You are approached by two backpackers. They tell you their story of misfortune. Robbed in the hostel, they now have no money and only their passports to get them home. What do you do?
There are numerous stories of similar scams doing the rounds on the internet and via travellers’ gossip. After all, if you are going to pull a scam you’re hardly going to dress up as a one-eyed gangster. A young innocent-looking backpacker couple is an excellent front for a hustle.
We faced this situation many years ago while waiting to board a train from Paris to Calais. We did buy the couple a ticket to Calais and a ferry crossing to England, when £40 was a big chunk of my weekly pay. Handing over the cash along with our address to send a cheque when they returned home, we accepted that we were acting purely on our faith in their honesty.
The cheque arrived two days after we got home, and we felt a lot better for helping these two people.
Another situation arose last year that I mentioned in previous posts. We were driving a hire car along a remote desert road in eastern Syria and saw two men, faces covered, flagging us down. I quickly worked out that their motorbike had clearly broken down and they needed a ride. I had a quick choice to make. Do I pick up a mysterious stranger in this desolate place and accept the risks that go with it or do I drive on, knowing that we hadn’t passed a car for over an hour on this road?
I pulled over, he jumped in without a word and tapped me on the shoulder a while later as we passed through a small town.
Both of these situations required an element of blind trust. In one the risk was a loss of some cash, in the other it could have been our personal safety. If we had followed the many ‘stay safe’ tips that insurers, government advisers and many websites provide we would have acted differently in both cases.
I don’t want to paint us out as some type of travelling Mother Teresas. For the cases where we have helped there will be others that we have driven on by, or made our apologies and left people to ask others for help.
But maybe if we take a step back, helping strangers on our travels is perhaps an essential part of what we should be doing. After all, if we look at ourselves travelling through another land, aren’t we the strangers often looking for help from others? Don’t we expect others to place that blind trust in us, in order to give us directions, help or unexpected hospitality? Sharing these moments and others like them have made for some of our most memorable adventures.
We will all meet scammers from time to time, and the ability to detect them is not an exact science. We will inevitably dismiss some honest folk with the mark of trickery while succumbing to an occasional trickster. But to close our eyes to each and every person’s requests for help for fear of deception misses the very essence of what our travels should be about; and can deprive us of some of the most meaningful rewards to go with those new passport stamps.
Related posts:
The fun of being rescued by strangers – a story of a young Kyrgyz girl helping us out of a sticky situation
Lost in Syria - self-drive adventures in the Syrian desert
The government of the Netherlands is currently running a campaign titled How to deal with nice persons. It aims to encourage ordinary citizens to be more trusty. A person may honestly be just in need of some help, or just trying to offer some help.
Apparently, the topic of the Dutch campaign may be universal.
Glad to hear it Martijn! It’s something others should adopt too. Thanks for sharing.
Interesting article. I once gave my phone to a young man at a train stop because he said he was late for work and needed to call his boss. He made a quick call and then took off running with my phone. I kind of had a sense that he was no good, but his request seemed reasonable, and I did not want to be a jerk. Have to trust your instincts.
Good post. This is a dilemma we all face all the time, not just when we travel. How do I know that panhandler really needs money for food, or whether they might spend it on drugs? It’s a tough call. As you say, there are so many scams out there preying upon people’s sympathies. I think you just have to go with your gut instincts.
Thanks Ted and Gray, agree with both of you that it’s got to come down to acting on our instincts. You never get it 100% right (felt bad for you Ted, reading your phone story!) but at the same time the world is not full of evil psychopaths, contrary to what some would have us believe.
Whoa! This post blew my socks off! Made me think long and hard about some stuff. Your question: “After all, if we look at ourselves travelling through another land, aren’t we the strangers often looking for help from others?” was so profound. Cannot count the times I have been willingly and selflessly helped by strangers. I help whenever I can, trusting in my gut, but as a solo woman traveler I tend to be quite careful. But then I thought about all the beggars that I pass by on a daily basis and refuse to give money to. Perhaps this is a way I could return some of the kindnesses I have received without endangering my safety. Years back, a woman in Honduras approached me, asking for money. She was poorly dressed and walking in thin sandals, carrying a nursing infant in one hand and holding another child by the hand. Because I had been warned not to give to beggars, since it teaches them to beg rather than to work, I said no. To this day I regret not having given her some money. I think sometimes people really need it, and as you say, it is better to have been the target of a harmless scam and loose a tiny bit of money, than to go through life never helping.
