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
