As I drove along the misty hills of the Dhofar Mountains just outside Salalah during the monsoon rains, a blurry image of someone walking along the side of the road would appear every now and then. Sometimes they seemed like they might have been hitchhiking, but it was so foggy it was hard to tell. Here’s my question: Would you stop for a person walking on a rainy night on a dangerous road in which a car behind you could easily hit your car when pulling over to pick up a barely visible individual(s) whose image would be hard enough to see without a hood hiding their face on a dark, foggy night? These are the scenes of which horror movies are made! This one called “The HitchHiker” popped in my mind with the famous line, “Thanks for the ride, lady”!
There are many countries in which picking up hitch-hikers and/or hitch-hiking is illegal. I think they have these laws for good reasons. There is a stretch of highway in B.C., Canada where dozens of women have gone missing or been killed when hitchhiking known as “The Highway of Tears“. Here’s a recent report on this tragic story.
As far as I know, Oman has no clear laws prohibiting hitchhiking or the picking up of hitchhikers.
You are in fact gambling with your life when you hitchhike. I think there is also a lot of risk involved for those picking up complete strangers. I do not pick up hitchhikers much at all now that I’m married and have a child but I have done it quite a few times when driving alone. I have had some bizarre cases. Like the Omani man I picked up just in front of The Golden Tulip in Nizwa on my way to Ibri from Muscat who didn’t seem to know where he wanted to go! I only realized how drunk he was after he got into my car! The fact that he was hitchhiking in front of a major hotel (one of the few places Omanis can get alcohol) should have been a major hint! Then there was the time with another old drunk Omani man I picked up near the Turtle Reserve outside Sur on the way to my bungaloo who wanted off in the middle of nowhere but seemed to think it was just as good a spot as any!
I once picked up an old Omani hitchhiker on the Sabco/CCC road who indicated with body language that he had some kind of injuries, wanted a ride to the hospital and hinted that he was short on cash as I dropped him off at Khoula Hospital. Those are the cases I don’t mind as the whole point of stopping for someone is to help them out. What’s amazing is when I consider the high proportion of people I have picked up with alcohol on their breath…
(Pic stolen from this blog) My most bizarre story of hitch-hiking goes way beyond my days here in Oman back to my highschool years. In that case, I was the one hitchhiking. I was heading home to Hampton, NB after working a shift washing dishes at The Holiday Inn in Saint John, NB. A dusty, dirty trans-am (I think) pulled over and some grungy looking guy got out to pull the front door passenger seat forward to let me in the back. (Should have been a warning light going off in my head as only front door means there’s no place to escape!) The 2 bearded men looked like your typical Canadians of the day with shoulder length hair hidden under worn-out baseball caps and sporting plaid lumberjack like shirts. Besides the loud AC/DC music, (I think they were playing “Hells Bells”…) these guys weren’t saying much but kept giving each other a strange, sinister look with a smirk on the driver’s face as he eyed me in the rear-view mirror. As we approached about halfway to my destination, the guy in the passenger seat lowered the music down enough to be heard and said, “So you thought you were just going to get a ride, huh?!” I was pretty spooked as you may very well imagine and so I kept quiet. He repeated his question which was more like a statement indicating my imminent demise. I remember wondering if my whole life would be summed up in a public service announcement to think twice before hitchhiking. “Don’t hitchhike. Remember what happened to gullible little Andrew Brown back in ’98 when he got into a stranger’s car?” Then, he said to the driver, “Where’s the pistol? Is it in the glove box?” As he reached into the glove box, I was bracing myself for what I thought was the inevitable. I was preparing myself to slap a gun that I expected to be pointed at my face from the front seat! To my relief, the guy closed the glove-box with a loud thud and said, “Damn. I must have left it in the trunk. This is your lucky day.” At that point, I said, “I think this is a good spot to get out. Can you pull over please?” I tried to sound in control and hoped that my voice wouldn’t crack when “making my demand”. They pulled over, the guy got out, put the seat forward ever so slowly while looking back at me and to my astonishment, they simply let me out. They peeled off into the distance and to this day, I really wish that I had the presence of mind to get their license plate number! Now that I think back to that incident and the smirking looks they gave one another, I realize that I had been part of a pre-planned, immature, imbecilic prank. If such a prank were peformed in this day and age, they would probably have recorded it and I’d be on youtube for all the world to laugh at. That incident has always stuck with me in considering safety when hitchhiking or picking up hitchhikers!
(Pic taken from www.failblog.org ) My advice is simply this: just give it some thought before you consider getting in a stranger’s car (especially you ladies out there!!!) and consider the situation carefully before letting a complete stranger into your car. Common sense, huh?! Well after 30 odd years, this Canadian boy is still learning, ha!ha! 🙂
Andy in Oman 