Hi,
I just finished a great read on this topic while traveling through Central America for six months. The book´s called ´The Kindness of Strangers´ and it´s about travelers in need receiving help from others. Heartwarming to read just how many people are out there who care about their fellow humanbeings!
Even in Central America, where everyone warns you not to trust anyone, people are the same. There are good people and bad people. Although it might be sometimes difficult to make the distinction between the good ones and the bad ones, follow your instincts and realize that there are a lot more good people (who care about you and your wellbeing) than bad ones out there!
Thanks Rian (and Barbara from way back!)
There are a lot more good people out there than bad, exactly as you say. We can’t trust blindly and fall prey to every trickster and villain, but at the same time we have to be open to people’s hospitality or we miss one of the central reasons for travel. I recommend a look at Barbara’s blog to see here experiences in central America at the moment, and her colourful encounters with the locals she’s meeting.
I think the best advise I received about this was from my best friend who’d travelled through asia years before I ever got the courage to travel. He told me to”trust your intuition” If it feels wrong, don’t do it. I followed this advise in every aspect of travelling and not just in regards to helping others. Like you, there were some people I helped and others I didn’t. It entirely depended on the situation and my gut feeling towards it.
I also got myself into many hairy situations that could’ve gone either way but by getting in touch with my intuition and actually listening to it, I came through every situation ok. On the flip side, the one time I ignored it, I ended up with a dent in the car and nearly driving off a cliff.
Intuition is important as you say James, and can’t really be taught (although the ability to trust it certainly can). You’ll have to share your car and cliff story with us now
I’m planning on writing about it. Pretty much I drove nearly 20,000 Kms up the East coast of Australia and back without a hitch. Then, literally, on the second last day I saw a place I wanted to explore that was off the road in the Snowy Mountains. I was in my Nissan X-Trail 4WD and had done a lot of off-road driving in the previous months. I noticed the little area that ducked behind some trees that seemed to lead to somewhere interesting. It was about at that moment my intuition started telling me not to go there, I didn’t need to see it.
So of course after months of listening to my intuition I decided this was the time I’d ignore it. I drove round the corner and right in front of me was a mass of fallen trees blocking the way. Slammed on the brakes and pulled up in time. Without thinking us landed in reverse and started to back up. It was then that I had the crunch. I backed into a tree. The area was too narrow to allow me to open the doors and get out and investigate, so move forward and then reversed again while keeping an eye on the tree in my mirror.
It was at that moment that I noticed the back of the car drop on the opposite side. I looked in the other mirror and angled it down to see what had happened. I noticed the back wheel was almost hanging off a huge vertical drop straight down into a river about 15 m below. The scrub on the side had been so thick I had noticed a drop. I carefully move the car forward and back on the track. I sat for a moment and slapped myself for being so careless and ignoring my gut feeling. I then carefully backed the car up, checking both sides as I went.
Once back in an open and relatively safe area I got out to assess the damage. Luckily it wasn’t bad, just a small dent on the back corner of the car. It could’ve been a lot worse. The thing that irritated me the most was that it was on the second last day of the trip. You gotta laugh…
Wow, thanks for sharing James. Sounds like a lucky escape! Don’t you find that the tricky part is that sometimes our intuition is much louder in retrospect?
Sometimes, although I find the more you listen to it the louder it gets. This was definitely a case where just I ignored it. I recall having the thoughts beforehand not to go down there, but the desire to explore was greater than my will to listen to my intuition. Plus there was the rebellious side of me that didn’t want to get told not to do something, even if it was me telling myself.
I also think that sometimes it’s hard to pick the difference between your intuitive voice and your conscious voice (considering they sound the same). Now I’m starting to sound like I need a shrink, talking about all these different voices in my head telling me what to do.
Just two months ago, I was in Xi’an, China, travelling when my friend and I decided to go to the tombs of the Han emperor (not the same as the famed terracotta warriors). After taking close to two hours to get to the god-forsaken place, we arrived at 1115 and had no idea that the next bus we could catch back to the city was at 1500; there was a bus at noon, but there was no way we would have finished touring the area in time.
So anyhow, we decided to just tour the place, and hoped that we would be able to find our way out without having to wait four hours for the next bus. During the entire time we were there, there were a group of tourists with their guide (shan’t reveal the nationality of the tourists) walking just behind us and barely anyone else. Later, when we were attempting to leave, we remembered them, and decided to wait and see if we could hitch a ride out in their vehicle; we assumed that if they had a guide, they were likely to also have their own van or car.
