The Hitchikers

Travelling is all about first time experiences and given the nature of our trip, we’ve had more than we can speak of. Today we visited the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia and graced an epic tea plantation with our presence. The scenery was stunningly beautiful with vast rolling hills blanketed with tea trees. But this blog isn’t really about that so I will let you see the pictures when we post them, which I am sure will tell their own story.

Anyway, the plantation was around 10km away and obviously too far to walk and so the taxi we took cost us 15 Ringgits (about 4 pounds). On the way back, conscious of our budget, we decided on taking the advice of the Lonely Planet who said that some people hitchhike their way back. Well, far be it for us to disbelieve the good name of a guide book in which we have slowly lost more and more faith as time has passed. So we set out walking, warily offering out a thumb (don’t tell our parents, we will deny all knowledge) until we felt more comfortable in letting go of our conservative British nature. Cars, trucks, bikes and pickup trucks passed without a hint of sorrow at our toward our cause, despite the forlorn looks we aimed in their direction. Eventually, a battered old saloon car, the type of beige that went out in the 70s, pulled over in front of us, which we hoped wasn’t pulling over for a flat tyre. I went up to the window and, the driver, presumably finishing work on recognition of his tools in the back, pre-empted us in announcing our destination. Great, we said as we jumped in thanking him profusely in Malay. All efforts to strike up a conversation were in vain, however, as he did not speak a word of English, although I suspect his English was better than our Malay.

So, travelling along as passengers listening to his oriental style music made us feel more comfortable at hitchhiking for the first time and he seemed like a nice and honest fellow. It’s funny though how your mind can wander irrationally in certain situations. Two minutes into the journey, the central locking on all four doors locked simultaneously, reflexively forcing Helen and I to look at each other in alarm. But, in silence, we told each other through some form of telepathy that it was normal for a 40-year-old car to do this. As we travelled further toward our final destination, he made a phone call. Our minds started racing as we imagined him telling his co-conspirator, “I’ve got another two, start digging.” Trying to stay positive as we irrationally conceived our fate, we were asked in very broken English specifically where we wanted dropping off. I swear I saw a wry smirk as if he was playing with us while we visualised our fate. After the next 100 or so yards his indicator signalled a manoeuvre left into the bus station, which, you will be pleased to hear, is where we had asked him to drop us off. The central locking was released on all four doors in a synchronized fashion and we got out feeling ashamed that we had had any of those thoughts at all of a very nice man who had really helped us out. We even offered him a token amount of money for his inconvenience, which he quickly refused. I ended up giving him a shiny English 5 pence coin embossed with our noble Queen Elizabeth II that I found in the bottom of my bag as a souvenir. Or perhaps it was guilt.

Disclaimer: We accept no responsibility for those stupid enough to try this and in no event will we be liable for anybody who meets a grisly end arising from or in connection with hitchiking.