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HarperImpulse

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

Copyright © Janice Horton 2018

Cover images© Shutterstock.com

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

Janice Horton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008302696

Ebook Edition © July 2018 ISBN: 9780008302689

Version: 2020-01-23

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1: Bangkok

Chapter 2: Chiang Mai

Chapter 3: Return to Bangkok

Chapter 4: Railay

Chapter 5: Koh Lanta

Chapter 6: Koh Lanta (II)

Chapter 7: Koh Ngai

Chapter 8: Koh Phi Tao

Chapter 9: Koh Phi Tao (II)

Chapter 10: Koh Phi Tao (III)

Chapter 11: Koh Phi Tao (IV)

Chapter 12: Koh Lipe

Chapter 13: Langkawi, Malaysia

Chapter 14: Kuala Lumpur

Chapter 15: Kuala Lumpur (II)

Chapter 16: Kota Kinabalu

Chapter 17: Sandakan Borneo

Chapter 18: Reef Island

Chapter 19: Reef Island (II)

Chapter 20: Destination Unknown

A Q&A with the Author

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

To my own real-life hero: Trav

Chapter 1
Bangkok

I’ve arrived in Bangkok feeling jettisoned and adrift, exhausted, jetlagged, and asking myself – what the hell am I doing here all on my own? In the long line for customs, I stand with everyone else who was on my flight from London. My eyes are fixed on those around me who look so happy and purposeful, so clearly excited to be in the most popular city in the world, while I’m sweltering in my jeans and long-sleeved, far-too-heavy cotton shirt. I’ve never suffered from a fear of crowds before, but now I do, and I can hardly breathe.

When it’s my turn, my passport is scanned, my fingerprints are taken, and I’m given a passing glance together with a thirty-day entry stamp into Thailand. I follow the masses pouring through luggage collection and into the arrivals hall, where behind a barrier, taxi touts push and shove and yell and uniformed chauffeurs wave and shout and people are holding up cards with stranger’s names on them. I’m overwhelmed.

Once outside the terminal, it feels like I’ve walked into a wall of incredible heat and oppressive humidity and an onslaught of noise and voices at fever pitch. Tuk-tuk and taxi drivers beep their horns and jostle aggressively for position at the kerbside. The racket is deafening and the fumes are nauseating. Chatter fills my head – thousands of voices in so many different languages. Odours in the air assault my nose – the unwashed and the over-perfumed smells are so strong that I can taste them on my tongue. Everyone seems so preoccupied with pushing suitcases and gathering children and moving on quickly to wherever they are going that they knock into me without apology or care, as if I’m invisible.

I look around at beggars in rags on pavements with their arms outstretched to well-dressed tourists. I see beautiful and very young Thai girls with long black silky hair and tight dresses, laughing and hanging onto the arms of far older, overweight Western men.

Why couldn’t I have run away to somewhere quieter, less smelly, much less scary?

‘Lady! Lady! Taxi! Taxi!’

I allow myself to be led to a taxi by an enthusiastic and smiling Thai man and I give him the address of a hotel. I have no idea where it is, or how far, but I’m suddenly too tearful and weary to care. As it is, the smiling taxi driver is a gentleman. He whisks me through the hustle and bustle of the city with the speed and dexterity of a knight in shining armour and delivers me to the safety of my hotel. I drag myself across the sticky vinyl car seat into the hot and humid space that now exists between me and the revolving polished glass doors of the hotel’s lobby.

A uniformed doorman immediately rushes to my assistance. I see him hesitate, looking for luggage before realising there is none, then with a smile he ushers me inside. I look round at the opulence – the polished marble, the shiny surfaces, the huge crystal chandeliers, the sparkly water features – which under any other circumstances would have thrilled and impressed me but right now just add to the surreality of my situation.

I walk over to reception feeling completely out of sorts. A very tall, slim, pretty receptionist wearing a body-hugging, green silk dress smiles at me.

I try to smile back, but my lips have so long been set to stoic they don’t want to obey me.

‘Sawatdee ka,’ she says, bowing her head graciously.

I repeat the salutation, noting from her name badge that she is called Lola.

‘Welcome to Bangkok, madam. Are you checking in?’

I can’t help but admire Lola’s curiously strong angular features and her beautiful waist-length long black hair. She is tall and broad-shouldered.

I feel my face softening. ‘Yes please. My name is Lorraine Anderson.’

‘Ah, yes. I see you have booked one of our Executive Suites, Miss Anderson.’

I would normally have insisted on being addressed as Mrs Anderson, but I didn’t bother this time.

I just nod, feeling embarrassed at how red-faced and dishevelled I must look, a fact confirmed to me when I catch sight of myself in a mirrored column.

But why should I even care when nobody knows me here?

And sod the expense of the Executive Suite. It might have been the only room available to me at the time I booked, but right now it’s exactly what I need. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a damn sight easier for me to cry myself to sleep in a luxury hotel suite than in a crowded backpacker hostel.

‘Just the one night, madam?’

‘Yes.’ I hand over my credit card and then have a bit of a panic.

I mean, what the hell happens tomorrow?

While fighting tears at check-in at Gatwick, all I’d managed to think about was the here and now. But what happens next? Where I will go? What I will do?

I have absolutely no idea. My life has been turned upside down and I’m in freefall.

It’s as if Lola can read my mind. ‘I can offer you a complimentary late checkout?’

‘Yes, please,’ I stammer gratefully.

And Lola’s lovely long nails tap tap tap on her computer keyboard.

I start shaking and my teeth begin chattering in the chill of the air-conditioned lobby.

She passes me a key card. ‘Enjoy your stay Miss Anderson. Your room is on the fifteenth floor. Suite 1507. Do you need any help with your bags?’

The suite is as decadent as I’d hoped. It has a womb-like ambiance and sumptuous carpets and soft lighting across several interconnecting rooms, all with luxurious furniture and fittings. The bathroom is a dream in marble and glass, with soft white fluffy towels, and there is a vast selection of very nice toiletries. I score a bottle of wine from the not-so-mini mini-bar and take it and a goblet-sized wine glass into the bathroom with me while I take a long soak in a deep bubble bath. In the warm water I lie back and close my eyes, feeling safe at last.

A while later, feeling cleaner and calmer and cosseted in a white fluffy robe, I stand at the bedroom’s floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at the bright twinkling lights of the busy city below me. I take a long gulp of my wine and then a long and steady deep breath.

On slowly breathing out, I let the feeling of surrealism and distance soothe me.

I tell myself that everything is going to be okay. Here I am, in a city of my dreams, in a country that has always been number one on our travel hitlist. My aching shoulders stiffen when I realise I’ve used the word ‘our’ in my thoughts again. Have I been married for so long that it is impossible to think of myself as one single individual person anymore?

Charles and I had always said we’d explore South East Asia together in our retirement, which we intended to take early, while we were still young and healthy and able-bodied.

It was a retirement for which we had saved meticulously and planned relentlessly.

Suddenly, I find it amusing that I’m in Bangkok with no prior planning whatsoever.

I slug back what’s left in my glass and start to laugh. Hysterically.

Then I crawl into bed, pull the sheet over my head, and cry long shuddering sobs.

How could he do it? How long had it been going on?

What a fool I’d been, thinking we were happily married.

Thinking people actually admired our long successful marriage.

When in fact, it had all been a lie. A joke. A joke on me.

Not only had I been betrayed, I’d been totally humiliated.

I’m suddenly convinced that everyone except stupid, gullible and trusting me had known that my marriage was a sham – that my husband was an adulterous cheat and my best friend was a lying whore. I hadn’t had a freaking clue.

My mind is in a loop replaying the events of yesterday over and over again, in slow motion.

Was it only yesterday?

In hindsight, I realise now that her silver BMW had been parked outside my house.

For heaven’s sake – that was a freaking big clue!

I felt so angry, so betrayed. I’d wanted to kill them both violently. But rather than a knife, for some reason I’d grabbed my passport from the kitchen drawer and saved myself all the hacking and bloodshed by calling an Uber to take me straight to the airport.

And at the airport, a strangely calm and rational part of me had stepped up to take control, logged into our savings account via the banking app on my phone and transferred half the money into my account. Then I’d bought a ticket to the furthest away destination listed on the flight departures board. Normally, in planning for such a trip, I’d have certainly travelled economy and I’d have packed meticulously, choosing at leisure which lightweight stylish outfits to pack in my shiny hard-shell suitcase, that came with TSA approved locks and a lifetime guarantee.

But the little voice of calm and rational thought in my head told me I had no choice but to pay for a business class seat because economy was already full, and that buying a rucksack, a couple of sundresses and a sarong in the duty-free while waiting for my gate to be announced would easily suffice on this occasion.

It’s November and, just like me, London was cold and dark and miserable. Yet at the other side of the airport, in the departures terminal building at Gatwick, it was like being in a parallel universe of blindingly hot tropical colours and ultra-light fabrics and high-factor sunscreen and designer sunglasses. It was the middle of the afternoon, but the champagne and oyster bar was pulling in the revellers. Wine and cocktails and beers were being knocked back in the faux oldie English pub and people were partying in the premium lounges like they were already at their destinations. I felt like a gate-crasher to the party.

I bought a few items of clothing and a squishy travel pillow and a small carry-on size backpack, as I’d come through check-in and security with nothing other than my phone and my handbag.

Then, seeing my gate had already been announced and my plane was boarding, I ran for what must have been half a mile to the gate in such a panic that I hadn’t time for reticent thoughts or last-minute misgivings.

On boarding the plane, I’d planned to have just one glass of wine and then, in my extra-large, extra-comfortable, extra-reclining, extra-expensive seat, to sleep for the whole journey. Then I wouldn’t have to think about what I was doing, where I was going, and what on earth I would do when I got there. But instead, I drank my welcome glass of champagne with gusto and then continued drinking wine while watching back-to-back movies for twelve hours instead, until it felt like my eyes were falling out my head and we were descending into Bangkok.

Early this morning, I was woken by the light of a brand-new day scorching through a gap in the floor-to-ceiling curtains and across the king-sized bed towards me like a hot laser beam.

I was covered in sweat from a nightmare. It was every married woman’s worst nightmare.

