You are so free
People often say that travel changes you.
It’s become one of those phrases we’ve heard so many times that it almost loses its meaning. But anyone who’s ventured beyond their own little corner of the world knows that what changes you isn’t usually the famous landmark or the perfectly framed photograph.
It’s the people.
One conversation.
One unexpected sentence that follows you home.
Years ago, I found myself travelling solo through Myanmar before meeting my sister in Vietnam. Like most of my travels back then, I had only the loosest of plans. I booked flights as I went, changed destinations on a whim, and trusted that everything would somehow work itself out.
Sometimes… it almost didn’t (don’t tell my mom 🫣)
When I arrived at Inle Lake, I quickly discovered my hotel wasn’t on the shore at all, but over an hour away by boat in the middle of the lake. My carefully budgeted cash disappeared almost immediately on transportation, there wasn’t an ATM anywhere nearby, and I realized I barely had enough money to pay my boat driver.
Thankfully, kindness has a way of appearing when you travel.
The next morning, my boat driver agreed to show me around the lake before taking me to the only place where I could withdraw more cash.
As we drifted through the waterways, I realized I wasn’t simply visiting somewhere different. I was witnessing an entirely different way of life.
Families lived in simple wooden homes perched on stilts above the water. Children navigated the village by boat as casually as children back home ride bicycles. Fishermen balanced effortlessly on one leg while steering with the other, using enormous conical nets in movements that looked more like choreography than fishing.
Later that morning, my driver dropped me at the foot of the path leading to Shwe Indein Pagoda.
I still remember walking barefoot through the temple.
The heat of the sun blanketing my shoulders.
The cool porcelain beneath my feet.
Birds hidden amongst thousands of weathered stupas.
Tiny bells softly chiming in the breeze.
Monks chanting somewhere beyond sight.
Because it was still early morning, I had the entire temple to myself.
It felt like the world had gone quiet.
On the walk back down, I stopped once again at a small merchant table where I’d admired a set of wind chimes earlier that morning.
The young girl selling them recognized me immediately and offered me a lower price.
While I stood there mentally calculating how much money I actually had left, she smiled and asked,
“Where are you from?”
“Canada.”
Her eyes lit up.
“Canada! So far away!”
Then she looked behind me, almost searching for someone.
“No… husband?”
I gave her a slight smirk.
“No husband.”
“No boyfriend?”
“No boyfriend, either.”
She paused.
“You come alone?”
“Yes.”
She looked at me with an expression I’ll never forget.
“You are so free.”
I wasn’t expecting that.
Usually, when I travelled alone, people asked why I wasn’t married or why someone like me didn’t have a boyfriend.
Instead, she explained that whenever she left her village, she always needed to be accompanied by a man. Her father. Her brother. An uncle. Her grandfather.
Someone.
She looked at me again.
“So free.”
And suddenly, my entire trip looked different.
The balloon ride over Bagan.
Buying flights on a whim.
Getting myself into ridiculous situations.
Travelling alone.
Paying for every decision myself.
Never asking permission.
None of those things had ever felt extraordinary to me.
They simply felt… normal.
It humbled me to realize that what I considered ordinary was, to someone else, unimaginable.
Sometimes my sister and I wonder what our lives would have looked like if our parents had stayed in Hong Kong instead of immigrating to Canada.
Would we have become different people?
Different ambitions.
Different expectations.
Almost certainly.
The difference between that young girl’s life and mine boils down to circumstance circumstance.
Neither of us chose where we were born.
Yet that single accident of geography quietly shaped what each of us believed was possible.
I still have those wind chimes.
Sometimes a breeze catches them, and they make the same delicate sound I heard echoing through at her table all those years ago.
Every time they do, I think of a sixteen year old girl who unknowingly gave me something far more valuable than the souvenir I bought from her.
Perspective.
Perhaps that’s what travel really offers us.
Not a collection of passport stamps or beautiful photographs, but moments that quietly dismantle the assumptions we didn’t even know we were carrying.
Sometimes, all it takes is four simple words.
“You are so free.”