Visiting a new country can be a rather exciting and refreshing experience. Be it a vacation for a few weeks, or a longer trip around a particular region in the world. We usually associate travelling with new experiences, new acquaintances and freedom. But they say that the world is a dangerous place (it must be true, then).
In a country, such as Liechtenstein, I heard kids learn from the early age that any other country outside their borders is not safe. According to some older Norwegians a similar thought is present among Norwegian youth. They do not seem so eager to travel.
And why would they if they live, supposedly, in one of the best countries in the world?
When I travelled through China, locals advised against going to Vietnam. ‘Vietnam is a dangerous and very chaotic country’ – one woman told me. Vietnamese expressed a similar sentiment regarding Cambodia. For Cambodia is a very dangerous country and that they kidnap foreigners there.
If you think that Iran is a dangerous country, Iranians believe Afghanistan and Pakistan to be dangerous.
This pattern and the general idea that it is dangerous to travel especially alone can be observed everywhere. No matter what the conditions of the particular country are. It is so; because for the most part people have no idea what are they talking about. They only parrot the information they have heard, read, seen on TV.
Maybe, just maybe, these are all but monsters under the bed?!
The Perception of Danger and Safety
Danger and safety are two rather relative terms. Usually when people ask me whether I have ever been to some dangerous situations, I struggle to give an answer. I do not know what kind of situation that particular person would perceive as dangerous.
It is a highly subjective matter. Something that might frighten other people might not have a similar effect on me and vice versa. For example, I find it rather worrisome seeing a person scrolling through their phone while listening to music. Especially if that happens in some dark alley where there is hardly anyone around. In such case, two out of five human senses become impaired. And out of remaining three two would be absolutely useless if one was attacked.
But it does not seem to bother most of the people.
On the contrary
On the other hand I have been in situations when a person who was giving me a ride, drove off the set route without providing any information on the matter; on another occasion after a dead silence the driver locked all doors in the middle of the ride; in other instances I had to physically push the man’s hands away from me for he would not stop touching me;
I can imagine how these scenes might seem daunting to some, or how they might arouse anxiety and fear. But it is important to remember that it is easy to misread some situations. And as a concequence, see what is actually not there.
I highly recommend to watch this short documentary!
Because what makes a particular instance seem dangerous, or scary is lack or absence of control over the situation. My approach in any sort of situation is to observe another person’s behaviours, and my main focus is on how I react to these behaviours. This way I am more in control of the situation, because I am in control of my own mind.
I also spend quite a bit of time thinking about various worst case scenarios, and I try to find solutions to those occasions.
To put it shortly, the world is not as safe place as we all would like it to be, but it is possible to make one’s immediate surroundings safe enough by concentrating on improving one’s own conduct.
Your safety is your, and only your responsibility!
Although it is much simpler and far more pleasing to blame someone else for all the troubles we encounter, such a passive approach is unproductive, and most certainly does not yield any desirable results. What it does instead is that one becomes more frightened of strangers.
In my experience there has been only on one occasion someone stole my belonging. It happened in the first month of my journey. In that situation I could sense that something was off, but I did not dare to act upon my instincts, so I had to bear the consequences.
Such instance has not happened ever since, for I adjusted my behaviours.
A moderate amount of fear is a perfectly healthy response to a potential danger, for it ensures our survival. But what can be observed in a society is not fear, but paranoia.
I am often asked whether something ‘bad’ has ever happened to me. When I give my negative answer to the question, people often sigh and say: ‘’Thank God, you get to encounter only good people’’. With time I came to find such sentiment demeaning and borderline insulting. It does not seem to occur to people that one can be reasonably in control of this process and choose who to associate oneself with. (You might be interested to read this)
As the good old saying goes – you reap what you sow.
Stories I have heard during my brief encounters with people
- Once in Denmark my ride told me a brutal story, which took place a few years ago, about one young woman not making it home after a Friday night. A stranger man offered her a ride back home. Being under the influence of alcohol and, seemingly, unable to analyse the situation adequately enough, she accepted his offer. She never got back home that night. After a long search they found her body parts all over the area. My ride said that the man raped, killed her, cut her body into pieces and scattered them around.
- In Norway, my host told a story about a young woman who hitchhiked across Turkey. She also never made it back home. Ironically, initially she decided to do it with an intention of showing other Norwegians that other countries are not as dangerous as they believe them to be and that hitchhiking is rather safe as well.
- In France my host told me about her traumatizing experience. The event took place seven to eight years ago. She was hitchhiking through Turkey together with her partner. Their ride, a young man, invited them to stay with him. That evening they all drank alcohol. I never got to fully understand what happened that night. She struggled to talk about her experience. All I could grasp was that she had to run out of the house. Because the man was trying to rape her. I just assumed that her partner was too drunk to notice what was happening or to react in anyway.