In it, I was standing in my bedroom doorway at home with my mouth open but mute and with open eyes that couldn’t blink, watching my husband thrusting himself ecstatically into the naked, voluptuous and pendulous flesh of someone I’d previously called my best friend.

It was horrifying. It was disgusting. It was sickening.

On waking, realising where I was and that it had been real and not just a nightmare, I leapt from the bed to rush to the bathroom to throw up. But I could only dry-retch, as I’d eaten nothing since I could remember. Reeling back into the bedroom, I checked my mobile phone and saw that I had lots of ‘call me back’ messages from my two worried sons.

I also saw my phone was almost out of charge, but I didn’t have a two-pin charger.

Instead of calling my sons back, I texted instead.

I’m fine. I’m at the Holiday Inn in Bangkok. Don’t worry.

I’d already spoken to my mum and my sons from Gatwick. I’d been in a bit of a state.

Well, that’s an understatement, I’d been in a hell of a state.

My mum had been just as distraught and as angry as I was when I told her what Charles had done to me. Josh and Lucas aren’t children anymore, they’re grown men in their twenties – so although they, too, were upset, they’d also understood my reasons for leaving their father.

‘Mum, stay right where you are. I’m coming to get you!’ Josh, my eldest, had insisted.

‘No. darling, please, I need to get away. I’ll call you when I get there.’

‘Where is there? Where are you going, Mum?’

‘As far away from your father and his whore as I can possibly get!’ I’d yelled into my phone.

Now, feeling faint with hunger, I brush my teeth and shower, before slipping into one of the lightweight dresses I’d bought at Gatwick and deciding I’ll be brave and go down for breakfast.

I seem to be operating on autopilot. Not so much thinking but functioning. My head hurts from crying, jetlag and dehydration. Downstairs, I manage to buy painkillers, a two-pin plug adapter in the hotel shop, and order coffee and a chocolate chip muffin at the lobby café. It’s 1 p.m. local time and so breakfast has apparently been over for quite some time.

The café is busy. I sit at a table next to a couple of middle-aged American ladies who are chatting to each other enthusiastically over a tourist map and planning their afternoon sightseeing. ‘I say we go to the Grand Palace and the Emerald Buddha,’ says the blonde one.

‘Or, we could head over to the temple on the river and save the palace and the Buddha for tomorrow?’ suggests the redheaded one.

I listen. These are all places I’ve dreamed of seeing myself for as long as I can remember.

But now, in such stressful, horrible and lonely circumstances, I doubt I’ve the confidence or the courage to go out amongst the heaving crowds of strangers to explore alone.

Which makes me question what I’m doing here, if I’m too scared to even leave the hotel?

I could have stayed in London and done the same thing, after all.

The two women suddenly stop talking to each other and look directly at me.

I’m tearing my muffin apart into bite sized pieces.

‘Which would you recommend, honey? Have you done the palace yet?’ asked the blonde.

I falter at being spoken to so unexpectedly. I guess I’m still feeling invisible.

‘Oh, erm, I’m sure you must go and see them all.’

‘Oh, you’re English,’ they both say in unison, sounding delighted. ‘I love your accent!’

I nod. ‘Yes. But I just arrived here last night, so I’m not really the best person to ask.’

‘There is so much to see. If you’re wondering what to do first, then our advice would be to go to the floating market. It’s wonderful. We went last night, didn’t we, Marcie?’

Redheaded Marcie nods eagerly. ‘Oh, yes, you must. There’s wooden boats on the river all piled up with things for sale and local food being cooked right from the boat. It’s amazing!’

I smile and nod my head again as if I’m agreeing, but I don’t want to go to a floating market. I don’t want to go to the palace. I just want to go back up to my room and close the curtains and cry. But I only have another couple of hours or so to decide to either book another night at this hotel or to move on. But to where? I really don’t know yet. I don’t know what to do. What an odd feeling it is to be so disconnected from normal life.

Here I am; a stranger in a strange land full of strangers.

Yet this feeling of total anonymity has ignited something within me too.

It’s a weird feeling. What is it? Excitement? Freedom?

I realise I could start my life anew. I could be someone else entirely, if I wanted.

Because no one knows me here. No one knows anything about me.

Marcie and Joanie continue chattering. They tell me how they’ve been friends for years but they both now live in different countries. Marcie lives in Australia on the Gold Coast. Joanie lives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Both their husbands, they tell me, are in banking.

‘Boring men who’d rather stay at home than travel!’ they chorus gleefully.

‘Sounds like my husband,’ I agree, wondering why I’d even mentioned him.

‘So, we meet up in a different place every year and tick something else off our bucket list,’ Joanie tells me. ‘Last year, we met up in Hong Kong.’

Marcie roars with laughter. ‘Oh, yeah, we had a ball in Hong Kong!’

When we part, the ladies go off laughing and chatting and I go back up to my room.

I sit on my bed and plug my phone into its charger, thinking about my own bucket list.

I do have one. I’ve had one for a long time. Only, until now, it’s been more of a wish list.

My phone suddenly comes back to life and I see I have two new messages.

One is from Sally, the traitorous whore, and one is from my lying husband.

I can hardly believe their nerve in texting me.

Especially as it’s so obviously coordinated.

I open Sally’s first. In it, she says she’s sorry for the way I’d found out about her and Charles, but apparently, she’s not sorry about their affair (which she calls a ‘relationship’) that has been going on for over a year. I want you to know Charles and I are in love and that he was planning to leave you. I feel like her hand has just come right through the phone and slapped my face.

My anger flares up again. Tears of betrayal fill my eyes and pour down my cheeks.

How can this be true? For over a year? How could I not have known about this?

Have there been any tell-tale clues, that I’ve missed?

Receipts for things I hadn’t known about? Meals, hotels, gifts?

Has Charles’ behaviour over the past year been an indication?

He’d been a little distant. Uncaring on occasions. Indifferent, certainly.

Should I have been going through his pockets and secretly checking his phone records?

We hadn’t been having sex. Was that a factor?

I’d just assumed we were typical of all couples who’d been married a long time.

Charles works long hours for seven days a week, running our business. He often complained of being tired. I understood when he fell asleep in front of the TV at the end of the day. But what kind of wife doesn’t have a clue that her husband is fucking another woman?

A busy one? A preoccupied one? A trusting one?

An incredibly stupid one?

I open Charles’s message next. It’s written in short, sharp sentences, exactly the way he speaks in real life. Lorraine, I’m divorcing you. We haven’t been happy in a long time. Let’s keep things amicable. Best of luck. Charles.

Divorce! Amicable? Luck?!

His reason for having an affair is that we haven’t been happy in a long time?

On the contrary, it sounds to me like Charles has been very happy indeed.

Going balls deep in Sally behind my back while planning to leave me!

But he’s right about one thing. I haven’t been happy. I’m not happy.

I’ve been bloody miserable for as long as I can remember!

It seems clear to me now that I’ve spent my whole life waiting to be happy on his terms.

Charles is eight years older than me. I was only twenty-two when we met and started dating. We both worked at a travel agency office in town back then. He was the branch manager and I was on the sales desk. It was my dream job and he was my dream boyfriend. He seemed so worldly. Charles and I fell in love over our passionate plans to explore the world together.

During our working day, our job was to plan detailed travel itineraries for our adventurous clients. But in the evenings, sitting in our local pub over two half pints of beer, we would talk endlessly about all the faraway countries that we wanted to visit one day, the interesting places we wanted to see and the incredible experiences we wanted to have when we got there.

We’d plan routes across India, taking in the Golden Triangle of Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur. We’d look at flights to exotic destinations like South East Asia, Japan, Korea and China. We’d investigate travelling by train all the way from Beijing to Hong Kong. We’d even fully researched and planned a three-thousand-mile road trip all the way from the Canadian Rockies to the Mexican Border. Charles used to say to me: ‘Don’t call it a dream, call it a plan.’

And it seemed that the whole world was ours for the living and for the travelling.

He filled me with wanderlust and inspiration and excitement.

I thought we were soul mates and kindred roaming spirits.

Every summer, on a limited budget, we used up all our holiday leave and money travelling.

We mostly backpacked around Europe: France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Greek islands… Charles and I were always talking about and planning and saving up for our next trip. At work, we were surrounded by glossy travel brochures and the spirit of travel and the promise of exotic adventures in lands far away.

Then, a few years later, everything changed. We got married.

Charles and I moved into a flat in town above a shop where we’d decided to set up our very own travel agency. Those were the days before the internet made independent travel possible. Back then, everyone expected to book their holidays through a high street travel shop. We were good at selling the idea of travel and our business boomed. It was the early Nineties and people at that time were starting to look further afield for their holidays. It was a time when those who usually went to Malta and Gibraltar were choosing to go to Turkey and Cyprus instead. Families who would usually opt for the Costas in Spain were starting to consider Florida, for a change.

Then the recession hit, interest rates went through the roof and for the next few years, instead of travelling, holidaymakers stayed at home and we ploughed all our time and money into our now struggling business. Instead of all those inspiring travel quotes, Charles’s mantras soon became ‘success is a journey, not a destination’.

Well, that’s what happens, isn’t it? When you get married, your life and priorities change.

Free and single becomes, well, something else, and life gets in the way.

Then our kids came along and the business picked up and life was steady again. I loved being a mother and family life was blissfully happy. But, of course, it was all-consuming when it came to my time and energy. Soon, we needed to move ‘up in the world’ by selling our little rented flat over the shop to buy a detached townhouse with a garden for our two rambunctious little boys.

We certainly needed the space, even if it was going to be a struggle to afford the mortgage.

When our boys were a little older, we decided to invest in their future and put them both through a very good private school. This was a good decision, which paid dividends in the long run, with both our boys going on to achieve straight As and places at top universities. Everyone said we had it all. And, indeed, it seemed that we did.

A lovely home. A successful business. Two wonderful clever sons who made us proud.

Charles went on to expand the business by investing in the new technology of the time.

Money was tight, so again, we forfeited any holidays or weekends away.

But soon, we not only had the shop in town, we also had an effective and profitable travel website too. I didn’t have to work anymore. I was a homemaker. A housewife.

I threw myself into any voluntary work that came my way so that I could feel purposeful.

