Lost Backpacker
Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on Tuesday, October 21, 2014.
“Do you speak English?” a confused backpacker approached me with. I could tell he was backpacking with his big pack on his back and daypack strapped over his chest. (I believe I used to call this a “two-sided camel” on my old blog, before it got reincarnated as a social media feed on Instagram and Facebook.)
“Yeah,” I answered. I saw that he was some sort of Asian, and — I’m guilty of it too — assumed he was Japanese. Turned out he was Malaysian, the ethnicity I’ve been getting mistaken for in Uzbekistan after Japanese.
Tom from southern Malaysia was totally lost, having just arrived in Samarkand via shared taxi from Tashkent. How he got dropped off way out where the Ulagbek Observatory is I don’t know. He was off the guidebook map and would have gone in the wrong direction without me.
“Follow me, I’m going that way anyway,” I told him, seeing that his hostel was right near the Registan.
We walked passed the lawns of a park near Afrosiyob and the caravan statue. Then it was an awkward long stretch of road between where we met to the hub of historic buildings, and I wondered if he trusted that I was leading him the right way. I figured I would help him; I’ve been in his shoes so many times, sometimes you have to give back — you know, Traveler Code. I gave him the lay of the land — the monuments, the supermarket, etc — which was funny because I’d only been there a day. I led him to his hostel, and he sighed a relief.
“Thank you,” he said with his Malaysian smile.
I never saw him again, but if I did, I’d know not to assume Japanese.
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