The International Writers Magazine - Our Tenth Year:Europe

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Hitch-hiking through Europe without a map • Robert Cottingham I was on holiday recently, visiting a relation in Prague, plus I was looking to go to Croatia, and being in the centre of Europe I could go pretty much anywhere I wanted, so I settled on Croatia. Anyway, I could take the train or the bus from Prague. Of these two options, the train was more appealing. Plus the train goes every day from Prague, but the bus goes once weekly. Plus I hate buses, they’re horrible and smelly and full of people too cheap to be able to afford the train.

But the train costs nearly three times as much as the bus and takes longer. So I get the bus down to Zagreb. That’s a single ticket so I still have my return journey to plan. Its crucial that I get back to Prague by no later than Thursday evening so that I get the flight the next morning. There are no buses direct from Zagreb till next Saturday. My best option is to get to somewhere near Prague or on the general vicinity. There are two buses a week that leave Zagreb to Vienna, one at 6am on Tuesday and the other at 12, I think, on Thursday. I get the Tuesday one so that I have a comfortable amount of leeway until the flight back to London. From Vienna to Prague is easy as there are two daily buses.

Tuesday morning, I get the bus from Zageb to Vienna from the crummy old bus station. 12 o’clock in Vienna. The city looks grim from the bus station. Why do they always put them in the worst part of the city?

To make things worse, I don’t have any euros, and what’s left of my Czech money I need to last till Friday. So the bus, or indeed, any other form of public transport is out of the question. That leaves me with just one option. I’ve always been keen to try hitch hiking after hearing tales of travellers getting from Poland down to the Costa Blanca. It gets a bad rep in England, but is still common if not exactly encouraged in mainland Europe. Wandering out of the bus station, it takes me only five minutes before I get to a service station.

I strike gold when I come across two hitch hikers from Slovakia. As it happens, they need to get a lift to Bratislava, which is only 100km from Vienna, and then maybe 150 more to Prague. So we approach the trucks waiting in the yard. Mostly the trucks are stationery because they’ve either just finished their journey or are waiting to begin their new one. We approach several drivers. Luckily the Slovakians can speak German, Czech. So we’ve got all our bases covered. Several drivers are approached. None are going to Slovakia or Prague. Things get tough. After an hour, we find a driver who’s going to the next station where the trucks head towards Prague. That’s good enough for me, so I say goodbye to the Slovakians and jump in. The driver can’t speak English and I for my part can’t speak German. So we communicate through emphasis of certain words, hoping that if we say them forcefully enough, the other will guess their meaning.

He drops me off at the next service station, perhaps 30 k from Vienna. There he tells me to look for a lorry with a German number plate. There are several lorries parked, bearing German and Austrian number plates. To ask for a lift, I approach the parked lorries and knock on their windows. Usually if the drivers aren’t asleep they’ll unwind their windows and ask what you need. I don’t bother speaking German, so I ask them very slowly if they are driving towards Prague. I get nothing from them. I approach 20 or so lorries before I persuade a friendly German, called Jimmy I think, to give me a lift. I don’t have a roadmap with me but the German shows me his route and it seems to be where I need to go.

That’s enough for me. He offers me a Fanta from his coolbox. What I really need is food but I take it anyway and gratefully drink it down as Jimmy pulls out into the autobahn. He is good company. He says in the summer time he always stops for hitchers and has taken three before, making room in his sleeping compartment for three backpackers and their backpacks. We drive past Linz and Salzburg heading towards Graz, the Alpine landscape floating past in the wing mirror. Its good being driven like this, I even manage to get some rest. I can’t imagine why people would say anything against it. After two hours Jimmy stops at a rasstation (I am improving my German) and tells me which junction of the autobahn I need to get. Now the rain is coming down hard and I don’t have a rain coat or umbrella. I get soaked through. I’m like a rat that’s been washed out of the sewer. Now the hitching seems like a very bad idea. All the trucks all the cars that I stop are going the wrong way. Then I realise that I’ve come too far, and that I should have stayed in Vienna which was closer to Prague. I really curse my stupidity and then I curse Austria which gave the world Hitler and The Sound of Music.

It’s a good two hours of being rained on and being turned away before I chance upon my next lift. He’s another German. I really press upon him how important it is that I get out of Graz, back to Vienna where I will have a better chance of getting to Prague. He finishes his cigarette, and tells me that he’s on his way home to Budapest. His car is a top of the line Jaguar convertible. The guy must be loaded. I put my pack in his boot, finding room amongst tins of caviar and foie gras and who knows what. I’m starting to think that regular drivers (as opposed to truckers) are better for hitching lifts with. The trucks can’t go as fast. Plus the drivers aren’t as educated, and less likely to speak English, a generalistaion maybe, but on the whole a true one.

