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IHHC 4, HITCHING WITH FLOWERS, SPIRITUALITY RECAPPED
MARCH 2000
writen by Bernd Wechner (AU) on 9 March 2000
I'm back from the IHHC 4. I'll of course have an article up at Suite 101 for April 1st on the conference itself, for the moment, the question which raised a lot of interest was, "how do you hitchhike with a 1m tall bunch of
straw flowers from the Kaziuko muge?"
Well Vladas was nice enough to drop me, Petr and Wenda at the road to
Marijampole for the hitch towards Poland. We split up, I stood ahead they
behind and agreed to help each other out if a ride would take all three. It
turns out we took 4 rides altogether, and all of them together. First I
stood forward, then they, then I, then they, we alternated. Each time
someone stopped they were prepared to take all three. First ride to Trakai,
second to Marijampole, third to the border, fourth through the border. They
went on to Augustow with that ride and I got out to fish a ride to Germany.
None of the drivers was talkative, in fact none said anything at all, except
the first guy. Most weird hitch.
We were fast:
07:40 at Vilnius
08:15 at Trakai
10:00 at Marijampole
10:41 at border
12:51 through border
13:00 three polish hitchers (Asia, Tomek and ?) turn up. They caught the bus
from Vilnius and were hitching to Gdansk. We beat them ;-).
From there things went downhill for me. At the LT side of the border the
guards wanted to fine me 100 Litas for pissing in the woods. Petr saved me
with his smooth Russian. But they wouldn't let us walk through so we had to
hitch through.
At the other side, there was a strong cold wind, the guards wouldn't let me
back in to take a piss and there was nowehre discrete to piss so every hour
when I needed a piss I had to walk a long way to avoid being hassled for
pissing on the field, and then come back to fish rides at the gate (where
the cars were still very slow and stopped).
There was no traffic. Much less than last year I think. One car every 5
minutes, or less, maybe very ten. Really, they came in groups of maybe three
cars once every 20 mintues or so. I turned down one ride into Warsaw. Then
two hours later a polish man who spoke very clear English and knew the road
inside out, offered me a ride to Warsaw again. I started thinking to go. He
told me of the junction at Rozan where all the LT cars from here, and the
other border crossing and the BY cars, heading for Germany cross. He drove
this route a lot himself. It was a roundabout, with good stopping and slow
traffic, and we'd make it in good daylight. He was nice so I said yes.
Maybe a mistake. It got dark while at Rozan and was snowing on me, and all
the damned LT cars and trucks refused to stop. So I hitched through the
night and made to Berlin by 7 a.m. only. No sleep. With my flowers. It
rained a lot, snowed a lot, and now LT cars or trucks stopped, and all the
LT trucks I approached at service stations pretended I didn't exist. It was
in fact only Poles and Russians that helped me. One Pole couldn't take me
anywhere, but it was late and he stopped to invite me to sleep at his house!
One Russian also invited me to sleep in his truck! I could speak with noone
all the way! Only the ride into Poland, and the last out of Poland could we
speak. The reast know only languages I didn't. But there were some beautiful
people. Just the Lithuanians were ignorning me. Still I was about 5 hours
late (should have arrived around 2 a.m. in Berlin if I had got a ride from
the PL/LT border to Germany) so Vladas is definitely right, better to wait
as much as 5 or 7 hours at the border for an LT car than to hitch through PL
if you're in a rush.
I picked up Louise, the NZ girl who couldn't gte into Poland, and we went
straight on to Germany. We got stuck around Karlsruhe and the Freiburg, and
it was again, about 5 a.m. before we got home to Geneva! I went 46 hours
without sleep and had to be at work in 3 hours ;-). I got to work a little
late, about 2 p.m. ;-).
Now, what about spirituality? At the conference I shared a story on
coincidences and how it makes people wonder about the meaning of life,
chance and fate.It involved a few wonderful twists, and missed others
(because I didn't want to talk all day, and the whole story is even longer
;-), but one strong theme was that Iw as twice picked up by the friends of
an old flatmate of mine a long long way from home.
Well, stuck near Freiburg, I came backf rom a piss in the woods to find
Louse talking to a driver who cmae form near Geneva (Vaudoise plates). He
was turning her down. Not going to take her. She was pleading. We were there
already 90 minutes and there was again one car every 5 minutes only, being
nearly midnight, but no success. I started to talk to him, then a woman came
out of the shop towards this car.
I knew her! She was an esperantist from Lausanne! Celestine! Of course, now
they took us ;-).
But they were moving house, she'd married a Belgian and he was moving to
Lausanne with her. They had to cross customs with their trailer of goods,
and customs was closed when we got there, so they had to sleep the night and
go through in the morning. So we had to hitch onwards.
Convinced Daniel, a Belgian guy heading for Mt. Blanc to parapente there,
that he should not sleep (which he wanted to do), but drive us to Geneva.
Nice guy. He agreed. Had only one seat, so I lay in the back of his van, and
we got home very late.
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