So, the two of us Chinese girls (by race, not nationality), approached them and, I’d like to think, very politely spoke to them in English. The first guy we approached completely ignored us; he did not even stop to listen and just walked past us as if we were transparent. The second guy we approached stopped briefly for 2 seconds, then said there was no space in the van.
Suffice to say we were really really pissed then, not because they declined us, but more so because they did not even give us the time of the day. And I sure hope they were not being racist because then there were clearly in the wrong country. I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt that there were just being careful, although I think the two of us, who were about a head shorter than any of them, looked pretty harmless.
So the moral of my very long story/comment is that, the world needs more fellow travellers like you. So thank you!
And if you’re keen to know: we were lucky to find a cab out, and we were fleeced of some $ by the driver, but that’s a completely different story altogether for another day.
Thanks for sharing Daph. Sounds like you both had a tough time, and yes I can understand why you’d be VERY pissed off with them. Hope you enjoyed the visit to the Han emperor’s tombs at least!
You’ll have to share the taxi story sometime. We all have a rip-off taxi story or two to share…
Interesting post Andy! Really makes you think doesn’t it? and the same applies not only for people need your help exactly but some who in turn offer help to you! After a while of meeting people who seem to ‘help’ you out only for the whole thing to end in a sales pitch, price tag or a visit to his store! We found this happening to us especially in Egypt… even at the end when we said – alright this time this guy seems genuine, we turned out to be wrong.!. its really important to maintain perspective to avoid your whole experience and interaction with people being marred by the errors of few.
Thanks Lavanya – you’re right, and in certain countries the guy comes up and wants to be your friend is very likely to want to sell you stuff/rip you off. While I would probably be quite relaxed about a stranger approaching me in Japan, I might be more suspicious in Egypt and suspect that someone wants me, in some way or other, to part with my $$$. It’s not about racial stereotypes, it’s about relative poverty and the inequality between your perceived wealth and that of the local folks.
I encountered a variation of this on the road- a group of forty backpackers and hikers arrived at at the start of the Torres del Paine backpacker trail and paid up their National Park fees. One couple hadn’t read up on the latest fee hike and didn’t have enough cash to cover their meals, accommodation and national park fees. They weren’t destitute, they were simply careless.
They went down the line asking if people could spot them until they arrived back in town after the hike and had access to cash. My then partner and I saw them coming down the queue not having much luck. Part of me felt for them, but part of me tried to imagine myself in this situation- If I’d been careless like they’d been, I’d have turned around, gone back into town and got more money out and started the trek again the next day. Sure, it would have been a tedious few hours on a bus and a day’s delay, but I’d have no one to blame but myself for it, and no one to owe anything to. I wouldn’t go begging like that, it’s just not me.
The clincher however was that it that we knew this couple from the five day ferry ride we’d taken to the bottom of the world. For five days while everyone chatted and got to know each other, this couple had pretty much isolated themselves. Whenever you’d try to talk to them they’d kind of snub you, or blow you off. We knew them from the boat, sure, but they didn’t want to know us until they wanted something. So intuition told me not to lend them cash- and i didn’t.
Thanks Shaney – it’s a good example of why being nice to people pays off in ways you might not expect. Their snubbing of others didn’t serve them well in the end. In their position I’d have probably had a go at asking around for the park fee (especially if it wasn’t a lot of cash) – but I’d like to think I wouldn’t have acted in such a way beforehand that people wouldn’t want to help me.
I agree with Lavanya. In touristic places you can get “compassion fatigue”. People asking to have a look in their shop or chat for a minute which leads to a sell or a scam. Of course that is where intuition comes in. A young guy near a train station in a heavily touristed city is going to get alarm bells ringing more than an old woman who has broken down way off the beaten track.
Having bummed my fair share of lifts, meals and beds over the years I feel I’m at an age when I should be giving more than I get from strangers. The problem arises with being a tour guide and someone, like Daph, asks us for a lift. As the tour leader I am happy to have someone sit in a spare seat but the group might think it a bit odd that I suddenly start using the tour vehicle as a taxi.
On an unrelated subject, were you at the WTM last weekend Andy. I saw a man deep in conversation who looked like you but I didn’t have the courage to butt in.
I was there James – you should have butted in. Always good to say hello. GIve us a shout next time you’re up at an event in London