Thumbing Around: Robert Prins Writes
took me a mere 72 hours and four rides, the last one with a Turk who set the standard for all Turks to follow, friendly and embarrassingly hospitable: Turkish drivers refused to accept any payment, in spite of a custom that hitchers should offer half the equivalent bus fare. During stops on the longer rides I was inevitably treated to tea or a meal, but was never allowed to pay my share.
My visit to Turkey also had a profound impact on my life in a way that has nothing to do with hitching. In Istanbul I found a copy of one of those magazines that are freely distributed near London tube stations, plastered with the ads from IT recruitment agencies. I decided to move to the UK, a move I haven't really regretted, au contraire!
Of course living in the UK means living in the country of those two famous hitching limits, Land's End & John O'Groats. The Guinness Book was regularly publishing the record hitching time between these two spots, one in the extreme south-west, the other in the extreme north-east.
After two exploratory trips, in November 1991 and May 1992, I set off on 25 June 1992 for a trip to both, despite receiving, on the morning of my departure, a letter from Guinness telling me that they would no longer accept entries for this record. Of course I never did go on to break it, it took me 48 hours and 57 minutes to cover the distance and while trying for the return trip I gave up, running out of time.
And as for my usual summer destination, Greece? After my trip to Turkey in 1990, Yugoslavia had decided to blow itself to pieces, so I was forced to go through Italy. I still wonder why I was always so reluctant to do so before, as that year I made the trip to Athens in a mere 63 hours and 10 minutes, which included the 17 hour crossing between Bari and Patras, or almost 15 hours faster than my best time via Yugoslavia! (However, going from Greece back to the Netherlands via Yugoslavia has always been faster, with a best time of 42:06 hours, versus a best of 74:42 hours via Italy)
Still, after Germany and the UK, Italy is probably the third best country in Europe for hitch-hiking, even for someone whose entire Italian vocabulary can be written on a single sheet of A8 (or is it A9?) paper.
My plans for the immediate future? I'm not sure. Earlier this year I tried to get to
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