I did two afternoons a week in a charity shop in town. I helped out at the local hospice and at the homeless shelter and the food bank. At weekends, I worked at an animal shelter.

It made me feel good about myself when I was helping those less fortunate.

I sincerely hoped that I could make a difference in the world.

Then, before we knew it, the boys had both graduated from university and left home.

We suddenly found we were empty-nesters with our mortgage finally paid off.

But instead of taking time out for holidays together or even mini-breaks, like other couples our age seemed to be able to do, we were still scrimping and saving every damned penny.

What for this time, you might ask?

Well, for our retirement and our much-promised trip around the world, of course.

Not as backpackers as we’d always planned, but as ‘flashpackers’ according to Charles.

He’d decided he didn’t want to ‘slum it’ at his age and he delighted in telling anyone who’d listen all about his considerable and epically adventurous bucket list. When Charles retired he wanted to see the Grand Canyon in Arizona, watch the changing colours of autumn leaves in New England, walk along the Great Wall of China, marvel at the Taj Mahal in India, see the Northern Lights from Iceland, scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef, trek to Machu Picchu in Peru and climb Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. His list was the subject of every dinner party we attended, and I was getting sick to death of hearing about it and not actually doing it.

My own bucket list was a little different as I really hate being cold and I’m not so keen on heights. But it was still the stuff of dreams. I wanted to walk barefoot along white sand beaches on tiny tropical islands. I wanted to laze about on a hot afternoon in a hammock with a good book. I wanted to sit in the shade of a palm tree and drink a rum cocktail from a coconut shell. I wanted to find hidden waterfalls in the midst of steamy jungles. I wanted to sit in golden temples and experience inner peace and to meditate until I had a quiet mind. I wanted to see the world’s most endangered species – not in a zoo, but thriving in the wild. I also wanted to learn to scuba dive in warm seas and to swim through a colourful coral reef garden with turtles and dolphins and whales (I draw the line at sharks) – not in a water park but in the open seas.

And I honestly thought we’d have all the time in the world to tick every single dreamy wish off both our bucket lists, because Charles had always promised me faithfully that he would sell the business and take early retirement when he reached the age of fifty-five.

Well, the bastard will be fifty-five this year – and now he’s leaving me!

I scream into my pillow until my throat is sore. Then I stare out of the window again at the sprawling, hot and chaotic city beneath me and I realise that I am in the wrong place to deal with this kind of shit. I need somewhere I can pull myself together.

I need a golden temple to meditate in until I have a quiet mind and can contemplate a future.

I know there are plenty of places in Thailand far more laidback than Bangkok.

I decide for my sanity that I need to go to one of these places until I’m ready to come back here.

So I pick up my phone and book a flight to Chiang Mai in the northern part of Thailand.

I know from all the countless trips to Thailand that I have arranged over the years for our clients, that Chiang Mai is very different to Bangkok. It’s known for its slower pace of life. It’s an ancient moated city which, thanks to its conservation laws, has mostly stayed intact with it seven-hundred-year-old walls and lack of high-rise buildings. The city is filled with beautiful old buildings, golden temples, sacred shrines, galleries, museums, restaurants and coffee shops.

It’s a place that seems like the perfect fit for my current mood.

Chapter 2
Chiang Mai

The flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai takes a little over an hour. When I arrive, the sun is shining in a clear blue sky and, although it is still boiling hot with temperatures in the high thirties, I immediately find it less humid and polluted than claustrophobic Bangkok.

I take in great gulps of the fresher air and feel my head clearing.

I take a taxi from the airport to the old part of the city and watch the wonders of Chiang Mai unfold in front of my eyes. Here, at last, I can really feel the benefit of time and distance working in my favour. My thoughts this morning are heavily focussed on self-preservation.

It has occurred to me that if I’m going to be alone in future then a positive mindset is going to be my strongest tool for survival. I don’t have to be a betrayed wife and a sad empty-nester – I realise I have a choice. I can be the old me, or I can be set free.

It’s simply a matter of shifting my perspective.

A small, dirty child runs to my taxi as we wait in traffic in the narrow streets. She bangs her tiny fist insistently on the window where I am sitting. The driver yells something and waves his arms dismissively to scare her away. In her hand, the girl has a small packet of tissues to sell and she waves it at me. Her pretty face is imploring me to buy from her. I wind down the window, much to my driver’s irritation, and give her a hundred baht note – the equivalent of around two pounds in sterling. In exchange, she throws me a delighted smile and the tissues and I smile back at her. I don’t need the tissues. I suppose I just wanted to do a small act of kindness in the remote hope that karma might smile back on me and provide a little compassion in return.

I feel like I need all the help I can get.

My accommodation of choice is a family-run homestay. It’s ridiculously inexpensive for a three-night stay when I consider what I’ve just paid for one night in Bangkok. The moment I arrive, climbing out of my taxi in a quiet shady side street just a few minutes’ walk from the old square, it’s glaringly obvious to me that I’d underestimated how long I should stay here.

The place is simply gorgeous. The house is of a bygone age. Traditionally built in the local thick, honey-coloured stone, it has a first-floor terrace overlooking the street and its long oak balustrade is covered with twisted flowering vines. It looks so weathered by its history and by everything around it, and so reflective of what was once here in the ancient capital city of the Kingdom of Lanna, that I feel immediately enchanted.

I’m welcomed at the kerbside as I get out of the taxi and led into the house by a barefoot old man who insists on carrying my rucksack. I’m assuming he is the grandfather of the family. I slip out of my flip flops and trot along behind him as he shuffles along a cool hallway lined and scented with incense sticks, where the floors are inlaid with beautiful mosaics and where all the doors have big, heavy, wrought iron latches, making the place feel like a safe haven.

At the far end of the hallway, I glimpse a small shaded garden with wrought iron tables and chairs and tropical plants. At the reception area, I meet the mother of the family, whose name is Noon and who speaks very good English. I explain to her straight away how I’d initially booked for three nights but that I might now like to stay longer if that’s possible.

She smiles and tells me no problem and just to let her know by tomorrow.

She hands over a heavy iron key that looks like it unlocks a castle gate and bows to me graciously. ‘Yours is room seven. Breakfast is served between 7.30 and 10 a.m. in the garden. Enjoy your stay, Miss Anderson.’

And there it is again; the assumption that I’m single and unmarried.

My room is on the upper floor and set back on the terrace that overlooks the street. Inside, it is deliciously cool thanks to a stone tiled floor. I look around to see a double bed and simple bamboo furnishings and a clean and functional bathroom, with a toilet, a vanity sink, and a walk-in shower. It feels strange to be here on my own but I’m not scared.

I’m feeling something else now. Liberated? Excited?

I spend the afternoon walking the streets of the old town. I stop for a delicious Pad Thai washed down with a cold local beer at a busy and popular-looking street food stall. I devour the meal. Anyone would think that I hadn’t tasted food in weeks. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was. The soft noodles and the fish sauce and tamarind and fresh lime flavour is exquisite in my mouth. How can such a basic dish that costs so little taste so good?

With my hunger satisfied, my thirst quenched and my mood lifted, I explore the bustling market, primarily looking for a few more items of clothing and some underwear, but to my dismay, the only undergarments I can find are tiny slips of silk and lace. As my knickers of choice are usually plain cotton from M&S, I flick through all those on offer looking for comfort.

With none to be found, I actually consider buying some men’s cotton underpants instead, reasoning that besides the baggy Y-front bit at the front they look like my sort of thing.

You’ll be relieved to know I didn’t. Instead, I give in and buy several pairs of colourful silk and lacy ones, although I’m convinced they’ll be uncomfortable and scratchy.

I am, however, pleased with my other purchases of loose-fitting cotton shorts in lovely bright colours, a pair of elasticated, baggy, hippy-style, elephant-patterned trousers (everyone seems to be wearing them and they look so comfortable), and several floaty cotton dresses and skirts and silk scarfs and sarongs – and all for such ridiculously cheap prices that I can’t bring myself to barter for them even a little.

In a second-hand book shop, I browse and manage to pick up a tourist map and a Lonely Planet: Thailand guidebook. Then, with my bags of shopping, I wave down a tuk-tuk to take me back to the homestay. I’ve never ridden in a tuk-tuk before and I’m really looking forward to the experience. It’s one of those things that everyone says you must do in Thailand. I suppose it’s like a rite of passage. No matter how dangerous and foolhardy it might seem at the time.

I can see there are two distinct types of tuk-tuk whizzing up and down the street at breakneck speeds. All are performing traffic ploys and manoeuvres that would certainly be illegal back in the UK and outrageously dangerous anywhere. The first type of tuk-tuk looks like a small motorbike with a precarious homemade sidecar welded haphazardly onto it. Or, there’s the more purpose-built three-wheeler with a domed-cab type that has a bench seat in the back.

The latter looks a little safer of the two, but of course as soon as I raise my hand, the one that screeches to a halt beside me with its engine popping and its driver grinning at me like a maniac is the precarious kind. I climb onboard and we’re immediately off, with both the warm evening air and every other vehicle’s exhaust fumes blowing in my hot face and through my sweaty hair. I cling onto the rattling open-sided framework, gritting my teeth.

As we enter the main traffic stream of cars and trucks and scooters and other tuk-tuks and open back trucks packed with passengers, we seem to be racing against teams of whole families sitting astride one scooter – Dad is driving and his young son is sitting between his knees, his wife is sitting primly side-saddle with a new baby in her arms, and their tiny daughter is sandwiched on the seat between her mum and dad. No one wears a helmet and all of them are carrying something like a shopping bag or a lunchbox or even a sack of rice.

At the roundabout-of-no-rules, I hold on even tighter and bite down on my lower lip to stop myself squealing in terror as we join the weaving masses, where just one vehicle either slowing or hesitating or wobbling would cause absolute carnage.

We somehow manage to come through unscathed and as we judder to a halt at the next set of traffic lights, I’m distracted from the mayhem of the death-defying junction ahead of us by the sights on either side of me. There is a large monkey sitting quietly in the front basket of a motorbike to my left and of the two men astride a small scooter to my right, one of them is carrying a fridge. It’s certainly an interesting and exhilarating way to get around town.

