I went from Hong Kong to Turkey mostly by train, and somewhere between a 60-hour stretch across the Kazakh steppe and a human crush at the Georgia–Turkey border, I remembered why I travel: not for landmarks, but for the people, the chaos, and the stories that only unravel when you’re slightly uncomfortable and a little bit lost.

Disclaimer! All of my blogs may contain affiliate links. This means that if you click on the link and make a purchase I may receive a small amount of commission for the referral at no extra cost to you. This commission is what allows me to continue creating guides to help travellers plan their next trip!

The Train Conductor Who Called Me “Pee”

Travel, for me, is never the postcard. It’s the train conductor who learned my name once and then bellowed “Pee!” down the carriage every time he saw me. It’s the stranger who poked my belly and mimed a bicycle (I think that was “perhaps… more cardio?”), and the gentle man who insisted I try his sour, salted mystery snack while watching my face contort into a very honest what on earth.

On that 60-hour ride, signal was a mirage and my brain, an overcaffeinated squirrel. So I did squats in the corridor (to the great amusement of our carriage), and I talked. A lot. The best conversation was with Brig, an 84-year-old from Melbourne taking a victory lap through the memories she made with her late husband. In the quiet swaying of the cabin, love stories, boats to Europe in 1962 and misadventures across Central Asia, arrived like stations on a line: dependable, ordinary, extraordinary.

And then there were the four Kazakh twenty-somethings who adopted me for an afternoon, confidently assuming we were the same age until I revealed I could be their mother. We talked dating economics (50–50 bills sent the room into moral crisis), and religion (they, Muslim; me, spiritual but godless). After a few principles traded across laughter and hand gestures, they concluded: “You are Muslim… without Allah.” I’m not sure any theologist would agree, but it felt like a generous translation of intent.

The Unwelcome Knock

Not every memory is charming. In the middle of leading my “Great Train Quiz,” a drunk man lurched into our cabin. He took a photo, wouldn’t leave, and made one guest very nervous. I slipped out to find help, blocking him with an outstretched arm. Our conductor saw me, shouted “Pee!” again, then… pointed to my ring finger to ask if I was married.

Sir. Not… the moment.

When the drunk man reached for my chest, instinct took over. I shoved him hard enough to topple him. That broke the spell; the guard reacted, one of my guests emerged to check on me, and the man was locked in his cabin. I went back to the quiz.

Messy? Absolutely. But even that scene holds a glint of what travel teaches: to insist on your safety; to keep your head; to ask for help even when it arrives dressed as farce.

The Theme-Park Problem (and How to Dodge It)

China and I first met in 2013. This time, nobody touched my hair. Fewer people wanted photos with the blonde foreigner. Traffic, once pure choreography, now stopped at crossings. Progress, yes. But many landmarks felt like a theme-park: turnstiles, shuttle buses, selfie herds. The Muslim Quarter of Xi’an, once messy and magnetic, now glowed with neon and novelty treats.

So I did what always works: I walked away Two blocks later, the novelty desserts were gone and the neighbourhood kitchens reappeared. Handwritten menus returned. Real life took over again. The “best” view wasn’t behind a rope; it was wherever a grandmother was rolling noodles at a speed that made my eyes water.

Borders

If you want an honest lesson in patience, take a bus across the China–Kazakhstan border. Load your bag. Unload your bag. Queue, scan, stamp, repeat. And yet, it wasn’t chaos, it was choreography set to a very slow metronome.

The worst border came later: Georgia into Turkey at Sarpi. There was no queue. There was a funnel. Bodies pushing into a narrowing tunnel until it turned dangerous. I honestly thought I was going to lose at least one customer in that crush! Never again!

Hospitality Is a Person, Not a Building

The best food on this trip was never the fanciest: ¥1 noodles in China, mutton skewers in a market canteen, horse meat I didn’t want to enjoy (and did), trout in the Turkish hills, and a roadside lunch served with hands and laughter when forks were a luxury. The real comfort on this trip didn’t come from hotels, but from people: a guide named Zhanar in Almaty who could hold a room with a story; a shopkeeper who paid a public-toilet fee for a stranger because coins were the only currency; a bus driver who drove like a rally star and made us feel twelve again.

When Mars Is in Kazakhstan

We rode that long train to Aktau because the desert beyond it looks like Earth pretending to be Mars. Bozshira’s white fangs, the tiramisu hills, the Valley of Balls (12-million-year-old marbles scattered by geological toddlers). It’s impossible to stand in landscapes like that and not feel smaller in the best possible way. The earth has been busy. We are merely visiting.

What Monuments Can’t Do

By the time we reached Ani, a city of ghosts on the edge of modern Turkey, it was scorchingly hot, we were late, and my group’s legs were made of boiled spaghetti. So we rented buggies, bumped past cathedrals and mosques, and peered over the canyon into Armenia. It was beautiful. It was also, if I’m honest, architecture. I can enjoy it. I can even be moved by it. But it doesn’t hold me like markets and kitchens and train compartments do.

That became the theme of the trip: no matter the country, my attention always drifted from buildings to people. Give me a grandmother with a rolling pin over a basilica any day. I don’t mean to disrespect the stones. I just prefer the beating hearts.

What the Mess Taught Me

• I like movement, but not imprisonment. Trains are romantic until they’re 60 hours long. I love overland travel, but I love it in chapters, not epics. Future me will choose shorter legs, more stops, longer meals.
• Connection > Collection. I will remember Brig and her 1962 boat long after I forget which fortress had the better vantage point. My photos may never go viral, but they feed my soul.
• “Perfectly organized” often means “perfectly sterile.” When places are optimized for volume, I go looking for the edges. Two streets away usually does it.
• Boundaries travel with you. Saying “no,” asking for help, and standing your ground are acts of care, both for yourself and for the people you’re responsible for. (Also: never rely on a man who’s mid-marriage proposal to de-escalate a situation.)
• Hospitality lives at eye level. It’s the guide who slows their pace without being asked. It’s the server who adds watermelon you didn’t order. It’s the stranger who splits a table, a taxi, a joke.
• Let the story be imperfect. Plans change. Trains delay. Borders compress. You will smear kebab sauce across your face like a budget Joker. These are not disruptions to your trip. They are your trip.

How I’ll Travel Differently

I’ll still take trains, just not three-and-a-half days of them in one go. I’ll choose itineraries that leave space to wander markets at 5 p.m. when the aunties are gossiping and the dumplings are cheapest. I’ll politely bow out of one more church in favour of a food stall, and I’ll build in afternoons with nothing planned but “walk until the neon stops.”

And I’ll keep saying yes to awkward conversations, about bills and beliefs and who pays for what, because that’s where we find out how similar we are, and how wonderfully not.

The Point, If There Is One

If you want efficiency, book a resort. If you want transformation, take the train that stops too often. Eat the thing you can’t pronounce. Laugh when your conductor yells your name wrong. Protect yourself fiercely. Accept the gift of a story when it’s offered. Offer yours back.

I don’t think I “found myself” somewhere between Hong Kong and Istanbul. But I did find a clearer version of how I want to move through the world: slower, softer, messier. More markets than museums. More people than pillars. More life in the cracks between plans.

And if a stranger offers you a sour, salty snack that tastes like seawater and stubbornness?

Take it. Make the face. That’s where the good stuff starts.