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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 (#u41bfb216-c4d8-536c-a3c6-570c6c1b1d84)
Chiang Mai (#u41bfb216-c4d8-536c-a3c6-570c6c1b1d84)
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”.’
