Why I Still Go to the Mountains Vol. 19 A Kind Evening in St Marys

After 6:00 p.m.,
the few cars that passed by
began turning on their headlights.

Even so,

there wasn’t much traffic to begin with.
Launceston,

where I had first arrived,
was the second-largest city on the island.
Far to the south
lay Hobart,
the state capital.

The highway connecting the two cities
carried a steady stream of vehicles.

But the road leading toward the east coast,
where I was standing,
was astonishingly quiet.

6:30 p.m.
One car.

7:00 p.m.
Another.

At that point,
I wasn’t really hitchhiking anymore.

I was simply
a traveler standing by the roadside.

As the sky grew darker,
I began to feel uneasy.
Am I really going to make it?

Just as that thought crossed my mind—

7:20 p.m.
The lights inside the grocery store
next to the hotel went out.
It was closing time.

A few moments later,
an elderly woman stepped outside.

She began walking toward me.

To be honest,
I thought she was going to tell me off.
I’d been standing outside her shop for quite a while.

Perhaps I looked suspicious.
She stopped in front of me
and looked at the destination sign
taped to my suitcase.

Then she said,

“You’ve been standing here all this time, haven’t you?

I’ve been watching you from inside the shop.”

I was surprised.

Not because she had been watching me—

but because she had been looking out for me.

She continued,
“It’s dangerous to hitchhike at this hour.
Hardly any cars come through here.
You’d be much safer staying at the hotel,
or waiting in front of the police station across the street.”

She wasn’t complaining.
She was worried.
About a traveler

whose name she didn’t even know,
in a country that wasn’t his own.

That day,
I learned something else.

Travel isn’t made only of famous landmarks
or breathtaking scenery.

Sometimes,
it’s a conversation that lasts only a few minutes.

A simple act of kindness
from someone you’ll never meet again.

Those are the moments
that somehow stay with you
long after the journey is over.

The sunrise I saw from Mount Hakuba
was beautiful.
But human kindness
has a different kind of beauty.

It can’t be captured in a photograph.
It doesn’t appear on any map.
Yet it remains,
quietly,
in the traveler’s heart.

Even now,
I remember the words
of the woman I met in St Marys

more vividly
than the moment I finally reached my destination.

Perhaps
we don’t continue traveling
simply to see beautiful places.

Perhaps
we travel because
there is still kindness in this world
that we have yet to discover.

And little by little,
we keep searching for it.

Wear the atmosphere of Northern Thailand.  
Discover GENIE, an all-handmade wear collection born from the handcraft traditions of the North.  

Explore here↓
https://genienature.official.ec/