On my first morning in Chiang Mai, I wake early, just as the sun is coming up. I make myself a cup of coffee from the hospitality tray in my room and take it out onto the first-floor terrace that overlooks the street. I had expected the street to be deserted at this time of the day, but the opposite is true. I see lots of people lining the street, all holding bags of food or bowls of fruit and bottles of water, and they all seem to be waiting for something or someone.

Soon, along comes a posse of bald monks wrapped in saffron coloured robes, all carrying bowls. I’d say they were begging bowls, except clearly these monks don’t need to beg.

I watch, fascinated, as the monks walk slowly and purposefully down the street in a single line, oldest first, gracefully and humbly, and mostly barefoot. Then I see Noon, my landlady, standing at the roadside too. I watch her take a step into the path of an approaching monk and lay her offerings onto a cloth on the ground before him. She quickly drops to her knees in front of him with her head lowered and her hands pressed tightly together at her forehead. The monk stops in front of her and picks up the bag of cooked rice and the fruit she has laid down and places them in his bowl before giving her a blessing. His melodic chanting fills the street and floats into the air to reach my ears.

I go back inside feeling like I’ve just witnessed something very special indeed.

Later, I ask Noon if this procession happens every day or just on special occasions.

She explains that the monks are from a nearby temple and they rely on the people of the town to offer them ‘alms’ of food, water, and sometimes medicine. ‘Every morning, the monks walk along the street to collect what they need for the day. We offer rice, fruit, some steamed vegetables, all to show our love and respect. But, if the giver is a woman, she must never offer her gifts by hand. She must lay down a cloth between them as the monk is forbidden to ever touch a woman.’

‘And the chanting? What does that mean?’ I ask her.

‘That is a Buddhist blessing to honour me with a happy and purposeful life.’

‘A happy and purposeful life…’ I repeat wistfully.

Her words strike a chord, and I decide right at that moment that all I want in my life is to be happy and purposeful. It doesn’t seem such a lot to want or to ask for and yet to be blessed with those two simple ingredients in my life would mean that I have everything to live and to thrive.

‘And can anyone get blessed by a monk?’ I ask.

Noon laughs and tells me that in Chiang Mai there are over three hundred temples and that in any one of them, should I wish, I can be blessed by a monk.

I immediately tell her that I’d like to stay on here for another two nights.

Then I go out to seek as many temples and as many blessings as I can possibly find.

According to my guidebook, the most significant temple in Chiang Mai is Wat Doi Suthep, which is also one of the holiest Buddhist sites in Thailand. It’s the one every pilgrim or tourist has at the top of their hitlist. The temple sits on the top of a mountain and it overlooks the city.

I take a ‘songthaew’ open back taxi truck with several other Western tourists and we head up the winding mountain road, soon finding ourselves surrounded by dense tropical forest. In the trees, our driver points out colourful birds and small swinging monkeys. I strain my eyes to see them in the wild. I’m captivated by all the monkeys!

As we make our way further up the mountain road, we drive higher and higher past (supposedly haunted) waterfalls that fall dramatically from the cliffs above us and then gather in glistening pools far below us. I feel like I’m on a wild and epic adventure.

When the taxi truck pulls up and we all climb out, it’s clear we’re not quite there yet, as there is still a towering staircase ahead of us to climb. I brace myself for the ascent but I’m stopped from going any further by a small Thai woman, who I assume is trying to sell me something. I politely decline her several times, but she is ever more insistent, waving a garment at me and shouting ‘naughty knees, naughty knees!’

Fortunately, another tourist helps me out. It turns out that I’m being asked to ‘rent’ one of her long skirts because the hemline of the dress I’m wearing is not below the knee and therefore not respectable enough for visiting the holy temple. Embarrassed, I humbly apologise, pay the small baht fee for the skirt and attach it by its Velcro fastenings around my waist.

Then I huff and puff my way up the three hundred steps or so – but I’m not counting.

I do stop occasionally to take some photos of the views both above and beneath me, and of the incredibly colourful and jewel-like mosaic balustrade of a seven-headed serpent undulating all the way along the staircase. According to my guidebook, this is the longest ‘naga’ or ‘water serpent’ in Thailand. I find the climb as beautiful as it is exhausting.

At the top, although still on the lower terrace, I catch my breath by admiring a life-sized effigy of a white elephant. A plaque explains its significance and its interesting history. In the fourteenth century, a white elephant carrying a relic belonging to Buddha stopped here high on the mountain and after trumpeting three times, the white elephant died. The king at the time believed this to be an omen and that is why the magnificent temple was built here so long ago.

I walk on past rows upon rows of large polished brass bells towards the upper terrace where, after removing my flip flops and leaving them in a pile with many others, I find a multitude of smaller temples, ornate shrines, Buddha statues and golden umbrellas. In the centre of the terrace, I stand breathlessly in the bright glaring sunshine, bedazzled by a huge, gold, pagoda-style temple. It is so bright and shiny that I’m sure it can be seen from space. This is the impressive and magnificent centrepiece of Wat Doi Suthep.

After taking in the stunning views of the whole of Chiang Mai around me and strolling around the cloisters in the sunshine admiring everything ancient and colourful and shiny, I see a crowd flocking into one of the smaller chapels and I decide to follow them.

Inside, the chamber is lit by hundreds of candles and in the centre of the glow is a huge effigy of a lion. There is also a monk, who in Thai and then in fluent English, is telling the story of Phra Singh – the Lion Buddha – whose image is set with a really scary face.

He says this is to remind us ‘that just like the lion it is our nature to live bravely’.

From here, feeling slightly braver, I notice a line-up of several other young monks entering another of the minor temples and I follow them too. They file inside and then sit cross-legged in rows on the mosaic tiled floor facing an ornately decorated altar filled with flowers and fruit.

Behind the altar is an enormous golden statue of Lord Buddha himself sitting serenely in the lotus position and with a look of tranquillity on his very beautiful face. Between all the gold, the saffron-wrapped monks, the gently burning incense sticks, and the candles, the entire room and everyone in it appears to be glowing.

With a cue from a leading monk, all the young monks begin to sing.

I feel every hair on my body stand on end. It is all so incredibly beautiful.

Wanting to listen to more of their singing and to their prayers, I sit quietly on the floor at the back of the chapel, along with several other visitors. I’m not religious or spiritual in any way. I’m an ex-protestant turned profound atheist, and I’ve never really had time to think about faith or my lack of it before – but I am captivated with the passion of the hypnotic chanting. I’m sure, from the serene expressions of those around me, that everyone feels just as I do because there is just something about these amazing temples, these fascinating multi-faceted deities, and these monks who live surrounded by priceless jewels and tonnes of gold without owning anything of their own except the saffron robe that covers them.

I close my eyes to concentrate on the incantation.

My soul stirs and my heart soars as I listen.

Then my busy mind quietens and I feel my heart slow to a tranquil beat.

Any bitterness inside of me seems to melt away. I realise I’m meditating.

It is a truly wonderful feeling.

When all the monks stand to leave, I open my eyes and stand to leave too. I’m just on my way out of the door, when I happen to notice another statue set into a shrine in the wall. It catches my eye because it’s so joyfully colourful and because it has so many garland offerings around its neck and lit candles at its feet. It’s a happy smiling image of a chubby dancing elephant deity with four arms, and human hands and feet, joyfully holding up what looks like a conch shell, a bowl of grapes, and a lotus blossom.

In contrast to the scary lion of earlier, this one isn’t at all intimidating and, with his free hand, he’s holding up a decorated palm as if to say to those who might pass him by: ‘hey, stop and look at me and feel happy!’

So I buy a garland and a candle and I go back to the jolly elephant to offer him my gifts.

Kneeling on the floor in front of him, I close my eyes.

I’m not entirely sure how this works, so I try a silent prayer just like I might in a church.

Dear happy elephant, please help me to find happiness and purpose in my life.

When I open my eyes, I see a young monk has sat down next to me.

‘What do you see when you look at Lord Ganesh?’ he asks me in perfect English.

‘I see true happiness. It’s something I want for myself,’ I confess to him in a whisper.

The young monk smiles at me serenely. ‘Rest assured, if you are willing to open your heart, then Lord Ganesh will guide you. He will send a sign that will lead to your place of happiness.’

The young monk asks for my hand and so I give it to him.

And very carefully, without touching my skin, he ties a small piece of twisted white string around my wrist. ‘This is a sai sin bracelet of sacred thread. You must wear this until you find your place of happiness.’ Then he begins his songful blessing: Om mani padme hum. Om mani padme hum. Om mani padme hum. Om mani padme hum. Om mani padme hum. Om mani padme hum.

Embarrassingly, I’m moved to tears.

When he sees I’m weeping, he leans forward to speak in my ear in a voice no louder than a whisper. ‘There was once a lady who said to Lord Buddha, “I want happiness” and Lord Buddha told her that she must first remove “I” as that was her ego. Then, she must remove “want” because that was her greed. And then, she would be left with “happiness”.’

I ponder the meaning of his advice all the way back down the three hundred steps.

But at the bottom of the steps, my mind is suddenly filled with confusion.

Surely, in leaving everything behind me, I have already let go of my greed and my ego?

And what will be the sign? Will it be unmistakable, or will it be cryptic?

He also said ‘your place of happiness’.

Does that mean I’ll find my happiness in an actual place or simply in a mindset?

I return my rented skirt. I then notice another Thai lady sitting on the floor at the bottom of the steps with her jars of paste and pens and a small board with symbols on it. I see she’s offering henna tattoos for just a few baht. I immediately notice that one of the symbols is exactly the same as the one I’d seen decorating Lord Ganesh’s upheld palm.

It looks like an elaborate and swirly upside-down question mark.

‘What does this mean?’ I ask her, pointing to it.

‘It means to bring you much happiness,’ she replies.

‘Then I’ll take it,’ I tell her, sitting down and holding out my right palm.

Back at the homestay, several mornings later, after I had avidly explored practically every inch of Chiang Mai and visited dozens of stunningly beautiful temples all over town and received so many blessings that I had a whole collection of white string bracelets on my arm, I’m sitting at my breakfast table in the garden, enjoying tropical fruits and eggs and strong coffee and pondering where in Thailand I should travel to next.

