I was lost. The weather was humid and hot, and after walking around aimlessly for a while, I thought I had better decide on a direction I should walk, otherwise I would probably have to spend the night in the forest. If I was lucky enough to find a road or house nearby, I could find shelter or hitch a ride into the nearest city. My current location was a dry evergreen forest where the soil was dry and hard as a rock, and hardly any water anywhere. I didn’t expect to encounter any wild animals as the environment was so dry that even the trees were almost dead, and so hostile that most animals couldn’t have survived there.

I didn’t know which way I should take as I walked down the hill. When I stopped, there was complete silence, interrupted by the sound of a vehicle running in the distance. I focused on the direction of the sound. When I was certain, I immediately headed towards the source of that sound. I continued to walk for another half hour but there was no sign of any road. I stopped to listen again for any sound, but I didn’t hear a thing. Frustrated, I sat down on the ground to take a break.

“Maybe I am going in the wrong direction,” I said to myself.

As soon as I finished my thought, a voice popped up in my head saying, ‘it’s not the wrong way, go straight ahead and cross through the forest, then you’ll find a road.’ Encouraged, I stood up and started off in the suggested direction.

And indeed, after passing rows of trees in the forest, I came across a two-lane road that was apparently less travelled since the roadsides were almost fully covered with weeds.

Well, at least I had found a road, I thought, and if I followed it, sooner or later a vehicle would surely pass by. I resumed my trek but after several hours it didn’t seem likely that anyone would drive by.

I felt quite hungry all of a sudden, remembering that it had already been about seven or eight hours since I last ate or drank. I looked around but found nothing edible; there were only dry leaves and thorny weeds on the side of the road, and for an instant I thought that I might possibly die of dehydration or starvation if I couldn’t find help soon.

Out of nowhere, I heard a vehicle coming up the hill, accelerating in a low gear and straining noisily as it was milked for every horsepower in carrying its load up the steep hill. A moment later, a van appeared at the end of the road, struggling at its best pace as it approaches up the last hill. I waved frantically to get the driver’s attention, and he saw me. The engine sound lowered immediately and the van slowed down, fueling my hope of getting a ride.

But when the van was only a few meters away from me, it began to accelerate again and drove away without any intention to stop.

“Oh, come on!” I exclaimed to myself.

I looked at the van driving away, hoping that he would change his mind and stop for me, but he drove off and the van disappeared out of my sight.

I stood there for a while as I couldn’t decide whether I should walk down the hill or in the opposite direction, uncertain of which route that would take me nearer to the city. My biggest problem was that I didn’t know my location and what was in the vicinity.

“Why didn’t the van stop and give me a ride?” I asked myself while I looked down at my clothes, and I immediately knew the answer. I was wearing a hand-woven cotton shirt with a pair of long loose pants. On my back, I was carrying the wooden tube that contained the drawing of Vince. But most importantly, I had a big knife tucked under my belt at the front. With what I was wearing, I looked like a member of a hill tribe.

It must have been the clothes and the knife that may have made the van driver suspicious of my character and my motives for hitching a ride at this time of the night. He probably thought that I was about to rob him.

As the sun was about to disappear below the horizon, I picked up my pace and walked down the hill faster, not knowing what I would discover.

Another hour passed and the sky was getting darker by the minute when, from the distance, I heard another car coming down the hill. I stopped and held out my arm to thumb a ride again. But this time, I quickly removed the knife and hid it behind me. Then I turned around to face the oncoming car.

I saw the headlight first from the approaching vehicle after it took the bend. The driver apparently didn’t see me in the dark evening light, as he drove past before braking hard and coming to a stop some twenty or thirty meters away. I ran quickly towards the beat-up pickup truck with an open cargo bed.

“Hello sir, could you please give me a ride to the next town?” I asked, as soon as the driver had lowered the window.

“Where are you going?” The middle-aged driver shouted from his seat.

“I’m going to Bangkok,” I answered.

“Do you mind sitting in the cargo bed? We don’t have a free seat. But we’re going to Bangkok, too,” the woman in the passenger seat replied.

“No, I don’t mind, and thank you for your kindness,” I said.

“Hop on then,” said the driver, waving his hand as a sign for me to jump in the back.

“Thank you very much!” I said, eagerly getting on the cargo bed. A couple of bags and suitcases were at the back but there was enough space to lie down comfortably; I even found a big sack of rice which would serve nicely to support my head. I took off the wooden tube and the knife and placed them beside me before sitting down on the cargo floor.

When I looked into the passenger cab through the back window, I noticed a young boy and a younger girl sitting in their seats, both fast asleep.

I felt that I had made the right decision to walk down the road as that was the direction to my destination. I thought it was probably a good thing too that the first van drove away.

The pickup drove through the darkness of the night. Although we had been driving for almost an hour, there was no light to indicate civilisation anywhere. The whole route went through a winding forest, and I was so exhausted and hungry that I nodded off.