Katy Colins - Destination Thailand

Snaking down the sandy beach, past thick fragrant bushes, and successfully navigating rocky steps we eventually arrived at a pristine horseshoe bay, which had just a smattering of sun loungers. I felt my bunched-up shoulders relax a little. We had found a small oasis of calm from the chaos of the Turkish town. With the quiet and unspoilt topaz blue bay glistening ahead of us I let my toes spread out on the sand, inhaling the balmy air which carried familiar smells of coconut sun cream and greasy chips.

We settled on two loungers and stripped off to reveal reddening skin. If she wasn’t my best friend, I could really hate Marie. Her toned figure hid the fact that she had a son, Cole, who was the unexpected result of a jaeger-bombed night of passion with Mike, a guy whom she’d met down at her local. With long, fiery-red hair that she only admitted to ‘touching up’, plus the dirtiest mind and most caring personality, she commanded the attention of any room she entered. I wished I were more like her; secretly I had always hoped that by hanging out together some of Marie’s sparkle would rub off on me.

‘Hello there, ladies. I’m Ali. Just the two beds is it?’ A local man in his early thirties with a smiling tanned face bounded over. He was topless, wearing just a necklace holding an animal tooth which pointed to his six pack, and his sculpted chest was adorned with faded tattoo script which crept down into the waistband of his battered denim cut-offs.

‘Yes please,’ Marie smiled up at him.

‘It’s suddenly got very hot around here,’ he winked, taking our money.

Marie’s eyes followed his admittedly nice arse back to his beach cabin before turning to me grinning. ‘Phwoarsome or what?’

I made a noise between a huff and a sigh. Members of the opposite sex were so far off my radar right now I needed to wear binoculars just to see them.

‘Oh come on, Georgia. You can’t pretend that a bit of eye candy doesn’t stir something deep in those closed-off loins of yours?’ Marie laughed as I rolled my eyes. ‘You know what, I’m suddenly really thirsty, want a beer?’

‘Strange that the bar is right next to his hut.’

‘Maybe.’ Marie ignored my raised eyebrow and delved into her bag bringing out a pen and unscrunching a flyer that we’d been handed for a ladies-drink-free night. ‘Anyway, while I’m gone I have a plan for you. I think it’s time to make a list. I know how much you love them, plus my mum’s always said, “if in doubt, write it out.”’ She paused with the pen lid pressed to her lips. ‘I want you to make a list of everything you want to do and see in your life. Kind of like a bucket list, but with no terminal cancer spurring you on.’ She passed me the pen, moist at the top, and the flyer, blank side up.

‘I don’t know what I want any more. I thought I knew. I had everything planned and sorted, but now I feel like I’m in some horrible limbo,’ I whined. But I took the soggy pen as it was true, I did love a good list. There was something about the control you get from emptying your head by simply jotting your thoughts down, then the satisfaction when slicing through them with a big fat tick once completed.

‘No. You’ve moped enough and now it’s time to make changes and take action,’ Marie said firmly, looking as if she was scoping out a nearby rock as a makeshift naughty step if I didn’t play along. ‘What’s happened has been shit. Really shit. But think of it like this, at least you never have to see his demon mother again, never have to worry about fitting in on their ridiculous family getaways. No more putting up with their la-di-dah ways.’ She pursed her lips and cupped her hand like the Queen waving – not a bad impression of Alex’s mum Ruth, to be honest. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if all this time he’s been taking that trust fund they offered him, but then playing the I’m one of the common people card. Bastard.’

I sniffed loudly.

‘I know it’s hard. But please try and think of the positives, hun. If you don’t know what you do want then maybe think about what you don’t want.’ She paused, adjusting her sunglasses as Ali waved to her from his beach cabin, tearing his eyes away from a nearby game of beach volleyball. ‘You don’t want to be with he-who-shall-not-be-named. You don’t want to be living in my spare room for the rest of your life. You don’t want to be some lonely boring cat-lady –’

‘– Only because of my allergies,’ I returned.

‘No. You don’t just want to be someone’s other half. You need to be a whole and we’re going to get you back on track with a plan that’s going to do that.’ She smiled gently. ‘Just give it a go, please.’ She pecked me on the top of my head, tied on her sarong and headed off to buy us both a drink, sashaying effortlessly across the sand.

I glanced down at the blank paper so creamy and fresh, scared to write anything down, as it felt like committing to achieving it. The problem was, I had always had a plan. But now? Now, all that lay ahead was an empty space like this paper in my sweaty hands.

A family had taken the sun loungers next to ours and were chatting animatedly to one another in what sounded like fast Spanish, their foreign tones seeming so exotic compared to my broad Northern accent. I’d never learned another language, apart from my French GCSE thirteen years ago, but I could barely remember any of it. Maybe that’s something I could do?

In fact, apart from this trip with Marie, I hadn’t been abroad in years. What with saving for the wedding and the house, all of my summer leave was spent doing DIY or visiting Alex’s family’s second home in Edinburgh. When I was younger I had always dreamt that my salary would be spent on exotic trips, but my pitiful wage never seemed to stretch far enough. Even when I’d found a last-minute billy-bargain to Benidorm, Alex had scoffed that it would be like going on holiday with our neighbours, that only those types of people would go book a package deal then spend all week drinking English beer in an Irish bar. When I’d protested that by those sorts of people he could have been describing my family he’d pulled me close and nibbled my neck. ‘Oh Gigi, you know what I mean. I love your family but maybe we need to think about the finances. My mum said Ed and Francesca are looking for someone to housesit their place in Devon for the week?’

To be fair, Alex had seen a lot of the world when he was growing up, so I had sacrificed my wanderlust dreams for him and his happiness, telling myself that one day I’d get some much longed-for stamps in my passport. I could cringe at how lame that sounded.

The nearby family pulled out a picnic blanket and opened a cooler box full of things I hadn’t seen before. Foods I didn’t know the name of, had never tasted but which looked and smelled amazing. This is what I wanted to do. I wanted to be the girl who would parlez a new lingo effortlessly, who would cook up exotic recipes with ingredients I couldn’t currently pronounce, who would have stories to share at dinner parties, ‘…oh, that reminds me of a time when I was doing a silent retreat in an Indian ashram’, sharing facts and tales from far-flung locations, rather than grumbling about the rising property market or council tax brackets.

OK, I can do this. I started to write…

I want to eat the world. I want to explore, travel, learn and push my limits. I want to find myself. Mountains and oceans will be my best friends, the stars will guide me home at night and my tongue will be desperate to speak and share all I have seen. I want to travel.

Yikes. My pen kind of ran away with me there. I looked at the paper in my hand and tucked my legs underneath me. Apparently I wanted to become Michael Palin. OK, so how was I going to achieve all this? Just like before, the pen seemed to have a mind of its own.