Yeah, I once was a pseudo hippie.
So when I discovered couchsurfing on the amazing internet, a light from the heavens shone. Free accommodation! With locals! Who would want to share their culture with me!
It’s a CULTURAL EXCHANGE someone like me in tiny Singapore has always been dying to experience, meet and embrace.
So I uploaded a photo of my portrait against Bangkok’s Wat Arun and blasted a message for each of my destinations in Europe. (Wats. They are as exotic as castles are to Europeans as Disneyland is to Asians.)
It all worked out great. I received enthusiastic replies and was welcomed with open arms, albeit digitally.
All except for that time in Berlin when it started raining cats and dogs and I stayed in with my host, a programmer who listens to industrial music and makes static videos of rainstorms as a hobby. He offered me a shot of vodka followed by an invitation to have sex.
Straight-up vodka, straight-up proposition.
“He then practically forced me to drink multiple cocktails, smoke several joints and then tried to give me some kind of sexually awakening massage because he felt I was ‘too tense’.”
Because “sex during a rainstorm is fun”, he said. Between that and bringing me out for a beer two steps away from his apartment, he really shared his culture with me. I’m glad I got to know other Berliners.
Or the time I went to Liverpool and my host, who had a sterling reputation on the couchsurfing site, made me wait for an hour, then got irritated that I wasn’t carrying a huge backpack because, “I could’ve used my Audi TT instead of this SUV”, he said, frustrated.
He then proceeded to make a detour to the dodgiest supermarket in the country (when there was a huge Tesco’s facing his apartment), and then practically forced me to drink multiple cocktails, smoke several joints and then tried to give me some kind of sexually awakening massage because he felt I was “too tense”. I pretended to sleep early that night, with my pepper spray in hand of course, and let myself out at 5am to catch the first train out to a proper hostel.
Pepper spray, girls. Pepper spray.
There’s also that time a young traveller friend I’d met in Cambodia came to Singapore. I had gone out to meet him, his travel partner, another couchsurfer and his Singapore host at Clarke Quay.
Nobody there could get into the pubs because the host had not told the boys to avoid wearing bermudas. So we all followed this scrawny, middle-aged host decked out in checkered drawstring pants like ducklings back to his condominium, where he pretty much pushed me into a cab home instead of inviting me in.
I could deal with that and it was okay, except that my friend lamented the very next day that the host spooned each of the boys in the middle of the night, and again at sunrise, and he would not let up until they put up a bit of a struggle.
But it’s not all doom and gloom with board and room.
There was a time I went to Manchester, though, and that was indeed great. The group of three university students were the youngest hosts I had encountered and were all up for respectful fun. We went to a festival together and looked out for each other despite being acquainted only the night before, while one of them was getting his dreadlocks weaved in. The boys and girl were extremely nice. But that may be because I told them I carry a knife.
Knife, girls. Knife.
