The Backpacking Housewife

by Janice Horton

  ‘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 scat
tering 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.’