Lucas's Blog

I’ve always believed that every person you meet

No matter how briefly

Has something to teach you

Even if it’s just how to sit still, shut up, and listen

Not every story needs your opinion added on

It could be a perspective you’ve never considered

A story that sticks with you

Or just a line they throw away that ends up changing how you see the world

Most of the time, it’s subtle

A chat over coffee, a shared taxi ride, a stranger you meet while waiting for a bus

A restaurant owner, A street interaction or a hostel receptionist

This series — Press Y to Interact — is about those people

The ones I’ve met while drifting through cities

Border crossings

Restaurants and hostel bars

People who offered me advice

Opened up about their own lives

and shed some light on their own human experience

For a long time

I was terrified of talking to strangers

I thought I’d say the wrong thing

Come off weird or stumble over my words

Fear stopped me from having these moments

But travel teaches you quickly:

People are people

Most of them are just as curious, bored, kind, or lonely as you are

And once you start those conversations, even badly, it becomes addictive

So this series is part memory bank, part tribute to those small interactions

The kind you can’t plan for, but you’re grateful for

It’s a reminder that connection can come from anywhere, if you’re open to it

Interact # 1 ‘Barbie’ From Tehran

I sat on the rooftop of my Kuala Lumpur Hostel

A cold can of Milo in my hand

A creature comfort of early Australian life

Me and my brother Matt peering off into the illuminated KL skyline

A balmy air surrounds us, sticky, humid

Quintessential Southeast Asia

We were joined by two other Australians we’d met earlier in our travels

Dissimilar to us, their trip was finishing tomorrow

Ours, still just beginning

We shared laughs and stories from the previous weeks

All sitting uncomfortably on the poorly constructed rooftop benches

As we sat

a girl made her way through our conversation and sat beside me

Cigarette smoke gently rolling from her lips into the night sky

She sat in silence

Presumably, the pace of 4 Australians talking at full speed stretches her English capabilities

As it would anyone

The conversation shifted to another topic

A great time to try and include this new person in the group discussion

I fired up the tried and tested line I’ve used many times in the past

“Where are you from?” I asked

Tehran. She said

Exhaling Smoke into the air as she spoke.

“Do you know where this is?”

“Of course… Iran” I responded

In all my years of travel, I’d never met someone from Iran

It’s a place that completely fascinates me

A country that has been through such a change over the last 50 years, with the Islamic revolution

and is still demonised by all Western media

I can’t pass judgment on a place I haven’t visited before

Hopefully I can visit Iran sometime in the future to see what it’s like firsthand

I think I’d be surprised

Anyway, enough history, back to the conversation

I asked her her name, to which she responded “Barbie”

“It’s a nickname, but it does the trick,” she laughingly replied

I asked her more about her travels and where she’d visited, and what that must be like compared to back home

She then muttered a line that has stuck with me since

“Well, I’ve been doing things that would get me executed, fined, or arrested at home,” she said

A little stunned, but curious, I asked what those things would be

She took a slow drag of her cigarette and said it like she was reciting a grocery list:

“Dancing and singing in the street — illegal for women. You’d be arrested.

“So I volunteered at a party hostel in Cambodia for a month.”

“We had raves every weekend.”

“If you get caught drinking three times, they execute you.”

“If you don’t wear a hijab, you get fined.”

“I’ve been doing all of those things.”

She wasn’t being dramatic

She wasn’t trying to shock anyone

It was her reality

I grew up a white male in a country where personal freedom and liberty is baked into the culture

We barely think about it

My version of rebellion was sneaking a warm beer into a mate’s garage and hoping his mum wouldn’t catch us

Her version?

Risking arrest just to dance

Risking execution if she was caught drinking alcohol

The things I took for granted

Moving through the world

Speaking freely

Voicing opinions

Laughing out loud

Kissing in public

Not as universal as you grow up to believe

They were luxuries

Accidents of birth

A spin of the wheel that landed in my favour

Barbie had shone light on a part of her world I’d never considered

How fortunate it must be to travel without fear of the punishments that would come at home

She was just living her life the only way she knew how

Boldly, rebelliously, and on her own terms

Even if that meant breaking the rules she never agreed with

I admired her courage

Despite her circumstances to chase the life she wanted

Even if she had to leave Iran to do it

“At home, I never wear the Hijab”

“All my friends say, put it on, put it on, like they’ll get in trouble instead of me”

“But if we all keep accepting this treatment, the next generation will suffer the same fate”

That night taught me something very powerful

It smacked me in the face and has been stuck in my mind since

Freedom is felt most by the people who’ve had it stripped away

Despite this

These laws, these ways of life,

Barbie told me she was heading back to Tehran the following day

“I miss it” she said

“I know that must sound crazy, given what I just told you”

“it’s the people”

“The home cooked meals from my mother”

“My friends, the allure of Tehran”

It shows just how powerful home is

The nest we all fly away from

The place where we all came from

Some people come back

Some people never return

But there is always the connection of coming from a certain place

It defines you

Moulds you into the person you are

Showed you the world in your earliest days

We parted ways as Barbie set off on the hostel led pub crawl

“I may as well drink a few more beers while I still can”

As she waltzed off downstairs

Travel has always been the flashlight illuminating the world

It shows you what you need to see

Takes you around corners and shows you entirely new perspectives on both your own life

and the world you exist in

The more I see and learn

The more I realise how little I do know

Which is a humanising thing

These conversations leave such a mark on me

Some from people I’ll never meet again

But there lessons have helped shape who I am

LB