of the days near Sibu, was raining and nobody wanted to pick up this spanish hobo, it was a hard stressing moment, then a local stopped, Alec picked me up and brought me to Miri and offered me to stay 2 nights at his place. These kind of things are the ones that keep the smile and motivation going when solo travelling.
I arrived to a little town after Kinabalu park, I asked for camping in a catholic church and the friendly priest offered me a room to spend the night also dinner and breakfast, this was honestly too much, I couldn’t have been more grateful.
Also in one mosque in Sandakan they were afraid someone would steal my stuff while sleeping outside, they decided let me sleep inside with them even thought I am not a muslim, this was a very nice detail from their part.
Before leaving Malaysia, I spent some time in Tawau roads doing some busking to pay the ferry to Indonesia. Passing by Nunukan and Tarakan island I arrived at Tanjung Selor, very laid back place, open streets, not a lot of activity, smiley people and greeters, no tourists at all, a huge beautiful mosque. I asked for camping in the mosque, they acted very fast and nicely, one of the Imam even offered me to sleep in his room but I refused politely and placed my tent outside and spent some time showing my juggling stuff to the kids around who were very happy with me there.
Some hours later, around 10 pm one little kid seated 1 meter from my tent with 1 ball and stared at me, while I was teaching him some juggling basics (he was really good!) police came and told me I couldn’t stay there, Imam called the police. After 20 mins discussion I couldn’t avoid they drove me to police station even without a reason of why I had to go.
I was there for a long time, it was dark and far away from the city, there were around 15 policemen, some without uniform, some of them were filming me with their phones sometimes laughing, they asked me a lot of questions, some senseless, some about my money, my phone and some weird stuff about bombs and weapons. They took my passport without explaining anything, I felt really unsafe and scared all the time. At the end of the day, after lot of discussion they let me go and I had to look for a hotel in the night. Hard life.
Then I decided to just keep going, Samarinda city was my next destination. I hitched all the way, craziest I’ve ever done, 13 hours approx, passing by Berau, Wahau and Bontang. the first 40 km I took some motorbikes because there were no cars at all and sometimes there is nothing on the way, just jungle.
At the end of the day after some nice walking under the sun, one truck going Banjarmasin stopped, he knew as many words in English as me in Bahasa but we laughed a lot anyway. He invited me to his family house, to eat, to sleep and to spend time with the cute kids there. The next day he dropped me in Samarinda, it was a great local experience.
Arriving to the biggest city in Borneo, with nice huge mosque designs and lot of greeters and smilers around, I had to make some money, in this moment it was the best idea ever, but really it wasn’t. This was going to be the most difficult moment in my trip until this point. I found a traffic light near the river, stable in time and always full of cars and started street performing. I had very good reaction of the people, high notes, lot of happy faces and excited kids, even one army truck gave me money, no police disturbed me, just some pedestrians, one guy was staring for a long time with a not very friendly face; I decided to go.
I found a place nearby to drink a tea, one guy with a walkie-talkie appeared by motorbike, nice smile, nice words, good looking but bad eyes, he told me he was fireman and invited me to his place then I just told him thanks and went away, he stood up and went for the bike quickly, it was very weird. I walked fast around the streets and after some miles I stopped to talk with 2 boys, but the guy appeared again on the motorbike and more people started approaching me, like 5 or 6 more, they started asking me questions and about my passport, I asked if they were police and they told me they were not, they started getting closer, touching and harassing me, more than 10 people were there in this moment. Stressed, I jumped a fence and started running, 2 motorbikes followed me and also all the people who was there more people joined them (they thought I stole something maybe) at the end I saw it was becoming a too big thing in the streets and decided to stop at a stand and asked help to one man who didn’t have any intention to help me. Around 20-25 people surrounded me (some spontaneous runners and curious people), they wanted to see my passport and started harassing me, then suddenly a half Australian local girl appeared in a car with her family and started shouting at them defending me, after lot of confusion I had to give my Spanish ID to her, she showed it to them and then, after some more confusing times and discussions they started splitting. I jumped in the car of the girl and left. I really felt as a desperate animal in front of all these people, to be honest, I was totally trembling. The girl couldn’t explain to me what was happening. I really didn’t know what could have happened there if she didn’t appear at that moment.
If this had happened to me in the first week of my trip I probably would have come back home, but after all these months travelling, now I feel much stronger than last years in my comfortable life and now I can’t avoid laughing when I remember all these crazy adventures and of course I keep travelling today, whilst you are reading this.
Low budget solo travelling can be very hard but the adventures you live, good or bad, beautiful or difficult are without doubt, worthy.
Never give up in the things you love, sometimes it’s not enough just to be brave, you can be unlucky and have some struggles but if you keep your smile and motivation, at the end all will work out well.
Keep believing. Keep Being Strong.
Hitchhiking, Camping & Busking In South East Asia After working 5 continuous years as a mechanical engineer, one year ago I decided to quit my job with the target of starting a low budget trip across Asia; There was not much support from some of the people around me.
