An unexpected journey

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]ometimes, travel can be more about the people you meet rather than the places you go; for me, it was the blossoming of a beautiful friendship between two hitch-hikers.

Along with my new friend, Sukho (who was wearing a bright pink tutu to catch the attention of drivers), I ventured out into the unknown. We began the journey by dancing on the roadside, hoping that if our cardboard signs didn’t work, perhaps they would be enticed by our intense body-popping skills. We were so desperate to catch a lift, in fact, that we had madly scrawled the words, “WE HAVE COOKIES” onto one of the signs in garish highlighters.

English weather was not on our side; the sign was unreadable by the end of the first day due to the rain pummelling the pitiably thin paper which we had stuck to the cardboard using nothing but a glue stick. This was probably for the best, though, since by that point we had eaten all of the cookies ourselves and the promise on our sign was all lies.

We were so desperate to catch a lift, in fact, that we had madly scrawled the words, “WE HAVE COOKIES” onto one of the signs

We wandered helplessly around Coventry for an hour before a middle-aged couple stopped their car for us. Our casual friendly fist-bump suddenly turned into an excited embrace as we celebrated our first successful hitch with strangers. Until we realised it was illegal to hitch-hike on motorways…

After spending two hours attempting to cut through a field, slicing our way through an aggressive mass of stinging nettles – Sukho having to despairingly abandon the tutu after becoming ensnared in a trap of thorns – we stumbled out into a party of cows.

We had both attained an attractive selection of scratches down our arms. My eyes were watering from the amount of times Sukho had allowed a branch to swing back and smack me in the face, not to mention we had completely forgotten where the exit was.
He spent a great deal of time trying to climb over a fence without impaling himself on the spikes at the top while I watched (offering moral support whenever I could, of course). It took us about twenty minutes to realise we were actually able to fit through the bars. Even now, a year later, this is still one of our funniest memories.

He spent a great deal of time trying to climb over a fence without impaling himself on the spikes at the top while I watched (offering moral support whenever I could, of course)…

You never really know who’s going to be behind the wheel. We met an army woman, the sweetest elderly couple, and a Flemish man who we were convinced was an angel when he rescued us (except he was an angel who smoked a shisha pipe and drove a military van).

This was all after we had to spend the night in a deserted service station, which was beyond weird. Hours passed like days as we drifted half-asleep through the blurry white realm, the walls emitting a humming sound that Sukho and I began to imitate whilst lying on the cold hard floor as if we had been confined to a mental hospital for the night.

We sung ‘Day Tripper’ by The Beatles as loud as we could before falling asleep side by side in our shared blanket. At the end of the three days, it was as if we had been friends for years: together we had journeyed under the ocean and hitched our way through Holland on two trains.

We arrived in Amsterdam at night, when the bikes that passed were mere specs of light, blinking as the cyclists weaved in and out of trees. With still an hour left, we had made it to our destination and raised over £200 for Cancer Research!