Hitchhiking in Malaysia? Seriously?!

We said goodbye to our second couchsurfer yesterday afternoon.

A girl from Lithuania, where I don't even know the existence of the country [well, I have to admit that I almost failed my geography paper in study time..]

From what I can know this country from the girl [which I love the most about couchsurfing - communicate - learn - knowledge], it's a very small country in Europe, next to Poland. They speak their own language, and it sounds complicated!

Guste stayed 2 nights with us. On the arrival day, we were frightened by her "hitchhiking" fare of MYR 600.

How should I start? Well, it was a last minute request, I accept it after getting permission from Mr. Cool. Understand that she was coming to Penang from Kuala Lumpur by hitchhiking, which is pretty long distance and we didn't expect her to arrive early, I gave an address of a nearby shopping mall.

By the time the surfer texted me, we were out from home. Didn't want her to wait for so long, we quickly settled what we supposed to do, and drove to the mall. She was obviously recognized with a feature of "ang moh" girl with very tall nose, and she was talking to a Malay guy. The first sight I was thinking "oh, that must be the kind driver who bring her all the way from KL to Penang, or at least drop her to this little outskirt town".

The answer is NOOOOOOO! I was saying hi to the surfer, and she told me "he locked my bag in his car and wouldn't me to have it!" Hmm....well, this is awkward...the "kind man" explained that he was a taxi driver, and he did tell her that there is no FREE lunch in the world, no one is going to give you a free ride.

Some stranger started to gather around to see what's happening, and there is a kind lady and a man, not forget a 50-year-old uncle was there helping us to negotiate with the kind driver. We did understand that it was tough that the driver all the way drove from KL to here, but the surfer claimed that she didn't want to get on his car and kept mention that she only wants to get a free ride. And then she did mention that a "friend" is was titing her there, and the driver heard that and asked her "come up! come up!"

Well, that's the story that how we met her. It sounds ridiculous in both side of the stories, I know.

Curious about how we solve the problem? Thanks to the 3 strangers we met, they helped to negotiate the bill to MYR 450 and we shared the bill for her.