The German driver, cool and precise, tells me that he is on his way home to Budapest from a conference he was giving on Economics. Normally he would have flown but it was to be a nice day and he was hoping to take the roof down so that he could smoke. But he’s really pissed off because its been raining the whole way down and he tells me so.
He explains that he wouldn’t normally pick up hitchers (why would he) but he stopped for me because I seemed normally dressed. During the drive I learn some useful information. Firstly, that Hungarians are alone in Eastern Europe as they are not Slavic. They are in fact Magyars, a race connected to the Finns. Second, that the Hungarian police will never stop a car with German number plate, so he can drive as fast as he likes.

He has the radio playing loud, and the Sat Nav reads out the instructions in some sexy female deutsch accent. Pokerface is played by Lady Gaga and later Shakira’s Underneath Your Clothes, which he turns up louder. Pulling up through Linz, past the lower alpen, it finally stops raining. The German pulls in somewhere and brings down the hood. He lights a ciagarette and offers me one which I accept and we drive on.
"This was a bad idea," he says. Although its stopped raining, the wind blows hard in our faces particularly now that he is driving 160 km an hour. He gives me special instructions on how to dispose of the end, to throw it directly downwards so that it doesn’t get blown back in. Things get dicey when he seems to light a marlboro with one hand, drive with the other and then answer his phone, for which he says there is a 500 euro fine. But really he’s a safe pair of hands and I saviour the rarity of the situation.

I’m sorry when he drops me off because I know the next I lift I get won’t be nearly as good. Indeed it isn’t until three hours later I manage to get a lift with a truck driver who is going to Budapest. All I want is to move on so we leave. He’s a young guy, another German. A big guy, he offers me a double cheeseburger from Burger King and then some more cigarettes. Been in the army for five years before he started driving. But to be honest, he doesn’t help me much because even when he drops me off in Hungary, I’m still 300 k from Prague. Worse than this is the fact that its 1am and I have nowhere to sleep, and the motel only accepts Hungarian currency. This is the very lowest point of my journey. I decide my only option is to sleep somewhere near the roadside and get a lift in the morning. God knows how, but I do sleep, and manage to wake up with all my possessions, in fact I’m glad I’m still alive and have all my internal organs.

Hungary is colder than Austria. Its flat, boring landscapes remind me of England. All I have to keep me going is the thought of seeing the girls of Prague again and that when I’m there I will be able to wash my clothes and have a hot meal. Rabbit is Rich by John Updike provides relief from the shattering boredom of waiting five hours for a lift. This is the longest I had to wait for a car. Usually when hitching, you should be able to find a driver who is going to your destination or who can at least take you part of the way. But I don’t think many drivers go through Hungary to Prague. My final lift is a Czech driver called Cuba who has come for meeting. I’m almost in tears when he lets me in his car because I never thought I’d get out of Hungary. Cuba was the best lift I had. He played the best music (Madonna, Robyn, Simply Red) offered a selection of cigarettes including expensive hard to find Balkan Sobraines, and gave me a condensed history of the Czech Republic’s political history. In return I tell him what the Royal Family have been doing and whether Prince William will marry Kate Middleton. I tell him it looks likely.

Cuba drives me through Hungary into Slovakia. We go past the Moldau river and the Danube, Europe’s longest river, though these days not really blue. We drive slow enough for me to get a good look at Bratislava, Slovakia’s capital. It is smaller than Prague, with an imposing castle, but not as impressive I think. I always imagine that Slovakia is the equivalent of Wales or Scotland to England, ie, de facto independent but still politically controlled by us and part of the union. But actually Slovakia has been completely independent from the Czech republic since 1993 and doesn’t rely on the Czech republic for anything. Into the Czech republic, we drive through Silesia in the south where they produce wine. Then onto Moravia, capital Brno, the most industrial city of the Czech republic, and not somewhere anyone would choose to hang around. Brno gave way to lower Bohemia, through several small towns and cities, including the spa town Kralovy Vary. Finally we got to Olomouc, where Cuba dropped me off. Then it was a two hour train journey which got me into Prague with a day and a bit before I had to catch my flight.

I guess I would hitchhike again. Sure, it wasn’t all easy. Being stuck in the middle of Hungary was bad, ditto having no money or food. But I had some great experience doing it. I like the quick easy intimacy that comes from getting into someone’s car, because all the barriers come down, and this rarely, if ever, happens on public transport. I can understand why some people might be wary of hikers. But really, the drivers who accept people into their cars and lorries have more to fear than the ones catching rides. I did a lot wrong, which I wouldn’t want to repeat. But I was also lucky in that my approach of asking drivers directly allowed them the chance to consider whether they would take me or not. I certainly wouldn’t advise anyone to thumb down cars indiscriminately with a painted sign. But really, why not take risks some times? Even when there’s a risk, you look before you leap. But you still leap, right?
© Robert Cottingham June 2009
mrrcott@googlemail.com
Robert is studying at Roehampton University. He is a graduate of the Universityh of Portsmouth Creative Arts Programme and a Woody Allen Scholar.

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