No Shitting in the Toilet FC

Tom Kopp is a German, born and raised in a small village (called Munich). His addiction to adventurous – some say dangerous – travelling has led him to every continent before he turned 23. His primary idea of transport is holding a thumb up in the air while standing beside a road.

When he’s not carrying an overpacked backpack through rain, sunshine and everything else mother nature has to offer and smelling terrible, he lives in Berlin with his turtle Dali which he smuggled in from China …in his underpants! He works as a Warm-Up Anchorman for several German TV stations, studies Regional Sciences of Asia and Africa and is learning Swahili.

…Or is looking for a publisher who wants to help him bother mankind with more stories of this kind.

Tom on future travel projects: “…OK, I haven’t been to Antarctica . – yet!!”

Contact: thkopp@gmx.de

What is hitchhiking?

Hitchhiking or hitching means to get a lift in a random car which helps you to get where you want to go to. It sounds a bit like taking a cab but you don’t pay for it.

Why hitchin’?

1) It’s cheap

2) It’s cheap

3) It’s dirt cheap!!

Is there no other reason?

Of course there is, even heaps of other, although minor reasons: Sometimes it’s even necessary to get picked up ‘cause the place you wanna go is not reachable by public transport or only with a once a week bus which has, of course, left yesterday. It’s also helpful in case you’ve had a breakdown in the middle of nowhere or it’s just that you wanna get somewhere in a faster pace than walking (for example on your way home when you’re drunk).

Another benefit is that you meet people, usually locals who can give you an interesting insight in their lives or, better, help you in more ways than with the transport. Once I went to Damascus/Syria with a friend and decided to leave the city although it was already quite late ‘cause we didn’t have any accommodation. We were picked up by this great Armenian guy who was very happy to meet other foreigners and spontaneously invited us to have dinner with him. This was one of the best steaks of my life, maybe because it came straight after two weeks of a strict bread-with-Nutella diet. Afterwards, he showed us first his favourite spot in town, the hill from where you got a superb night view over Damascus. Then we had some tea and shisha smoke in the bar of his friend. Eventually we crashed at his office, drank Heineken and watched German tele!

But it’s dangerous, isn’t it?

The good old odd question. Well, let’s say it like this: Even crossing a street in Rome, eating ice cream in China or going to a mall during clearance sales can get you into a life-threatening situation.

No, I’m serious, there are bad, bad people out there who just wait for naive victims like me!

You’ve seen Wolf’s Creek, haven’t you? I ask because that’s the question I’ve heard many times while hitching in Australia. I’m a bit suspicious about the “real” danger. Of course there are “bad, bad people” in this world, they can even become Prime Minister. And of course, you will have to trust people who are totally strangers to you. But I refuse to believe that these bad individuals are the majority or even occur in a significant amount at all. And if you’re in doubt in one situation you still can refuse the lift and don’t have to care about what the other guy thinks….although this is unlikely to happen, especially when you’ve been baking in a desert, sitting on your backpack for the last three hours.

And always keep in mind: It’s the same situation for the person who picks you up, just the other way around. Actually, having thought a bit, it’s even worse for the other one, considering that it’s YOU who is this filthy, stinking backpacker who usually makes the worse impression!

A general rule about safety.

The more a country is dependent on tourism, the safer it will be. This can sometimes even end up in extreme annoyances: Once I was sitting on the back of a ute in Sinai, Egypt when we reached a checkpoint set up by the Tourist Police which is supposed to protect foreigners. Well, we had to get off the ute and the officers wanted us to take a bus. Eventually, we escaped with the help of a minibus driver whose English was better than the policemen’s, so we could tell him to take us just for half a kilometre down the road for free where we continued hitching.

OK, you’ve convinced me. So how do I hitchhike?

The basic technique is quite simple: Just stand next to the road which you wanna go down and hold up your thumb. This is understood internationally. Maybe you wanna improve this: An open body language and a friendly (or insane) smile might promise good fun to every driver by taking you with him. You also wanna look like a decent person and not like a mass murderer, so being shaved can help as well as showing the whole face instead of hiding it behind sunglasses or a base cap. I reckon light clothes might also be better than dark colours.

Wow, that sounds exhausting, is there no other way?

Sure, for example the Desperation Tour: Make a face as sad as possible, a helpless impression and spell the name of the next city on your sign totally incorrect.

Hang on a sec’! What was this about a sign thing?

Ok, you got me, the sign thing. It is obvious that it will improve your chances to get help if people actually understand what you want. So why not just write the name of the next city on a piece of paper, so everyone can read where you wanna go? If you don’t have one, people will even keep on giving you the advise to do so!

Having said that, my experience is that you get your lift often within a shorter time than you would need to write that sign.

A second, more practical put-down is that people might think that a ride with them won’t help you much if it would bring you only up to 50k’s from the town on your sign – even if this is 700ks away.

And, of course, you need pen and paper. That requires planning. Uaarghhh!

So you never used a sign?

