Would you buy a train ticket when there is no one checking?

In 2023, I visited Hayashima, a small village in Japan’s Okayama Prefecture. Tired of big cities, I wanted a taste of the quiet countryside, and Hayashima delivered. Descending the stairs of the train station, I found the entire landscape enveloped in unending rice fields—a sea of lush green.

The guesthouse I checked into was a traditional Japanese house with tatami floors and a zen garden. My host handed me a hand-drawn paper map to explore the neighborhood, a quiet loop that took about thirty minutes to circle around.

The next day, I set out to visit Naoshima island. Although technically an hour away, it was a small expedition to get to: first a train from Hayashima to Okayama, then a bus from JR Okayama Station to Uno Port, and from there a ferry to Honmura Port on the Naoshima island. I was eager for the adventure, particularly because this quiet island in the Seto Inland Sea houses some of the most beautiful contemporary art museums in Japan, if not the world. It was intriguing to me that an island in the middle of nowhere could hold such extraordinary art.

The Chichu Art Museum exceeded every expectation. Designed by the renowned Japanese architect Tadao Ando, this vast subterranean museum held only three exhibits: Claude Monet, James Turrell, and Walter De Maria. The juxtaposition of the calmness in Monet’s water lilies, the manipulation of light and shadow in Turrell’s light installations, and the simplicity and placement of De Maria’s metallic spheres combined with Ando’s geometric design to pull natural light straight into the earth. It was a magical, immersive experience—one that caused my heart to race and brought tears to my eyes, deeply stirring emotions within me that I couldn’t completely comprehend in the moment.

Yet, a quieter moment from that morning lingered with me just as strongly.

Before catching my train, after a quick breakfast of konbini coffee and onigiri, I had walked over to Hayashima station. I bought my ticket and headed toward the platform. Being a small town, there was only one walkway leading to the two platforms on either side of the tracks, connected by an overpass. As I advanced toward the gate, I was surprised to see that there were no turnstiles, no automated IC card readers, and no station master in sight. It was simply a manual gate that you could push open.

Yet, as I waited on the platform, I watched passenger after passenger patiently buy their ticket from the machine, push through the gate, and walk to the platform. I initially assumed the station master was simply away on a break. But when I returned that evening, the scene repeated itself: unmonitored commuters calmly lined up to drop their used tickets into a small collection basket by the exit.

The following morning, on my way to explore Okayama city, it was the exact same story. No station master, yet schoolchildren, commuters, and elderly locals all stopped at the machine, bought a ticket, and pushed through the empty gate.

That evening, when I returned to the guesthouse, I asked my host about the missing station master.

Surprised by my question, he looked at me innocently and asked, “What station master?”

“You know, the one who is supposed to collect our tickets,” I replied.

He let out a warm, gentle laugh. “We don’t have one right now.”

“Isn’t there a problem with people not buying tickets?” I asked.

His expression turned genuinely bemused, as if the concept itself was foreign. “No, Mia-san,” he said softly. “We always buy a ticket. It’s just what we do.”

His earnest answer felt like a delicate lesson in trust. That night, as I lay on my neatly laid out futon on the tatami floor, his words stayed with me. In the countryside of Japan, you not only learn to be a decent person while people are looking, but more importantly, life here teaches you to ask a simple question every single day: “Who are you when no one is watching?”

The next morning, after a slow coffee and a few chapters of my book, I packed my bags, thanked my host for a wonderful stay, and walked back to the train station. I bought my ticket with a sense of pride, stood in line to push open the metal gate, and boarded the train to Kobe with a smile on my face.

John is an eighty-five-year-old retired Norwegian diplomat who, despite his unassuming name, is one of the most fascinating men I’ve ever met. We crossed paths on a long, wooden boat leisurely floating from Thailand into Laos. While most travelers now opt for the four-hour high-speed train, John chose the two-day slow seduction of the Mekong River from the border village of Huay Xai to the cultural capital of Luang Prabang.

He wasn’t traveling alone. He was accompanied by a vibrant Korean woman in her sixties. They shared a deep platonic friendship and a mutual hunger for the road. Both were in fulfilling, loving marriages; their spouses simply didn’t share their nomadic spirit. “I have to explain at every guesthouse that we need separate beds,” John told me, laughing. “They always assume we’re a couple.” At eighty-five, this was John’s only complaint—not back pain, not the heat, and certainly not a fear of the end.

“And where are you from?” he asked as I settled onto a heavy sandbag in the front of the boat.

“India,” I replied.

From there, the conversation unfolded like the river itself. We talked about the friction and beauty of cultural differences, the sensory joy of new cuisines, and the fundamental ways Asia breathes differently than the West. He was a wealth of knowledge, but he carried it lightly, with a sharp wit honed by years of living in different countries across the globe for the Norwegian embassy.

Eventually, I asked him, “What is one travel experience you’ll never forget?”

John chuckled, leaning back as he launched into a story from a world that no longer exists.

Back in graduate school, John and a Japanese colleague found a way to see the world for free. As broke students, the opportunity was a miracle: a company was exporting minks from Norway to Hokkaido, Japan. Their job was to care for the animals—feeding them and cleaning their cages mid-flight. In exchange, they received a private plane ride and all their meals.

When they landed in Hokkaido, young John was stoked to be in Japan for the first time. After carefully completing his job, John and his colleague happily filled their hungry stomachs with sushi and sake. John’s colleague said goodbye to him to take a short vacation to visit his family somewhere in northern Japan. The company that they were traveling with asked John if there was anyone in Japan he would like to visit. John remembered a pen pal he had exchanged letters with since his early teens. Thanks to the efficiency of Japanese records, he managed to find her phone number in Tokyo. Without hesitation, he dialed.

To his utter surprise, the woman on the other end didn’t speak a single word of English—despite years of sending him letters written in flawless, elegant prose. John didn’t speak Japanese. The conversation was brief, a polite collision of two people who had known each other for years on paper but were strangers in the air. “I’m sorry to disturb you, I hope you’re well,” John managed before hanging up. After enjoying some more time in Hokkaido visiting some beautiful sites, he was on his way back to Norway.

A couple of months later, a neatly written letter arrived in Norway from Tokyo. His pen pal asked if the phone call from Hokkaido had been real, or if she had dreamt it. Laughing, John replied to her letter that he did, in fact, call her and that he didn’t realize that she didn’t speak English. And thus, restarted a pen friendship after all those years. After a few letters, the tone shifted. Confused, John showed the latest letter to his Japanese colleague, who burst into laughter. He explained that the pen pal was no longer seeking friendship; she was expressing a deeper romantic longing for him. Unfortunately, John didn’t feel the same, and just like that, the letters stopped.

As John finished his story, the sun began to dip, casting a liquid gold glow over the Mekong. I sat in silence, wondering about that girl in Tokyo who had fallen for a handsome Norwegian boy sixty years ago. I imagined that she moved on, perhaps to have a sweet little family of her own. As she grew older, I pictured that she left the busy streets of Tokyo to find a quiet life in the countryside, unaware that her old heartbreak was being recounted on a river boat half a world away.

As we finally docked in Luang Prabang, John held my hand. “I hope I get to see you again, Mia.” I gave him a long hug and stepped onto the shore, carrying my backpack and his stories into the heart of Laos.

I hope to see you again, John. If not, I think it’s time I finally wrote you a letter.

This is what I keep finding on the road: the people who were never supposed to be doing this either — the eighty-five-year-old still choosing separate beds and slow boats over staying home, the version of me that was never handed permission for any of it. Somewhere between Huay Xai and Luang Prabang, we both just kept going anyway.