The Backpacking Housewife. Janice Horton
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,