Sure I did. Writing a sign can shorten the waiting time in the middle of the bush. It can give you a nice reason to argue about with your travel companion. And, the biggest plus: Writing a sign makes you feel that you really, really did everything that was possible!

Wow, these are loads of ways to get a lift!

Yeaah ..and know what? It even goes on. This is where we come to the so called Direct Approach: Just tell the driver of the car you’re sitting in to drop you off at the last gas station before he leaves the highway. The advantages are obvious: You can hand-pick the people you ask and don’t have to trust your luck. The candidates have more time to make their decision than the 5 seconds while driving by. You can continue even in darkness. And when you’re stuck, you can buy chocolate. Chocolate makes any awful situation look less awful.

Obviously, this only works, if there actually is a gas station. And it’s much better if it’s open and used not only by the hillbillies living just behind that hill over there.

Maybe this method is the best if you know one specific route and its hot spots very well, for example this gas station where all the truckies get their cheap fuel or that roadhouse with the nice girl behind the bar.

Another hint:

ALWAYS make sure, that you know where you are and where your driver wants to go to. It’s good to have a map. Once I was in a car that left the highway onto another highway in the middle of nowhere and suddenly, my girlfriend and me stood in that very middle of nowhere. This brought us the doubtable joy of a one hour hike along the highway to the next gas station as well as the encounter with a not really friendly policeman.

Where is hitchin’ the best?

Good question, I think it depends on you. Once I did it with a girlfriend in Italy and it never took us longer than half a minute to get a lift . On the same trip, back home, a German truckie told me that he would never ever pick up a single girl, they would cause problems. Me in person, I find it very easy in Australia while an Aussi guy was convinced that Germany is the best country for hitching at all.

Do I get to know the locals by hitchin’?

Of course you do, isn’t that obvious? But maybe it is not always to everybody’s delight: One of the highlights of my stay in Jordan was a truckie who gave us a brilliant imitation of how it looks like when he either gets a blowjob while driving or jerks off, I didn’t understand exactly what he meant but I think what he basically wanted to say was that it’s a big mess on the windscreen. As I said, maybe not fun for everybody. …for me definately.

Do I get an insight in a country’s mentality when I hitchhike?

One little story. If I wouldn’t have hitchhiked I wouldn’t have witnessed the following scene: Imagine a gas station in Syria. A guy has just fixed his car and has very greasy hands. So he walks over to a tanking car and uses some petrol to wash them. Next to him, in the arising puddle of gasoline stands the owner of the car and smokes a cigarette. I ran away.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

I’m a bloke. The whole story is a different one for girls, I know for example a nice girl who does a lot of hitchin’ by herself but ALWAYS refuses lifts if there’s more than one guy in a car. On the other hand, I got two female friends who hitched in Marokko from their apartment to the beach for two weeks, everyday. They were wearing hotpants and tummy tops. Nothing bad happened. I’m still wondering about that.

TOP TEN UNFORGETTABLE LIFTS

1. Valladolid to Mérida, Mexico

This Lift was cool from the beginning, I was walking with my friend and the intention to hitchhike to Mérida through the streets of Valladolid and discussed about from where to start best when a Mexican standing next to his car asked “Mérida? – Vamonos!”. It was never again that easy to catch a ride. And during the drive we had a lot of tacos and hot sauce with a lot of beer. We arrived in Mérida quite drunk, happy and surprisingly with all our belongings.

2. Hall’s Creek to Coral Bay, Australia

Have a look on a map and you’ll see that Coral Bay is about 2000km from Hall’s Creek in Westaustralia. I did it with a trucky who was pulling a so called MICAT, a Mobile Information Centre About Telecommunication which was set up by the WA-Government in Aboriginal communities regularly.

It took us two days and two nights and was, surprisingly, packed with deep impressions. Once we had to change a flat tyre and once we saw a bunch of 12 camels. But the best was the insight I got of the lifestyle of a professional driver, this getting up early to use every beam of sunlight for driving, seeing the landscape changing and drinking in the roadhouses, as well as the sad calls by the family and the bad country music. It’s not only romantic.

3. Puerto de Alcudia to Arta, Spain

Once I hitched around the beautiful island of Mallorca, situated in the Mediterranean Sea and belonging to Spain. I was there with my girlfriend and we never were in big trouble to get a lift, but one of them I will never forget: The small car was packed extremely tight with people and luggage, ours as well as theirs and it was quite uncomfortable for them as well as for us. We tried really hard to communicate. Everybody in the car spoke only Spanish, no English except of us who spoke everything but Spanish. It was great fun, though.

4. Beersheba to Mispe Raman, Israel

What you gotta know about Israel is that it’s a very protected atmosphere. There are people with guns everywhere, for example army patrols, private security services and even every bouncer in Tel Aviv who wears blank clothes has got a revolver in the back pocket of his pants. So it is just likely to meet one of them on the road. Having said that and knowing it in the moment, it still was a very weird feeling to sit next to the machinegun of a soldier who gave me and a mate a lift for 2 hours.