As the tables around me are being taken up, I see there are lots of new people at the homestay today. Up until now, most of the other guests have been young couples or family groups and I’ve felt awkward and self-conscious about being on my own. I’ve honestly never had to have a breakfast at a hotel on my own before this trip. I’ve never been sightseeing on my own before. I’ve never flown on a plane or travelled alone and I’ve found it all rather disconcerting. I’ve thought that other people might be looking at me and judging me in some way for being alone. Silly, I know. But today, I realise, I’m not the only person here travelling solo. Some are younger, but not exclusively. There are one or two who are middle-aged like me. I also get the feeling that no one here feels even the slightest bit awkward for being alone.

In fact, everyone has an attractive aura of confidence and purpose about themselves.

I feel reassured. I don’t have to feel self-conscious or less worthy or invisible anymore.

Today, I feel it is okay to be alone. It is okay to be me.

Not the dull old me – homemaker and housewife – but the new enlightened backpacking me.

I’ve now started introducing myself to people I meet as Lori, not Lorraine.

Having a new name makes me feel different about myself.

As far as I am concerned, Lorraine is still back in the UK – married and betrayed.

Whereas Lori is a world explorer who is on an amazing adventure, meeting new people and having fun in the pursuit of happiness and purpose. Like the monks of Chiang Mai, she carries piety in her heart rather than her ego, and she travels lightly because she doesn’t need material things to represent her wealth. Lori is mindful of her place in the universe.

She is brave and fearless like a lion.

Over breakfast, in the green coolness of the garden, I strike up a conversation with a woman sitting at the table next to mine. She’s English and her name is Polly. I’m guessing, like me she’s in her mid-forties. She tells me she is from London originally and that she is a teacher taking a yearlong sabbatical – time out to travel. I didn’t know people did such a thing.

‘I teach history at a private school in Cheshire, just outside Manchester. But I’ve been travelling for almost a year now. I’m starting to seriously wonder if I’ll ever want to go back to my old job or my old life,’ she says, laughing at the thought of it. ‘I can’t really imagine being stuck in one place again. Travelling is so addictive.’

‘What will happen if you don’t go back?’ I ask.

‘I expect the person covering for me will take my job and I’ll have to find something else to do. I could always teach in Thailand. I’d just need a work visa. I must say I’m very tempted.’

I smile. ‘It sounds to me like you’ve already made up your mind.’

‘And what about you, Lori. Do you have a job waiting for you in the UK?’

I shrug. ‘I was a housewife. But, like you, I now realise I have other options.’

‘So how long do you plan to stay in Thailand?’ she asks me.

‘Well, I only have a thirty-day tourist visa and I’ve used up seven of those days already, but I’m thinking of heading south. I hear the islands on the Andaman Sea are stunning and, for some reason, I feel the need to be by the sea right now. Somewhere to relax in the sunshine.’

Polly rolls her eyes in pleasure. ‘Oh, yes. Tiny tropical islands, palm trees, white sand beaches, warm clear waters. It’s known as the Maldives of Thailand down there. From Krabi, you can island hop all the way down the Andaman Sea to Langkawi in Malaysia. I did it earlier this year. You really should go. Three weeks might be long enough, if you pace it right’

I stare at her in wide-eyed wonder and in envy of her confidence.

‘And do you think it’s best to fly back to Bangkok en route to Krabi?’ I ask her.

Polly sips her coffee and shakes her head. ‘I’d suggest from here you take the train to Bangkok and then the bus over to Krabi. Then you can use a combination of ferries and long-tail boats to take you all the way down the coast stopping off at as many islands as you wish.’

I take out my notebook and jot down her advice on a new page that I’ve titled, ‘Top Travel Tips’.

‘And so, when I eventually reach Malaysia, what would you recommend I see there?’

‘You should definitely explore Langkawi and then head over to Kuala Lumpur. From KL you can head over to the Malaysian side of Borneo. I spent a month there and highly recommend it.’ She flicks through photos on her phone and shows me one of her holding a gorgeous baby orangutan. ‘This is Peanut. He’s just one year old. He’s just like a human baby. He lives at this orangutan orphanage in Borneo where I volunteered. He was rescued from the jungle and now he gets to play in the nursery with other older orphans and learn the skills that will eventually lead to him being rehabilitated and released back into the forest reserve to live wild once more.’

Little Peanut is so tiny and has such a cute face, with his round bright eyes and spiky red hair.

My heart swells just looking at him. ‘That’s so fantastic. Can anyone go there to help with the orangutans or do you have to have special qualifications?’

‘You don’t need qualifications, although relevant experience might help. I think you just need to care deeply about the animals and the rehabilitation programme. In return, you get meals and lodgings and to help an endangered species. It’s so worthwhile.’

Polly happily scribbles down the name of this sanctuary for me in my notebook.

‘It’s called the Northern Borneo Orangutan Orphanage and it’s run by the Goldman Global Foundation. If you do an internet search it’ll give you all the details and contact information.’

‘Thanks Polly. I’ll look into it. I loved doing voluntary work back in the UK for various causes, including animal charities, so maybe they’d consider all of that relevant experience. And, just to recap, you say that taking a train is far the best way for me to get from here down to the coast?’

‘Yes. It’s a bit of a journey but it’s the cheapest and certainly the most scenic way to get back to Bangkok from here. It’ll take either all day or all night, but that’s part of the fun, right?’

I feel so glad that I’ve met Polly. She’s inspired me with confidence, given me some brilliant travel tips, and provided me with a lifeline as to how I might find direction and purpose in my new life. Later on, I check the train timetable and the bus route that she’d suggested to me.

I find she was right about the train taking all day or all night, as you could choose either the daytime train or the nighttime sleeper for the twelve-hour journey to Bangkok. Polly had said that travellers, especially backpackers, generally prefer the night train as it saves on the cost of a hostel and the fare for both journeys is much the same.

Conversely, I eventually decide on taking the daytime train, because that way I’ll get to spend the whole day looking out of the window at the Thai countryside as I travel from north to south. I’m not at all fazed by the length of the journey. I’m already hooked on the romantic notion of taking an old train on what is said to be an iconic journey through Thailand.

It sounds to me like a great adventure.

Although, on further investigation, I think Polly has rather underplayed the second leg of the trip from Bangkok to Krabi by bus. I discover this journey will take another gruelling ten hours or possibly longer. So, I make an executive decision for myself and decide, that after taking the daytime train, I’ll save being squashed into a small bus in the pitch dark with lots of sweaty hippies heading to full moon parties on the beach and spend a bit extra on staying overnight in Bangkok once more. That way, I have the more convenient option of a two-hour flight over to Krabi the following morning. It sounds like baht well spent to me.

Just as I’m about to leave the homestay for the train station, Noon and Polly kindly come out to wave me off. I hug them both and thank them for their kindness.

Noon bows gracefully and wishes me kar deinthang mi khwam sukkh (happy travels).

Polly wishes me good luck. ‘Oh, Lori, I forgot to say just one more thing!’ she yells, as I’m just about to depart in a tuk-tuk. I stick my head out of the cab in anticipation of another pearl of her wisdom. ‘Yes, what is it?’ I ask her eagerly.

‘If you pay a few extra baht for the first-class carriage, you’ll get air conditioning!’

Chapter 3
Return to Bangkok

At the train station at Chiang Mai, which was so authentically Asian that it looked like either something from a classic movie set or a bygone era of train travel, I stand for over half an hour in a long and sweaty line of people queuing for a train ticket. When it eventually gets to my turn, I’m told I should have pre-booked if I wanted to travel first-class, because today the carriage is full. So, I walk away past life-sized statues of elephants and garland-wrapped effigies, with my rucksack on my back and a second-class ticket in my hand.

Perhaps I should be grateful that I hadn’t been reduced to riding third-class (on the roof perhaps?) but I must admit to feeling a little apprehensive at what might be in store for me over the next twelve hours or more on a packed train with no air conditioning.

On Platform 3, I see the train to Bangkok with its bright jewel-coloured livery. She looks as gloriously original as I’d hoped she would and I’m thrilled to bits. This is like stepping back in time. I remember how, many years ago, when I was still new to the travel agency business, a client had asked me to organise an epic train journey for him on the Trans-Siberian route – the world famous six-thousand-plus-mile journey across Russia. During the detailed planning stages of his itinerary, I’d often dreamt of taking the epic journey too and after talking at great length to the client afterwards about his amazing experiences, I’ve been left with a romanticised view of long train journeys on classic trains.

I show my ticket to a uniformed guard and he kindly escorts me to my carriage.

It’s several carriages along the platform and past the first class one with air conditioning.

As we trot past it, I try hard not to feel envious of those settling into big comfortable looking velour wrapped seats with headrests and elaborately curtained windows. I follow the guard along the platform to my second-class carriage and settle myself into a vinyl wrapped seat by a window that has no blind or curtain to filter out the heat or glare from the blazing sun.

As there are still plenty of empty seats around me and no seat number allocations, I get my pick and make sure to choose one benefitting from one of the very few electric fans fixed to the ceiling. Soon the carriage fills with other people – Thai students, migrant workers from bordering Myanmar, lots of backpacking Westerners, and several saffron-robed monks. I’ve prepared myself for the long journey by stocking up on snacks and drinks and it looks like everyone else has done the same, climbing on board with bulging carrier bags from the 7/11 store.

I see a young woman boarding the train. She’s wearing a short crop top and exactly the same style of baggy red elephant pattern trousers as I’m wearing. She’s petite, slim and pretty and has the most gloriously deep golden suntan and long shiny conker-brown hair worn in a high pony tail. She has artful looking tattoos on her upper arms and she carries a large tatty backpack that has a yoga mat strapped to it. Both her bag and her tan suggest she’s been travelling for quite some time. I guess she’s in her late twenties or early thirties but there is something about her that makes me want to watch her as she places her belongings in the overhead storage compartment and slides into the seat next to me.

‘Hi, I’m Summer,’ she says in a soft American accent, holding out her hand.

‘Nice to meet you, Summer. I’m Lori.’ I smile and reach out my hand.

She immediately spots my henna tattoo. ‘Oh, look, I have that one too.’

She shows me the same symbol – only hers is a real tattoo – on the inside of her wrist.

