I was teaching English in a South East Asian country a few years ago. I'm an Australian girl and was in my early 20's at the time. It was a pretty lonely time - the classes I taught were night classes for young adults, and my fellow teachers were quite 'clique-y' and I had yet to break into their inner circle. I had made friends, but not many close ones. It's worth noting that I had a mobile phone, but no SIM card. My only means of communication where to latch onto WiFi at bars/cafes/work/my apartment. Anyway - the following happened on my day off, when I was alone.
I had caught the bus into town (I lived in a shared apartment about 40 minutes from the city center) to suss out the local museums and maybe see a movie. After 2 museums, multiple stops at air conditioned bars for countless units of cigarettes and beer, I decided the afternoon was getting on, I was stinking hot and tired, so maybe I should head home. The sun was still out, but setting. It was about 4pm and still quite light. I wasn't too familiar with the layout of the city and the bus route at this stage, but using my elementary navigational skills, I worked out a vague direction that I needed to walk to get to my bus stop.
I was enjoying my slightly buzzed walk, following small back lanes closer and closer to this bus stop I had been on the hunt for. I was keen to get home, so I wasn't really paying attention to anything except following the setting sun, so I would be heading west.
I remember walking past a small shop front, with a man sitting out the front. The man was thin, 30s, and somehow crooked looking. It looked like his shoulders and hips were completely out of alignment or something. He wore this ratchety old hat (Not a traditional hat, like a baseball cap) and an equally ratchety face. Anyway, there was a child, maybe 6 or 7 sitting next to him. At the time, I thought it was sweet - father and son boutique shop type of thing. I gave them both a small, awkward smile as I walked past. I barely lifted my head. The little boy looked at me strangely, suddenly the man's eyes lit up like crazy. I remember seeing him in my peripheral vision spring up from the gutter (He was crouching there) with great enthusiasm. He didn't say a word or make a sound, he just stood up very quickly as I finished walking by. I think he took my small, awkward smile directed at the little boy as some kind of eerie invitation.
I started feeling scared, and I'm admittedly not very street savvy, so I guarantee my anxious mannerisms were obvious. I quickened my pace, pulled my bag closer to my stomach and put my head down. I pretended to slow down to fix my sandal, but really I was trying to throw a quick look behind me to see what was going on. The man had quickened his pace in the last 10 or so meters of following me. He was closing in. He wasn't speaking. He wasn't trying to get my attention. He was just following me in a completely empty back street, still smiling enthusiastically.
At this point, I was walking on the right hand side of the road. My head swimming with paranoid thoughts, I tried to calm down, and test out what was going on. I simply crossed the road to see if he would follow. I didn't check for motorbikes (This is SE Asia remember, cars a few and far between). It dawned on me that a motorbike going by would actually be quite a good thing, even if it did hit me. What did hit me suddenly was the thought that we were very, very alone in this street.
Sure enough, as I crossed, he quickly followed my path onto the other side of the street. My heart sank into my stomach. I had no idea how much longer this alley went on for. No windows looked out over it. Nobody was walking by. I didn't even really know what part of the city we were in. I couldn't speak the language very well. I hadn't told anybody where I was going. I remembered sending my boyfriend that morning saying I was uncontactable for the day (We had fought the night before, long distance sucks). In this country, Western women were usually subject to an element of creepiness, I knew that. But this felt different. Everything suddenly felt really wrong. Inherently wrong.
I panicked more, and pulled out my phone to pretend to make a phone call. I thought this might stop him. I was moving at a very fast walk, nearly jog at this point. He was picking up his pace gradually, and the gap between us was now less than a few meters. To grab my phone, I had to rummage around through all the mess in my handbag, which had slowed me down. I felt his presence closer behind me. I thought, fuck the phone, fuck the fucking phone, and broke into a sprint.
He started sprinting too. I remember making a noise, not quite a scream, more of a welp. I shouted "STOP NOW" in English, then "NO" and "GO/LEAVE" in the native tongue of the country I was in. I didn't turn around. My bag was smacking my thigh. My feet were pounding the concrete. My heart was racing. He was still behind me.
