sofasurfers

As with any community, couchsurfing is rife with gossip; outrageous
behaviour travels fast and far online. And so, on my last day in
Xi’an, Beth takes me to her English school [quick tangent: in the
staffroom, a very shy Chinese student with a clipboard interviews us
about music: "Do you like music? Why do you like music? What don't you
like? Why not?" but she's so shy, she doesn't write down any of the
answers; she just blushes and flees – it's the sweetest thing] where
she looks up online a Californian couchsurfer in China who has been
causing something of a stir with his sexual preferences. Actually, so
keen is Beth to pass on the goss she phones both Gareth and another
Xi’an couchsurfer; we probably spend an entire hour searching for his
online profile. Anyway, search over, it seems he invites his lone
female guests to swing with him. Couchsurfing works because it
operates an Ebay-style reference system – and the act of
propositioning unwilling women makes for compelling reading with some
juicily negative references: “This man boasted about how “large” he
was, and how well he could “satisfy” a woman and then invited me to a
swinging club. His conversation is totally inappropriate for
couchsurfing.” And another more (typically) cagey reference: “I
strongly advise that before accepting this man’s hospitality, you meet
him for a coffee beforehand to check that you both want the same
thing.” So: surprise, surprise – people really do use coushsurfing for
casual sex. What’s more surprising is that this man is a couchsurfing
ambassador (for which you need just 10 positive references and to have
been vouched for by another ambassador), which goes to show that
ambassadorial glory is somewhat meaningless. And – what do you know –
there’s a swinging scene in China

So at the designated time, I trot alo g to KFC, the meeting point for
the Xi’an couchsurfing group monthly get-together (some serendipity
that it lands on the day I land, sans host). This is where a) I hope
to connect with my replacement hosts, and where b) I hope to parachute
into a readymade social gathering with instant friends. It’s only when
I arrive at KFC-on-a-China-scale (ie a vast, 600-cover eaterie) that I
start feeling a bit tragic/shy/lost. I see one whitey with two young
Chinese people, but I can’t bring myself to assume that the one
mixed-race group are the couchsurfers. I hide behind some fauxliage in
an attempt to bore myself into action. Soon after, I hear the words in
my ear, “Are you here for the couchsurfing meeting?” (’Meeting’ – why
so businesslike?). Hello Romeo (real name, apparently) – Romeo is a
Californian airline pilot who had actually called me earlier in the
day to respond to my last-minute couch request (though by that time it
was all sorted). “Do you know if this is the right KFC?” he adds.
Pointing out that there is in fact another (though smaller) KFC
directly opposite, I find myself potentially in yet another ‘casual’
directions drama (when due to meet my Beijing hosts at Peking
University’s West Gate, I learnt that there were in fact two West
Gates… and then there was of course the “which Ulan Bator public
library” fiasco). This, I realise, is a Chinese hazard – so big,
everything is in duplicates: London is just so village by comparison.
Actually, no such drama ensued – the other group I’d spied were in
fact couchsurfers, and we gravitated together in one seemingly normal
and thoroughly unstrange collection of strangers: not one person had
met before, yet there was so much to share. Eventuallythe female half
of my hosts arrived –Beth, a 26-year-old Canadian English teacher –
and we set off to our meal (not in KFC).

After some mixed messages from my host in Xi’an (I’ll meet you off the
train/get a bus to the centre of town), and no response to my sms, my
couch was clearly looking a little shaky in Xi’an. I called him, I
texted him, I called him…. “Sorry, the subscriber is not reachable”.
But it’s only 9am, and I’ve taken refuge in a youth hostel (which for
a traveller who wants their ear to the ground, it’s the next best
place as there’s a constant flow of stories, tips). Plus they have
wifi. So I jump straight in, and join the Xi’an couchsurfing group.
And look! They’re all having dinner tonight. Soon I will have local
friends, even if I don’t have a couch. I also make some last minute
requests, on account of Plan A going awol (I later receive a text from
his number saying, “Jack forget phone. He went old hometown. He maybe
tommorrow come back. What can I do.”). And lo, some hours in, I get a
response, from the city ambassador no less, who hosts with his
girlfriend. Moral of the story: don’t make snap judgements.

…is great (yes, there’s a phone signal here). We’re 800m up, and some of the climb reminded me of my 1st encounter with stairs, when you have to take to all fours to mount (stop that now!). As one fellow climber said, ‘Now I know what they mean by breathtaking views’. For others, The Great Fall of China would be more appropriate. And for company, I’m with CSers, hearing about how some are more like bed hoppers! Gory details soon!

Hitchhiking in Russky Island

Hitchhikers and couchsurfers exist happily in the same Venn Diagram. There is also a massive young hitchhiking movement in Russia. When I explained to Stasia, my new St Petersburg friend here in Vladivostok and inveterate hitchhiker, that thumbing a lift in Britain is a long shot these days, on account of our fear of baddies, she replied, “Yes. Apparently only Poles and Slovaks pick up hitchhikers in Great Britain.” (I felt some amount of national shame.) Anyway, so there we were – Stasia, another Russian couchsurfer called Nikolai (who was from the Altai mountains and actually staying in a hotel in Vladivostok on a business trip, and who used couchsurfers to find instant friends on the ground) and I, on Russky Island, in the Sea of Japan off the coast of Vladivostok (bear with me here!)… somewhat stranded because we’d missed the bus. “Let’s hitch!” I venture, feeling like I could ride on the coattails of someone who knew what she was doing.

And so she did – while I futilely (that looks wrong) stuck my sore thumb skywards, Stasia calmly flagged down a car rather like a policeman would – palm held flat and vertical in the international sign language of “Stop”, and then raised up and down in the code of “Slow down – now!” We were quickly picked up by Alexei, someone who’d lived on Russky Island all his life and whose job was to cart sand around to construction sights. And no, he wasn’t a military man – he just liked a bit of camo. Why am I laughing so much? Because I’m in the midst of saying, “Please! Camera further away from me – please!”