We laugh about wearing exactly the same elephant pattern trousers and I confess to having also bought the matching shorts. As our journey gets underway, the train rattles out of the station and into open countryside. I stare out of the window as we pass rice field after rice field. There is a scattering of simple homes and small farms, and surprisingly few villages, and very few animals in the fields – only a few long-horned cattle on occasion. I do see lots of people in the fields as we gather speed along the rails, both men and women, thin and small and bent, as they manually toil the land. They look as if they’ve been standing in those fields as part of the scenery all their lives. For many hot and sweaty hours, I stare out of that window, but disappointingly the backdrop never seems to change.

I start to think that once you’d seen one rice field, you’ve seen them all.

People around me are mostly sleeping. Summer has put her headphones in and closed her eyes. She’s either listening to music or sleeping too. Occasionally, we stop at a small rural railway station, but they are few and far between. Nobody ever gets off and we only ever pick up one or two more passengers along our route.

When I decide it’s time to visit the toilet, I wonder what to expect inside the small cubicle that so many others have visited before me. The awful smell of stale urine wafting through the carriage every time the door is opened has me waiting until I can’t wait any longer.

Inside, I find a window with no glass and a fiercely hot breeze serving as ventilation.

There’s a pan with a hole straight down onto the tracks.

I expect I came out looking a little awry.

Back in my seat, the heat in the carriage is making me feel drowsy. I know I could easily drift off to sleep, but while I have the benefit of a calm and passive mind and all these hours just to sit and think and reflect on life, I know that I should. I have a lot to think about.

I have some big decisions to make. I have plans to mull over. I have blessings to count.

My mum says it’s a lesson in humility to count one’s blessings.

Over the past week, I have grieved the loss of my husband and my marriage. I’ve wept with sadness. I’ve raged at my betrayal and humiliation. But I know this cannot go on. It must stop sometime, so it might as well stop now, before I lose myself in those tears of anger and shame.

I owe it to myself and I owe it to my sons to be strong and get through this with some dignity.

I reflect on my life back in the UK and the people there. My mum, my friends, my associates.

I happen to know lots of people – fortunate people – with health and wealth and property and love in their lives. And, mostly through my voluntary and charity work, I also know people who are suffering with very real problems – far worse than infidelity and divorce and loneliness. I’m talking about death, disease, pain and crippling debt. So, while I may still have my problems, I know I must always keep things in perspective.

I do still have blessings to count.

I have my wonderful sons and they are both healthy. I have my own good health too. What else? What am I looking forward to right now? Well, I’m looking forward to having some time at the beach to relax and to get a proper suntan. I’m looking forward to treating the next few weeks as a much-needed holiday. I should think of it as a convalescence – a time to heal and a time to move on with my life. I’m looking forward to travelling down the Andaman Sea from one beautiful tropical island to another and being lazy about it. I want to tick every single thing off my bucket list. I want to spend my time in a hammock, reading, snoozing, resting, and reminding myself that I’m travelling at long last and I’m experiencing the stuff of dreams.

I just hadn’t expected to be making my dreams come true on my own.

Then, when I finally reach Malaysia, I’ll decide what happens next.

I’d decide whether to head to Borneo to volunteer at the Orangutan orphanage or scuttle back to the UK to face Charles and sign the divorce papers. Such decisions. To think that just one week ago, I had been an ordinary woman living an ordinary life and making ordinary decisions. I would wake up in the morning and decide whether to have cereal or toast with my tea or coffee. At some point during my day, I would push a trolley around the supermarket, deciding whether to cook chicken or beef for dinner and whether to choose bio or non-bio washing powder. I’d had absolutely no idea then, that just one week later, everything would suddenly stop being mundane and I’d be choosing whether to take a plane or a train and where to go travelling next.

Then, with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I realise that if I hadn’t gone home unexpectedly early last week, all of this would never have happened, and I’d still be living a terrible lie. I’d still be thinking I was happily married and that everything in my life was fine.

Without that cruel twist of fate, I might still be none the wiser about Sally and Charles.

For a little while longer, anyway. Until he’d decided the time was right to leave me.

One week ago, I’d arranged to take my mum to the cinema. It was senior citizen day and they were showing one of her favourites – Casablanca. But we’d only just settled into our seats when Mum said she had a headache and wanted to go home – and that simple change of plan started a chain of actions that exposed to me my husband’s affair and to my friend’s betrayal. Somehow it felt like more than a week ago that I’d been a housewife.

And now I have neither a house nor a husband.

I have to ask myself which one I was married to – the home or the man?

Either way, I am now homeless, redundant, and my marriage vows are void.

But I have my life. I have my health. I have some money – and if I’m very careful it could last a while – and all those things add up to me being a free and independent woman.

I should be feeling excited not fearful. I’m right to count my blessings and to be positive.

The monotony of the hours rolls on and the hypnotic swaying of the train and the clacking of the rails is broken by the sound of the carriage door suddenly opening. A uniformed and rather grumpy-faced Thai lady is pushing a squeaky-wheeled trolley into our carriage. She doesn’t make eye contact or speak to anyone but focusses on her task of distributing plastic trays. She slaps one down in front of every person and so I’m guessing lunch is included in the price of the ticket. I straighten up in my seat and pull down my tray holder expectantly. I realise I’m hungry. The sudden activity disturbs all my fellow passengers including Summer.

I investigate my meal by peeling the foil wrapper off what looks to be the main course. A warm waft of curry spices hits the air. I peer inside and see a portion of rice and a fish head complete with pouting lips and bulging eyes staring up at me from a slimy green sauce.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t eat that unless you want to spend the rest of the day in the toilet,’ Summer says to me, pushing her own meal aside.

I reattach the foil lid and rifle through my 7/11 carrier bag instead.

‘Here … I have plenty’ I say, offering Summer a sandwich, a packet of crisps and a bottle of water. For some reason, I’ve bought double of everything and far more than I need.

She thanks me and then rummages through her own carrier bag and produces a couple of cartons of cooked noodles, two hard-boiled eggs and a bag of fruit, which she offers me in return.

‘Well, I guess we won’t go hungry!’ I laugh.

Like everyone else, we return our trays of train food untouched when the grumpy Thai lady returned to clear away. She practically snatches them away from us and slams them back into the trolley, glaring at us as if we’re all ungrateful ‘farangs’ (white tourists).

‘Are you planning to stay in Bangkok or are you travelling on?’ I ask Summer.

‘I’m staying in Bangkok tonight then heading over to Krabi and Railay Beach first thing in the morning,’ she tells me. ‘I thought there’d be no point in dashing off to the airport tonight, when none of the boats to the beach will leave Krabi once the sun had gone down.’

‘You have to take a boat to the beach?’

‘Yes, Railay is surrounded by tall limestone cliffs, so you can only reach it by boat.’

‘I’m sure I’ve heard of it,’ I say, thinking aloud and digging out my guidebook.

‘Well, it looks awesome. If we had wi-fi right now I’d show you some photos on my iPad. It looks stunningly beautiful. You simply can’t go to Krabi and not see Railay Beach!’

‘I’m flying to Krabi tomorrow morning too. Then heading on to Koh Lanta,’ I tell her.

‘Me too!’ Summer says. ‘I’m heading to Koh Lanta after my one night in Railay.’

‘Oh wow, that’s a coincidence,’ I say, finding Railay Beach in my guidebook and ogling the photos.

Summer laughs. ‘Not really. If you are doing the islands then most people will head to Koh Lanta first, which is fine. But if you are really savvy then you’d take a detour to Railay – it’s not as busy as the other beaches, but it’s supposed to be one of the best in Thailand.’

‘It does look amazing.’ I groan, seeing a photo of towering cliffs and a white sand beach and palm trees, and feeling like I’d missed a trick here and that I really should research more.

‘Why don’t you come along?’ Summer offers. ‘If you’d like, we can go together and then we can both take the ferry from Railay to Lanta together the next day?’

‘Really?’ I say, feeling thrilled at receiving such a kind invitation from a stranger.

‘No, Railay!’ She laughs at her joke, showing off her small perfect white teeth.

With her suntan and aura of casual freedom in mind, I ask where she has been and how long she has been travelling. Mainly so I can guess how long it might take me to acquire the same attractive qualities. Summer tells me she is a yoga teacher.

‘Before I came to Thailand, I was in India for a while,’ she says, sounding so effortlessly well-travelled that India just rolls off her tongue. ‘I went there to deepen my practice and to learn meditation with a guru in an Ashram. Then I came to Thailand because I was offered a job teaching yoga at a retreat on Koh Samui. I did that for a couple of months. Then I did a visa run and came straight back here so I could go to Koh Phangan for the full moon party.’

‘Well, it must have been very sunny because you have a great tan,’ I tell her enviously.

‘Yeah, it’s been really hot over the past few months. After Koh Phangan, I went over to Koh Tao for the scuba diving. I did my divemaster internship there and I’m planning on going back as soon as the monsoon season is over to do an instructor course.’

I open up my trusty and well-thumbed guidebook and looked up the islands mentioned.

‘You mentioned scuba diving, Summer. That’s something I’d really love to try, as well as yoga, of course. Is it hard to learn?’

‘Not really, but it’s important to find a good teacher. That applies to both yoga and diving.’

After several more hours of chatting and snacking we chug into Bangkok at sundown.

And, along with everyone else in our carriage, we’re all leaning over each other to get a westerly window spot and to point our phones at the spectacular sight of a fiery red sunset filtering through the city smog before its time to disembark. Suddenly our long journey is over.

‘Summer, I’m so very happy I met you and I’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow at the airport.’

‘Sure. Me too. I’m so glad we met, Lori. I’ll see you at the gate for Krabi tomorrow.’

We hug each other goodbye as if we’re old friends and I head straight to the taxi rank.

I see Summer making her way down to the bus station to take a public bus to a hostel where she’d said she’d be spending the night. I’m looking forward to getting back to the Holiday Inn and taking a long leisurely soak in a bath. I’d been sitting on the train in the same clothes for so long that I can’t wait to get freshened up.

But the traffic is slow through the congested city and the taxi ambles at a slow pace.

My fingers are absently playing with my sai sin bracelets as I look out at the bright lights of the city that looks a little less scary to me this time around. My thoughts again wander over the events of the past week. I consider how fate has played such a huge part in everything I’ve done. I reason that if I hadn’t met Polly on my last morning in Chiang Mai, I wouldn’t have thought to get the train to Bangkok because I’d have taken a plane instead.

