“Travel opens your heart, broadens your mind and fills your life with stories to tell…” - Paula Bendfeldt
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| (The beginning of a 23-day 4x4 road trip) |
After being bedridden for almost 3 months, consumed all my medications and skipped most of my physiotherapy sessions, to the horror of my Spine Specialist, I was again up and about. The rest of the year we had the opportunity to perform our Umrah combined with Oman Trip in April, Kembara Masjid Thailand during Ramadhan in May, Japan Scout Cross-cultural Program in June, Mongolia Autumn trip in September and, Da Nang Vietnam Monsoon trip in November.
Since mid-year we charted routing plans for our year-end 4-Nation Kembara trip covering Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos and included visits to border towns of Singkhon, Thailand/Myanmar border, Boten, Laos/China border and the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, Laos/Myanmar/Thailand border. We arranged for letters from the Embassies to assist in vehicle clearance to cross into Cambodia and Laos borders and prepared travel itineraries for the respective countries. Border crossings in and out of Thailand, as usual, were simple and easy.
Finally, in December 2019, the two of us embarked in the 4-Nation trip with the Bigfoot, our red Toyota Hi-Lux 4x4 pick-up, strong and inconspicuous on the road. Initially we were a little worried driving on the right side of the road in Cambodia and Laos, notorious for their busy, narrow and not fully tarmac roads. It was quite a daunting experience, but we got used to it after the first few days.
In total, we spent 23 days on the road, covered the distance of about 9,200km and spent almost RM10k on expenses. The journey gave us priceless experience, reaching and exploring new places beyond borders and cultures, requiring a lot of patient and perseverance.
It was one of our best overland trips ever …
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