The Backpacking Housewife: Escape around the world with this feel good novel about second chances!

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.

Chapter 5

Koh Lanta

The next morning, I wake up from a lovely dream to hear movement in our room. I realise it’s still dark. In alarm, I put on the bedside light, to find Summer trying to get dressed.

‘Oh, Lori. I’m so sorry. I was trying so hard not to wake you,’ she whispers.

‘It’s okay. What time is it? Where are you going?’

‘I’m going to the beach to practice my surya namaskara.’

‘Practice your what?’

‘My sun salutation. It’s almost dawn. You wanna come?’

‘No thanks. It’s way too early for me.’

I pull the sheet back over my head grumbling something about it having been a late night.

‘Oh, come on Lori, let’s go and do yoga together while the sun is coming up on one of the most beautiful beaches in Thailand. I promise you’ll be so happy you made the effort!’

And there was that word again – happy – and the actual promise of it.

My sleepy head reminds me that if I don’t open my heart, I’ll never receive the sign that will lead me to my place of happiness, and who knows if that place isn’t in yoga?

Summer always has a serene look about her, not to mention really great posture, so it works for her.

To my surprise, we aren’t the only ones on East Beach ready to do yoga just before the sun begins to rise. We start off standing in what Summer says is Mountain Pose in honour of the tall rocks around us. Then, in the moments before the actual sun comes peeping over the horizon, we hold our palms together at chest level and we focus on our inner sun.

We inhale noisily; this rushing breath is important and called ujjayi or ‘ocean breath,’ taking in great gulps of warm, humid morning air, sweeping our arms to the sky and stretching our bodies up while gazing at our thumbs. Then we fold our bodies down again before going into a lunge with our palms and soles pressing into the sand for the Downward Dog pose.

I struggle with the next couple of poses – a sort of planking that Summer calls Chaturanga and then we rise up into Upward Facing Dog followed by yet another downward one. I find it quite exhausting trying to keep the flow of movement, but I follow Summer and when we come back to the standing pose again with our palms together as if we’re praying, I find myself silently thanking the sun for coming up this morning.

And I do indeed feel very happy.

After a hastily bought and quickly eaten store-bought breakfast of tinned iced tea, a carton of yogurt and a banana – all for the price of just a few baht – Summer and I head back out into the already blazing hot morning sun onto West Beach where, with our backpacks and lots of other people, including the lads, we must wait to be taken by long-tail boats out to the ferries.

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