And, if the first-class carriage hadn’t been full on the train today, then I wouldn’t have sat next to Summer and I wouldn’t be going to Railay Beach tomorrow.

Some people call it fate or they credit a guardian angel or a spirit with such guidance.

I’m pretty sure I’d found this special pairing in a temple somewhere in Chiang Mai.

I know how ridiculous that sounds. Just a week ago, I’d have dismissed it as complete rubbish, but I now strongly believe that this is all happening for a reason and I think I’m being guided and helped and that one day soon, I’ll open my heart and be given a sign that will lead to finding my place of happiness.

That evening, in a standard single room this time rather than a decadent suite, and after a shower and dinner ordered from room service with a nice glass of wine, I sit on the bed flicking through my phone and looking at all the photos I’ve taken in Chiang Mai over the past week.

There are some simply stunning ones. The sky in every single shot is a clear backdrop of deep blue against a myriad of wonderful and ancient things made of gold and precious jewels and intricate mosaics and polished bells and monks in saffron robes. The light in every photo is so soft that it makes everything appear dreamlike and glowing.

I post all my photos into an album on my Facebook page. I struggle to choose a favourite but then pick the one I’d taken of the old train in the station at Chiang Mai as my new Facebook cover picture, replacing the rather boring one of a tub of flowers from my garden back home.

Then I delete Charles and my ex-friend Sally from my friends and family contact list and update my current location to Bangkok, Thailand. I guess if my loved ones know where I am and what I’m doing they might worry less. They also might give me some space and time and leave me alone for a while.

Chapter 4
Railay

The next morning, I’m saved the expense of an expensive taxi by the free hotel shuttle bus to Suvarnabhumi airport. Once there, I find transiting through the domestic avenues rather easier than navigating the international ones. At the gate for the Krabi flight, I see Summer waiting.

Today Summer looks all bohemian and quite beautiful in a pair of light-cream flowing harem trousers and a white vest that shows off her deeply tanned skin. Her long dark hair is loose about her shoulders. On her arms, she wears lots of jangly bangles. In contrast, I’m wearing a baggy white cotton blouse and my old jeans that this morning I’d decided to turn into knee-length cut-off shorts. I’ve scraped back my humidity frazzled hair and tied it into a tight chignon, the way I’d always wore it at home. I had thought I’d looked chic as I left the cool ambiance of the hotel but now, having spent almost an hour travelling in a hot minibus with a dozen other people, I feel both overheated and underdressed at the same time.

I rush over to greet Summer and I’m full of apologies in case I’m late.

But she tells me our flight isn’t even in yet and it might have been delayed. I offer to buy us both coffee and a muffin while we wait. A couple of hours later, our flight departs and we arrive in Krabi to sky-high temperatures and blue skies and body-soaking, pulse-pounding humidity.

‘How far away is it to the boat?’ I ask. My heavy denim shorts are now sticking to my thighs and chafing me uncomfortably, and sweat from my hair is trickling down my beetroot-red face.

‘It’s about half an hour on the bus.’ Summer replies, coolly taking it all in her stride.

We walk past the taxi rank, ignore all the touting drivers, and we buy a bus ticket each for just a few baht from the transport office in the arrivals hall to take us from the airport to the pier. Soon afterwards, we are escorted to a minibus already packed full of passengers and we’re ready to set off. It’s hot and stuffy and crowded. Even with the air-con flowing it’s quite suffocating on the bus. But everyone seems to be in a jolly mood and so there is lots of laughter and enthusiasm for seeing the famous Railay Beach.

In the bus with us are several young couples and a group of five young lads. The lads all seem to know each other well. Summer immediately gets chatting with them. They tell us how they all started out travelling solo around South East Asia but had met up in Vietnam and for the past few weeks had been travelling together. Three of them, Chad, Rick, and Brad, are loud chatty Americans with the same short, choppy haircuts, who all seem very keen on outdoing each other to impress Summer. Another lad is German and called Peter who, being European, speaks very good English. The fifth fellow in the group is a Brit who introduces himself as Nate, but the others immediately tell us they’ve nicknamed him Prince Harry, because of his short red hair and clipped British accent that makes him sound rather royal.

Poor Nate. To compensate for his poshness, I notice how he’s finishing all his sentences with ‘man’ or words like ‘gross/cool/awesome’ to try to fit in with the laidback Americans.

I guess they’re all around the same age as my sons and suddenly I feel rather old.

What must they think of someone my age backpacking around Thailand?

The topic of conversation between the lads is entertainingly all about which of their bus journeys across Asia has so far been the longest and the smelliest (sixteen hours from Hue to Hanoi with someone who had vomited and missed the sick bag) and how many times they’ve all had food poisoning (at least twice each with bad seafood being the main culprit) and whether Chang or Leo or Singha is the best beer in Thailand (Leo, apparently, and then Chang and then Singha). Then there was the big debate on whether we were all going to find Railay Beach as beautiful as was promised or – like the not-too-far away island of Koh Phi Phi Ley (known as ‘The Beach’ because it has been used as a location for the movie of the same name starring Leonardo DiCaprio and was once voted the most beautiful beach in the world) – we would find it full of discarded plastics and totally ruined by mass tourism.

‘It’s a shame but I hear Koh Phi Phi Ley is now so overcrowded it’s impossible to even take a selfie,’ says Chad (or Rick or Brad) shaking his head in dismay.

‘I hear thousands of tourists go there every day, all pouring out of long-tail boats like lemmings onto what once used to be a perfect beach,’ says Rick (or Brad or Chad).

‘Yeah, I heard that too, so I’ve already decided I’m gonna give it a miss,’ says German Peter, trying to be heard over the loud Americans.

I listen in disappointment, as I too had bookmarked Phi Phi Ley in my copy of Lonely Planet: Thailand as a must see. But now, like the lads, I’m not so sure it would be worth the effort of taking a boat over there just to stand on a beach with thousands of other tourists.

‘Not to worry, I’m sure there are other beautiful islands and beaches to see,’ I say brightly.

When we arrive at the pier, we all pile out of the bus. I wait with our backpacks while Summer goes into the shop to buy us a couple of bottles of water. I’m far too hot. Sweat is pouring from every pore in my entire body, making me pant like a mad dog. I know my face must be a hot red swollen mess and my hair a fizzy muddle on the back of my head. I have my sunglasses on against the dazzling sun, but they keep sliding down my nose and I desperately wish I had a hat too, as the sun is beating down on me like a blowtorch. I scuttle sideways dragging our bags into the shade of the wooden canopy over the ticket office.

When Summer comes back, I see she’s not only bought us a cold bottle of water each, she has strawberry ice lollies too. I haven’t had an ice lolly since I was a kid and thoroughly enjoy sucking and licking it as fast as it was melting off the little wooden stick and running in scarlet dribbles down my chin and over my sticky fingers.

Soon, several long-tail boats turn up. A long-tail boat is named after the long prop shaft sticking into the water at the back of it that propels it forward. The boat itself is a traditional narrow wooden one with rows of bench seats – a bit like a large canoe – and to me it looks and feels wholly unstable. The front, where all our backpacks are being precariously stacked for the journey, has an extended bow and this is decorated with colourful garlands and wreaths of flowers that look really pretty but that I know are specifically there to provide good luck and to ask for protection from sinking from the spirits of the water. There is a roof of sorts, but it’s just a metal frame tarpaulin, designed to offer passengers some protection from the sun or rain.

Our boat has sixteen passengers aboard and one Thai boatman, who operates the ‘long-tail’ with one bare foot while a cigarette dangles from his lower lip. The engine looks like it’s something he’d salvaged from an old car and as he revs it up and steers us out into the open sea it pours out a reek of black smoke all the way from the pier and around the monumental headlands to Railay Beach.

I sit completely still on the wooden bench in the midsection next to Summer. The boat rocks and tilts as it smashes its way through the choppy waters. The large rolling waves that crash against the front of the boat are soaking all the bags and spraying those of us sitting at the front.

I’m petrified but trying desperately not to show it. I try to recall the last time I was on a boat.

It was in the Lake District, I think, when I was about twelve years old. In a little flurry of panic, I wonder if I can still swim? I try to remember the last time I went swimming. Properly swimming, I mean, because I can’t count the time Sally convinced me to take up water aerobics and we never left the three-foot end of the local pool. I tell myself that swimming is like riding a bike. Once you’ve learned, it comes back, no matter how long ago you did it last.

Over the sound of the roaring diesel engine, I ask Summer if she’s already got somewhere to stay at Railay. She shakes her head, flicking her long glossy hair from side to side like a show pony. ‘No, but don’t worry, it’s early in the season. I’m pretty sure we’ll find somewhere reasonably priced to stay for one night.’

I keep my eyes trained on what I can see of the horizon over the large moving expanse of deep water ahead of us. I worry about being seasick. To distract myself, I play a guessing game on where the lifejackets might be kept in case of a capsize. Then I hear Summer laugh.

She’s enjoying another conversation with the gap year lads from the minibus.

They’re all sparring over ‘where is the best … something … in the world?’

I enjoy listening to their animated and enthusiastic conversation, probably because they are all so impressively well-travelled and confident. Their parents must be so proud of them, I think to myself, knowing how proud I am of each of my own two sons. This time, German Peter has asked for the consensus on ‘where is the best full moon party in the world?’

‘Without a doubt, Koh Phangan has the best full moon parties!’ Summer tells them emphatically. I can see the lads all nodding their heads in agreement. Although I also notice they tend to agree with Summer whatever she says. And who can blame them?

‘Yeah, you haven’t lived until you’ve been to one of those crazy nights on Phangan!’ yells one of the American lads, punching the air to make his point and to let everyone (most importantly, Summer) know that he’s one of the cool cats who’s actually been there and done it. Almost everyone in the boat nods in agreement with him. I guess I haven’t lived?

‘So where would you guys say is the best for scuba diving?’ German Peter asks.

I listen keenly for the answer, grateful for another distraction. I’m starting to feel queasy.