5. Townsville to Gladstone, Australia

I was on my way down the world famous east coast of Australia when I arrived in Townsville during late afternoon. I watched a beautiful sunset and was already on my way to a gas station to stay there overnight or maybe catch a lift with a truckie, when suddenly a car stopped right next to my feet and agreed to take me with him.

I was already a bit suspicious, ‘cause decent people normally don’t pick you up when they can’t see you in the dark. I was wrong, he turned out to be a man who had just left his wife on this very day after being married for 30 years and apparently needed somebody to talk. I did my duty and played his therapist for a while until he suddenly mentioned “I should not drive at all”. That was about when I realized how bloody drunk this guy was and started to get scared. To get out of this situation I suggested to drive, not really believing that this could work out and was surprised to death when he agreed.

From this moment everything was fine, I drove to a town about 200ks away where we stayed in a caravan park, had a very fine dinner and the next day he brought me to a gas station out of Gladstone straight after getting’ up at 06.20am. He paid for the night and the food.

6. Dàjù to Lijiang, China

After an amazing two days’ hike through the Tiger Leaping Gorge in the Yúnnán Province, I arrived at this terrible, terrible town at noon, about one and a half hours before the once a day bus was supposed to leave. I asked everybody I saw at least five times (each) about this bus and everybody told me to relax, I’d be fine. So I had my beer and relaxed in the sun for a while. When there was no bus for a long time, I got a bit concerned, but hey, everybody said it’s all right and bus-timetables in China are not really something you wanna set your watch after.

Eventually they sent the best English speaker of the village to tell me with an insane smile in his face: “I’m sorry to tell you, sir, that the bus does not work today. You must stay at the restaurant.” I was angry and decided spontaneous that I will not stay at the restaurant and walk instead. Lijiang was about seventy k’s away. But no worries, that’s something I can do in two days. So I asked for the way, started to walk and kept asking on the way.

After two hours or so, I asked a guy in a truck for directions and he told me that this is completely the wrong way, so he gave me a lift back to the point where I started two hours ago. He was even that friendly to show me the right way. I started once again, walked, walked and walked for hours when it began raining, my moral broke and I just collapsed next to some workers who were watching their fields.

We managed communicating and were already negotiating about the price for a bed (I was in a quite bad position) when I saw HIM. Actually, first I heard him but I couldn’t believe my ears. But there he was, a truck, making its way up the steep mountain road, doing 15ks an hour. I jumped up, waved him down and he pulled over. When I asked him where he was on his way to, his answer was one of the biggest relieves of my time in China: “Lijiang”.

7. City Centre of Port Hedland to the Highway, Australia

Another lift in Australia, neither very long nor important, it was just out of the city centre to an entry for the highway. What made this lift really extraordinary was the car: I was just full of shit like a huge, huge pile of old clothes, a dog and car spares. I shared the whole space with about twelve people.

8. Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

On the back of a ute. I’m not talking about a specific lift. It is common to get a ride on the back of a ute in Mexico. I just love the wind blowing through my hair while doing 100km an hour, the landscape goes by in an amazing speed. Fun.

9. Ath Thamad to An Nakhi, Egypt

My mate and me were sitting on our backpacks in the Sinai desert for quite a while with another hitchhiker. It was really in the middle of nowhere, I mean less than one car per hour. We ran out of water, so when a truck arrived we blocked the road ..more or less. He was willing to help us but had the problem that there was just no space in the cabin for all of us, we had huge backpacks and he already one person with him. Of course we found a way. The other guys sat on the gearbox with their bagpacks on their laps and I was lying. On the dashboard.

10. Katherine to 100km from Kununurra, Australia

I was on my way from Darwin to the beautiful westcoast of the Australian continent. Katherine is where the Great North Western Highway branches of the Stuart Hwy, which is the main North-South Connection. There was literally no traffic and I was sitting on my backpack already for three hours so I was chuffed at the sight of a 4WD pulling over and a guy yelling out of the open window: “Hey mate, we’re gonna give you a lift to Kununurra”. I chucked my shit in the trunk and climbed in.

The smell was horrible. The guy who had shouted was completely drunk and the two women, one of ‘em the driver, were as well. They, especially the guy had a lot of fun with me, called me Ricky (I didn’t introduce myself, so I reckon he…guessed) and told me when, where and how they intended to cut my throat. This concerned me a bit and when they suddenly left the highway to go straight into the bush I started to worry. Seriously. The guy was so friendly to mention the cut-my-throat-thing once again.

But it turned out good ..ok, let’s say not too bad: We just went into a community to get some more petrol and booze which I had to hide in my backpack. Then we headed down the highway again, only disturbed by a horrifying argument between them which ended by the guy’s decision to sleep in the trunk. I felt relieved when they ran outta money for petrol at a roadhouse and I could escape and sleep behind the wall of the campground.

Memorable Note:

Although I definately had most of my lifts in Germany, anything really exciting or even extraordinary has never happened – What a shame! And once I was even wearing a Gêlaf, that’s the traditional Arab Robe for men!

© Tom Kopp 2007