I recently went to Vietnam with some friends and over breakfast one morning, one of my travel mates and I were talking about a young man we’d met in Hoi An.
He was nothing short of remarkable. Kind, resourceful, hardworking and funny. The sort of person who leaves an impression after only a brief encounter.
My friend mentioned that, through no fault of his own, he was unlikely to find a wife in Vietnam because of cultural requirements beyond his control.
I’d met this young man. I’d seen what a decent bloke he was. In Australia, I’m pretty sure he’d have a long list of potential suitors.
But in Vietnam, apparently, life had handed him a very different set of circumstances.
This is why travel can make your heart ache.
Sometimes you discover that something accepted as completely normal in one part of the world wouldn’t even register as an issue where you’re from.
The conversation reminded me of one of the most memorable experiences I had in India in 2017 with my friend Tina. She also ruined my life by introducing me to travelling like a princess. (I’ll link that story at the bottom of this post.)
Throughout that trip we had male drivers and male guides everywhere we went until we reached the Taj Mahal.
For the first time, our guide was a woman.
As fascinated as I was by the Taj itself, I was equally fascinated by the opportunity to speak one-on-one with a woman living and working in India.
She shared a number of things that opened my eyes, but one story has stayed with me ever since.
She was engaged to be married. It was an arranged marriage that both families were delighted with. More importantly, she was delighted too.
Then, before the wedding, her fiancé told her he expected her to give up her job as a tour guide. She loved her work. So she refused. He responded by calling off the marriage.
Here in Australia? You’d probably ring your girlfriends, spend a few weeks complaining about him, then get back on the dating apps. Plenty more fish in the sea.
But for her, it wasn’t that simple.
She told us that because a man had publicly agreed to marry her and then changed his mind, she was now considered far less desirable as a future wife.
The future she’d imagined disappeared overnight.
She spoke about losing the relationship she’d been looking forward to, but also about her hopes of having children.
I can still remember the sadness in her voice.
It broke my heart.
And fittingly, it broke my heart in a place built from heartache. You see the Taj Mahal was constructed as a mausoleum for a wife and mother who died giving birth to her fourteenth child.
The stories we hear while travelling aren’t always pretty or palatable. But they’re real.
Travel gives us the opportunity to see the world through someone else’s eyes, even if only briefly. Sometimes that leaves us inspired. Sometimes it leaves us grateful.
And sometimes it leaves us carrying a stranger’s heartbreak home with us.
Hey there… Enjoyed this week’s read?
Please hit like, comment or share with a friend - it gives me so much encouragement!
Also here are two other substacks of mine that have resonated really well that you may not have read:
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