ISTANBUL — “How did you get to Istanbul?”
For most people, it’s an easy question: by airplane — usually from JFK, with a stopover in Munich or Frankfort, but sometimes the plane’s from elsewhere. For instance, Joecelyn Kartes, a student from Carleton University, came to Istanbul from Indonesia after wandering across Southeast Asia with her life on her back.
Others take the bus, as I did from Ankara. A frugal traveler (or, more accurately, a poor student), I took the cheapest bus available: one that dropped me off on the side of a highway on Istanbul’s outskirts. I then wandered into the city, rucksack slung over my shoulder, with a whole smattering of tired, disoriented and irritated Turks.
I liked my journey from Istanbul. It had everything I admire in a story: adventure, uncertainty, interesting characters. And it involved very little money. But Andrzej Maslowski’s story beats mine by spades.
Maslowski, a psychology student at the Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities, hails from Poland. With his blond hair, blue eyes, clean, button-down shirts and freshly-shaven chin, Maslowski struck me as just a typical but friendly Erasmus student, until he explained how he got to Istanbul.
Maslowski hitchhiked to Istanbul. From Warsaw.
The travel guide “Lonely Planet” — that omnipresent, Erasmus student bible — has a few words to say about hitchhiking in Turkey. Very few words.
“We don’t recommend it... Travelers who decide to hitchhike should understand they are taking a potentially serious risk,” it reads.
Maslowski doesn’t agree. He’s been hitching since he was 18 years old and has never had any problems, he said. Motivated by a “lack of money and a will to travel,” he refuses to adventure any other way. So, as students around him pack their knapsacks for an organized four-day group trip to Cappadocia, Maslowski sat down with me to explain some guidelines for students interested in starting on a new adventure.
Hitchhiking might seem a tad unusual for the typical AU student, but it’s even cheaper than the Chinatown bus.
ANDRZEJ MASLOWSKI’S TEN STEPS FOR PRACTICAL HITCHHIKING
1) Go with somebody experienced the first time. “You can learn very fast,” Maslowski said (and a lot of these other rules won’t make sense until you’ve picked them up on the ground).
2) Prepare for your trip. “You need to know the road,” Maslowski advised. “You have to recognize ... the important places on the road. You need to know the good starting places ... the places you can stay. If you meet someone who’s going to the middle of somewhere... you need to know if that’s a good place for you, if it will help you get where you’re going.”
3) Prepare yourself. Appearance is essential for the practical hitchhiker. “Take a shower, brush your teeth, shave ... you need to look trustable,” Maslowski said. “Look like a nice, poor student — it works. Try not to look like a serial murderer.”
4) Don’t be scared. Fearful people start acting irrational and strange, Maslowski said, not the sort of people somebody wants to lend a ride to, though hitchhiking is a fearful prospect. Which leads to:
5) Start small. “You need to conquer the fear,” Maslowski says. His first trip was only 200 kilometers across his native Poland. “I knew the route... I knew I could stop,” he said. “But I needed to know I could do this.”
6) Never approach the car. “If you approach the car, you’re invading their space,” he said. He recommended scoping out cars ahead of time, checking to see who’s going where (license plates are good for this), and if they have space for an extra traveler. “I ask three questions,” Maslowski said. “‘Are you going to such-and-such?’ I already know they are. ‘Do you have an extra seat in your car?’ I already know they do. ‘Can I grab a ride from you?’ They’ve already said ‘Yes’ twice. What’s one more?”
7) Know your phrases. “I can hitchhike in six or seven languages at least,” Maslowski says. Maslowski knows how to ask “Where are you going?” in English, German, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Polish and Russian. “They’re only hitchhiking phrases... but they help.” He recommends www.hitchbase.com to get started.
8) “Take a very good map. You need to know where you’re going.”
9) Be patient. “Don’t leave the track,” Maslowski said. “Stay at the good places.” In other words, don’t accept a ride in a direction that doesn’t get you closer to your destination just because you haven’t found another ride yet. The right ride will come eventually, he said. Hitchhiking is not a speed sport.
10) Above all, trust your feelings everywhere. “You can just feel it,” Maslowski explains. “Whether its a group of guys or a lonely woman, you can always tell if it’s someone you can trust.”
You can reach this columnist at thescene@theeagleonline.com.