I decided to make a bold move, which I'm glad I did. I saw another alley way opening up to my left. It looked larger, I could see windows facing onto it. Here we go, I thought. I just need other people to be around this will be fine. I turned down into the alley way, still shouting "NO" in this language. I couldn't see any faces in the windows. There were bikes out the front of people's houses, so it was likely there were people around. I kept sprinting.
Then I got super fucking lucky. After a few bends in this alley, I saw a huge intersection on the other side. I'm talking 8 or so lanes of traffic all over each other. This man was still pursuing me. I refused to look him in the eye, but he was fearless. He could hear me shout and that hadn't stopped him. I finally thought, "HA, fuck you buddy" when I saw the intersection. It was finally over. Thank fuck.
I exited the alley and saw the sweet comfort of buzzing motorcycles and other people's faces in front of me. I had no idea where i was in relation to the bus stop. I immediately decided I was avoiding public transport today, so I looked for a taxi. I knew there were some legitimate private taxi companies, and some dodgy ones by this stage. I waited until I saw a trusted brand parked on the other side of the intersection. I was fine. This was fine.
The man had stopped when he'd seen me move into the business of the road. I glanced over my shoulder, and the mother fucker stood there, waving at me from the exit point of the alley and the intersection. Just waving fucking casually. I recoiled in disgust, crossed my arms over my chest (Something I do to relieve a bit of anxiety) and kept walking at a steady pace towards the cab.
I hop in the cab and make my best attempt at speaking the local language, telling the driver my address and basic directions on how to get there. The driver had trouble understanding me (Can you blame him? The Australian accent is bloody terrible), so I pulled out my notebook and wrote the address down for him. Unfortunately, my writing was quite difficult for him to read too, so I slowed down and tried to explain it more clearly. I wasn't really paying attention to anything going on, except helping the driver understand where I wanted to go.
I heard the back door of the cab slam. The driver and I swung around. There he fucking was. He had gotten into the cab with me. I was in shock. I spluttered. The nerve on this guy. He started barking instructions at the driver, who was clearly confused. My basic understanding of what he said was:
"I am going with her. She is my girlfriend. Take us away from the city"
I'm guessing my stalker had assumed I didn't understand any of his language. But I did - and that messaged worried me. I was alone in a car with 2 strange men, in a foreign country, and one had the explicit intent of kidnapping me. What kind of ridiculous position is that to be in? So I did what any insane, terrified person would do, I screamed. Illegibly. In no language that made any sense. I did everything I could to convey to this driver that I was unsafe. I made strange wailing noises and basically said "NO" over and over again. The driver looked at both of us, confused out of his fucking mind, waiting for the prank cameras I'm guessing.
After about a minute of me screaming at the driver and my stalker (Who had begun to touch my hair from the back seat, despite me swatting him away multiple times), the driver got the shits, and said something very threatening in their language. The driver turned the keys, walked around to the stalker in the backseat, and verbally abused him, waving his keys in his face. The stalker man put on this "What can you do, eh?" face, smug-ass little dickworm. He finally got out of the car, and tried to tug on my hair as he got out.
The driver took me to my apartment, where in his language, I brokenly tried to explain what had happened. Turned out this lovely gentleman did speak a little English, so I tried to give him the full story as best I could. He dropped me home 40 minutes later, tried to refuse a fee, but I stuck 3x the actual fare in the drivers door as I got out. I'll never be able to thank him properly for picking up on the universal language of distress, and handling it with such kindness.
Still, creepy man who abandoned his kid to chase me senselessly through a city, let's not meet again.
Moral of the story: Don't give off awkward/scared vibes. It's an invitation that says, "I'm probably incapable of defending myself if need be"
Also: there's a reason I didn't include the specific country. I actually loved every country in SE Asia so god damn much, and this story was pretty much the only negative thing that happened to me. The people there, overall, are kind and warm and I won't taint the country's reputation because of one weirdo.