Summer immediately pipes up again. ‘That would be Geluk Island. I learned to dive on the reef there and it got me totally hooked on scuba. It’s got the best diving in the whole world’

‘Yeah, man, Geluk!’ Nate yells. ‘I went last year with the GGF and did my thesis in marine ecology and conservation. The reef is so alive, man. I swam with dolphins. It was awesome!’

The other’s look at him enviously as they obviously can’t make the same claim.

Prince Harry is suddenly winning big over the Americans.

‘What’s the GGF?’ I ask him curiously.

‘The Goldman Global Foundation. It’s a conservation charity organisation.’

‘That is SO cool, Nate!’ exclaims Summer. ‘I love dolphins.’

‘Where is this island again?’ I ask for clarification. ‘And how is it spelt?’

‘G-E-L-U-K,’ Summer spells out for me. ‘It’s pronounced “gluck” and it’s on the Meso-American reef in the Caribbean, the second largest barrier reef in the world after the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, only it’s in much better condition and, like Nate says, the diving there is incredible.’

My eyes are wide with interest. Summer and Nate have painted such a vivid picture of this beautiful tropical island paradise. I immediately dream of going there one day to scuba dive.

I mentally add it to my bucket list.

I mean, why not, right? There’s nothing to stop me because I’m a backpacker too!

Just then, our boat comes around the headland that successfully cuts Railay Beach off from the rest of Krabi province, and we all gasp at the sight of the picture-perfect utopia in front of us. The photos in my guidebook did no justice at all to the incredible beauty of this place.

The soaring limestone cliffs look like giant fingers pointing into a cloudless blue sky.

Having entered the protection of the bay, I see the water all around us is now a flat calm shimmering emerald green sheet of pristine clarity. Just ahead of us is the much-anticipated white-sand half-moon curved beach with its backdrop of lush green forest and swaying palm trees. Our boat takes us right up to the shore line, beaching itself so that we can all clamber out, straight into the calf-deep, bathtub-warm water that is gently lapping the soft powder white sand. I look around me. Happily, so far, the place doesn’t look too overcrowded or trashy.

The boatman throws us our backpacks. I grab mine and trudge with everyone else up the beach until we reach a sand path between the low-lying buildings sitting under the palm trees.

‘Where shall we try first?’ I ask Summer, thinking the hotels on the beach looked very nice.

‘Oh, not here, Lori. Not for me anyway. These hotels are way above my budget.’

I shrug it off. ‘Then they’ll be over mine too. I imagine this place is pricy, right?’

Summer nods. ‘Right. If you stay on West Beach you’ll pay a fortune for the privilege of watching the sunset from your balcony when you could actually just watch it for free on the beach. But don’t worry, I’m sure there are places far less expensive further in.’

‘Okay. Let’s go. I’ll follow your lead,’ I say to her, trying to hide my concern over ending up in a shared dorm with one bathroom and with all the lads from the bus and the boat.

As it is, on East Beach, just a five-minute walk away from the idyllic West Beach, while Summer checks out the shared hostel dorms, I find a pretty twin-bed wooden bungalow with private bathroom for rent. It’s double the cost of the hostel – but when I point out if we shared it would be the same price, Summer agrees it would be far nicer than the dorm.

We decide to spend the rest of the day lazing on the beach. Summer wants to top up her tan and I’m hoping to develop one. Summer, looking the very definition of her name, is wearing a tiny white bikini on her tiny, toned and evenly suntanned body while I’m searching a local beach stall for a sun hat, a tube of factor thirty sunscreen, and a swimsuit.

The hat is no problem but the sunscreen is ridiculously expensive and the swimsuits (bikinis as they don’t seem to do one-pieces) are all ridiculously small and nothing more than triangles of fabric and string.

Eventually, I find one with large enough triangles and we head for the sand and the sea.

The beauty of the enclave surrounding Railay beach is unreal.

It’s so blissful to lie on the silky soft, white sand and feel the hot sun radiating over my body.

I keep closing my eyes and then opening them again just to make sure I’m not dreaming.

I see that Summer has gone off snorkelling with the lads. I watch them swim over to the rocks underneath the wrap-around cliffs. I can hear them whooping and shouting, ‘oh wow look – you gotta see this!’ I’m curious to wonder what they have seen in the water.

Soon Summer comes running back up the beach to insist that I go snorkelling too.

‘Come on, Lori. It’s amazing. There are so many fish. It’s so beautiful – it’s like a tropical fish tank, and it’s so shallow and close to the rocks that you can stand up if you want.’

As comfortable as I am sunning myself on the beach, Summer won’t take no for an answer and she is being so sweet to want to include me. It does look like fun. I reason with myself, that if I intend to learn to scuba dive then I really should try snorkelling first, so I agree to rent a snorkel and mask and join them.

Well, from the very first moment I put my face into the water, I find I’m utterly spellbound.

The sea is warm and clear. Below me, lying on the sandy seabed are starfish, and all around me there are tiny colourful fish. I’ve never seen anything like it.

It’s like being in Finding Nemo. I float on the surface, with my face in the water and my arms and legs splayed out so I look like a starfish myself, watching all the fish darting about in the corals and rocks and sea grasses. It’s so fascinating that I soon forgot to panic about breathing through a narrow tube or getting a little bit of water in my facemask.

I’d absolutely no idea that the underwater world could be this stunningly beautiful.

I’ve watched Blue Planet, of course, but even that hadn’t done the real thing any justice.

From above, I watch the underwater creatures going about their fishy business, looking for food, having little fights, falling in love, chasing bubbles and each other, and all the while being unaware of the crazy world of people who inhabit the land above them with their lives and loves and wars and politics. I decide that I’d much prefer to be part of their watery world than my complicated earth-y one. I swim up and down that rock face for I don’t know how long. I completely lose track of time. It’s so peaceful, so very tranquil and calming.

Now I’m even more determined that while I’m on the islands I will learn to scuba dive.

I’m sure there will be scuba diving schools on the next island of Koh Lanta, which is the first and the largest island in the chain that I plan to visit and explore. Once I get my dive certificate, I’ll be able to do even more scuba diving, and build up my experience and confidence in the water.

Eventually, despite the expensive factor thirty sunscreen, I’m sure I’ve got rather too much sun on my back, and so I decide to head back up the beach. Summer and the boys are all lying flat out on the sand and in the sun but I know that I must find some shade. It has to be the hottest part of the day right now. But I see that all the palm tree shade has already been taken.

I wander up and down the beach for a while, until I spot a just-vacated chair in the shade of a palm-thatched parasol and I run like a sprinter to plonk myself into it. It isn’t long before a hostess comes over to ask me what I’d like to order. It seems the seat comes with a price. I order an iced tea and it’s by far the most refreshing iced tea I’ve ever tasted and well worth the exorbitant cost.

Later on, that same afternoon, spruced up for the evening and while Summer is taking her shower, I’m feeling mellow and reflective so I take a walk along the shoreline. The beach is quiet and the tide is going out. There are just a few families still building sandcastles with their kids now the sun had lost its burning intensity. A few local people are walking their dogs. The lads have invited both Summer and I to join them for sundowners on the beach tonight. I can see the bar owners at the top of the beach are getting ready by expanding their pitch and putting out beanbags and rugs and low tables on the beach in front of their bars. I imagine that I’ve been invited out of kindness and because Summer and I are travelling together. They clearly all have the hots for Summer, and must be at least a little furious at me for finding the only available bungalow on the beach – when they’d all had high hopes of sharing a dorm with her! I smile at foxing their plans. I do remember what it was like to be their age. Young and high on hormones, trying to fit in, desperate to fall in love.

Even if it was a long time ago.

Although, generally, I think the youth of today are far more confident and self-assured than people of my generation were at the same age. That’s a good thing. As a young woman, I hadn’t known anyone who went on a gap year around the world. Or anyone who did their thesis in the Caribbean. I only knew one or two people who had managed to go to university.

Most people I knew left school and got a job and then got married and had kids. The end.

But now, being around lots of people who travel extensively makes it seem normal.

Today, while almost out of earshot, I’d overheard Brad (or Chad or Rick) asking Summer if she and I were mother and daughter. Summer had responded so sweetly. She’d told him we were just friends but that she wished she had a mother who was as cool as me, who might be old, but still brave enough to go travelling through Thailand on her own.

Old? I had laughed to myself. I might not be young but I’m certainly not bloody old!

I take a deep breath of sea breeze and toss back my freshly washed hair from my shoulders. Tonight, I’m letting it lie in damp waves down my back. Back home, I’d always considered my long hair too thick and too difficult to ever let it wild and loose, so I’d scrape it back off my face and twist it up on my head in a prim-looking topknot or I’d braid it out of the way to lie behind my back and out of sight. Once upon a time, my long hair had been my crowning glory, but now it’s the only thing that makes me feel different in a town where every woman of a certain age has a shoulder length ‘housewife’ bob cut and they all look just the same. Although, every few weeks, I’d consider having it all chopped off.

Now I’m glad I didn’t because when I’d come out of the bathroom tonight with my hair loose and damp from the shower, Summer had looked at me with some surprise and said to me so sweetly, ‘Oh wow, Lori, I didn’t realise you have such fabulous hair!’

‘Really? You think so?’ I’d said, feeling flushed with delight.

‘Yeah. You look ten years younger with your hair down like that. It softens your face. You should wear it down all the time.’ So, I’ve decided that from now on I will.

I stop walking at the midpoint curve of the beach, where the sun has created a golden line across the water, making it look something like a shimmering divine pathway. I hitch up the white cotton dress that I’d bought at the market stall in Chiang Mai and I wade in just past my knees. I look down into the clear warm water to see the white sand between my toes and the almost translucent fish swimming around my legs. I lift my face once more to the warm salty breeze and I look up at the towering cliffs all around me. Then I let my gaze wander over the traditional long-tail boats bobbing on the shoreline, decorated with their colourful ribbons and garlands and flowers and I take a moment to acknowledge how free I feel right at this moment. Today has been an unimaginably lovely day.

I pull at my wedding ring and with a twist it comes off my finger quite easily.

How strangely bare my hand looks without it.

I realise it’s the first time I’ve ever removed it.

I raise my arm in the air and I throw the ring as far as I can into the sea.

I watch it twirl in the air, catching the golden light, until it disappears … and is gone forever.

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