I Never Planned to Hitchhike to the UK, Tt’s All Because I Keep Saying It

I feel like i can achieve anything now…

me(eric) was hitchhiking from Moscow to sainkt peterpurg

story background: I’m Eric, my dream is to help naruto to friendalize human beings, i never thought i could really hitchhike all over russia and turkey to Bulgaria, but why the hell i wanna do this??

Before Russia — still in Taiwan, i dont know what i am going to do with 3 months visa

Way before I start out my hitchhike trip, I have no idea what i am going to do with my super valuable 3months business visa. Because russia is too big for me and i only have one month of solo travel experience in south India.

But i was being inspired so much by this youtube channel and this youtube channel , the combination of hitchhike across Russia channel and nomading around the earth channel.

Shockingly, thanks to my ego, even though i have zero idea how to hitchhike across Russia and being a nomad, I still share my little map on Instagram about my “conquer russia trip”.

And the reason why?

I was proud that i have such a cool visualization, i want to share my cool idea to people, and make people know such a cool person exist. So my real original purpose of this map — navigation was replaced by visualization or proudness, as if i am the chosen one to do this epic mission.

Instead of real planning on achieving this map this visualization of me standing in Moscow, i was using an as-if-I-have-already-succeed attitude telling people about my conquer Ru ssia plan, like a “6 year old kid saying he wants to change the world” attitude.

My insta post- my imagination, living top25 major cities in russia

And here’s the game-changing part.

The more i share with people about my hitchhike across Russia plan, the more i show this Instagram picture to people, the more people ask what my specific plan is, the more i took it seriously. So i decided to do more research, and the way i do research is to ask russian local people through language exchange application — Hellotalk and travel platform — lonely planet .

And the response i get from people is:

“Eric! There are so many fucking racist in Russia, dont go!” “Eric! Russia dont speak too much of English, are you sure your Russian skill is enough?” “Eric! i would not advise you to start hitchhike from march, its still super cold in Russia, you even never seen snow before”

And the warning get worse when the covid19 started, soooo many people message me, recommend me not hitchhike during this time.

I know it sounds very not humble but honestly, my brain feel like “the more people dont think its possible the more i want to make it possible.”

So i started to be serious about my plan, i stop learning Russian language so intense so that i could do more preparation about the weather, hitchhike road, criminal rate, transportation blah blah blah

And luckily, one of the biggest reason why i successfully achieve is that there are so many people who help about my plan. (i highly recommend you to check out my diary about appreciation to Russia)

And why so many people want to help me? of course, most importantly it’s because they are kind and friendly, but one necessary perspective is because i was being active to share my plan, I was not being shameful to ask for help, i was being persistent even though my Russian internet contact, my family members, my mentor, continuously suggest me DO NOT travel during covid19 especially hitchhiking.

It sounds very funny but thanks to my ego, make me keep sharing people about my super cool fake plan that makes me seriously consider executing this imagination.

Even though i arrived Moscow, i feel like i could achieve more

After I successfully arrive Moscow I started to become more greedy, I feel like this is not cool enough. I keep telling myself

“Eric, someone has already did it, you gotta do something more special so that you can be more famous, so that you can be more influential so that you could share more of your article and youtube to people, so that you could help more people”

So i started to research which country border is open or not to russia because the covid cases is still serious in Russia, and none of the border countries are happy about it.

Now here is a precious experience.

Since Ukraine also speaks Russian and Ukraine visa is the easiest to get among USSR, I have been planning to hitchhike there for 8 months. In another words, my original goal is not to Moscow but Ukraine. Before i even come to Russia, i have already researched how to apply for Ukraine visa in case i wont be having enough documentation in Russia.

But who knows after 8 months of scientist combatting virus, the border between Ukraine and russia is still closed! So what i realized is that we need not to plan too much in our life in general , because our life is super unpredictable.

However, i want to compliment myself, since i dont want to make myself regret, i still try my best to call, to ask to do whatever effort to see if i could enter Ukraine, but to no avail. I even tried so many hours researching how to get into Berlaus despite some political conflict, because i really want to achieve more, i was greedy.

But there is a never-changing philosophy we already know, life rarely match up our expectation, not only Beralus is inaccessible for me, even Europe is.

At first i even want to try and see what will happen if i come to the border between Russia and Finland, for me, there is always a chance that custom will check my body and know that don’t have Covid19 and let me in.

But after my contemplation, i have no choice but to book the cheapest ticket to the only closest available country Antalya(turkey) and from there continue my hitchhike trip to the UK. The reason why i cannot take the risk is that my visa is going to expired, and there are very little things under my control, once i failed to enter finland i will not be able to continue my hitchhike trip to the UK.

At some point, i feel very sad and self-conscious that even though in the future i will successfully hitchhike from Vladivastok to the UK, there are still a little part i didnt use hitchhike, I was scared of people scolding at me criticizing me that

“Eric! your hitchhike mission is incomplete, you cheat! you’re a bad liar! you took airplane to Turkey”

But after introspection, I realized there’s no need to feel sad about others judgment because I am ambitious enough to expand my mission to the UK. After all, i am persistent enough to ask hundreds of information via google, ambassador, couchsurfing about entering Georgia, finalnd, blahblah the border around Russia, and without all these effort, I was already brave enough to launch this solo asian foreigner hitchike across Russia trip during covid19 despite all the stereotypes and against me.

I know i did not sound humble at all, but I am really proud of myself, if i have son or daughter in the future, at least i have something to brag about haha.

202010 eric(naruto) plovdiv