Men can be a subject to such instances too
- My host in Norway told me about his hitchhiking experiences in Australia, which took place more than twenty years ago. Apparently, the person who gave him and his friend a ride was planning on murdering them both under pretence of hospitality. Somehow (I can’t remember how) they were able to figure that out and run away.
- One young Austrian man, whom I encountered in Spain, told me how a man picked him up and a few minutes later began touching him and offering sexual pleasures. The man was clearly married, as he had a ring on his finger and two baby seats at the back of the car.
- Another young male traveller that I know of had an experience of similar nature in Iran. Except for his driver pulled his own pants down and asked for oral sex a few minutes into the ride.
Hard cocks is my everyday reality
- In Spain a man touched me a few times. Once I told him to stop doing that he began touching himself. He masturbated throughout the ride and repeated a few times ‘mira, mira’ while playing with his member.
- In Armenia an Iranian truck driver begged me for sex, saying that he really needs it and that he had been stressed lately. After hearing a series of ‘no’ he blamed me for feeling unwell, for I was so stubborn in my position. A similar situation took place in Iran the next day when I had already crossed borders. Both of them threw a tantrum, like a little boy in a supermarket when mommy refused to buy him a chocolate.
- My host in Karaj, Iran, just a few minutes before my departure asked if we could have a quickie. He promised that it would take only a couple minutes. Jokingly I thought to myself whether he was trying to convince me, or discourage.
- A man in Russia was willing to put me up at a hotel only if I would agree to have sex with him.
- In Germany a man put me up at a hotel and tried to exploit the fact that I had no money by offering me 500 euros in exchange for sex.
- In Germany a Serbian truck driver asked me whether I would be interested in having sex with him. After hearing a ‘no’ he offered me money. Again, after hearing another ‘no’ he asked me to at least show him my breasts. Yet again, after receiving another ‘no’ he offered me money if I was to show him my breasts.
On other occasions
- Once upon a time Azeri truck driver gave me a lift. He referred to me as his guest and treated me as such during the entirety of the day. We had dinner in the evening and soon went to sleep: me on the bottom bunk bed, him on the top one. In about ten minutes after went to our beds he asked me three questions in a following order: is everything okay? (yes); are you comfortable enough? (yes); do you want sex?.. Next morning he asked another question – don’t you like sex?
- A man in Uzbekistan who drove me from the border of Tajikistan to Tashkent invited me to his apartment for a couple hours. He kept touching my legs and insisting that we went, and had a rather dumb expression on his face when I repeatedly rejected him. He was the first man I have ever hit, for I could not conceal my irritation.
- In Cambodia a truck driver on our way to Sihanoukville stopped the truck, pointed at the bushes in front of us and invited me to join him there.
Another way to look at these situations
The aforementioned instances are only a small part of a body of experience I have accumulated over the years. Yet when I am asked whether something bad has ever happened to me, my answer until now is negative, for I do not perceive these instances as anything outstandingly terrible.
Although, some of the situations I have been to were quite stressful, recounting them right now make them seem ridiculous and ironic as they are.
Just as ironic as a song by Pussycat Dolls called ‘Beep’. It delivers the fundamental difference between two sexes just on point.
While Will I Am goes:
It’s funny how a man only thinks about the—
You got a real big heart, but I’m lookin’ at yo’—
You got real big brains, but I’m lookin’ at yo’—
Girl, it ain’t no pain in me lookin’ at yo’—
Nicole sings:
Ooh, you’ve got it bad, I can—
Tell, you want it bad, but, oh
Well, dude, what you got for me is
Something, I, something I don’t need
The kind of woman Nicole Scherzinger represents in this song is confident, she knows what she wants and she knows what she doesn’t want. And she does not shy away from expressing her desires.
I imagine her shaking her head and rolling her eyes in disapproval if a man was to randomly pull his pants down in front her. She understands what men want, and to some she is simply not willing to give it.
In my mind this is the only way how a woman can handle an ongoing pressure that comes from men and their relentless desires to possess our bodies.
Conclusions
The most important question to ask is not how dangerous or safe the country is, but how good of a problem solver one is. How well can one read the situation adequately enough and take precautionary measures. What kind of habits and behaviours does one practice in order to avoid potential troubles.
The more conscious we are of our surroundings, the less dangerous the world in one’s own experience becomes.
I personally think that it must not be underestimated what human beings are capable of. The world can, indeed, be dangerous. But mainly to those who focus more about what others do, rather than thinking about their own actions.