We decide to spend the rest of the day lazing on the beach. Summer wants to top up her tan and I’m hoping to develop one. Summer, looking the very definition of her name, is wearing a tiny white bikini on her tiny, toned and evenly suntanned body while I’m searching a local beach stall for a sun hat, a tube of factor thirty sunscreen, and a swimsuit.
The hat is no problem but the sunscreen is ridiculously expensive and the swimsuits (bikinis as they don’t seem to do one-pieces) are all ridiculously small and nothing more than triangles of fabric and string.
Eventually, I find one with large enough triangles and we head for the sand and the sea.
The beauty of the enclave surrounding Railay beach is unreal.
It’s so blissful to lie on the silky soft, white sand and feel the hot sun radiating over my body.
I keep closing my eyes and then opening them again just to make sure I’m not dreaming.
I see that Summer has gone off snorkelling with the lads. I watch them swim over to the rocks underneath the wrap-around cliffs. I can hear them whooping and shouting, ‘oh wow look – you gotta see this!’ I’m curious to wonder what they have seen in the water.
Soon Summer comes running back up the beach to insist that I go snorkelling too.
‘Come on, Lori. It’s amazing. There are so many fish. It’s so beautiful – it’s like a tropical fish tank, and it’s so shallow and close to the rocks that you can stand up if you want.’
As comfortable as I am sunning myself on the beach, Summer won’t take no for an answer and she is being so sweet to want to include me. It does look like fun. I reason with myself, that if I intend to learn to scuba dive then I really should try snorkelling first, so I agree to rent a snorkel and mask and join them.
Well, from the very first moment I put my face into the water, I find I’m utterly spellbound.
The sea is warm and clear. Below me, lying on the sandy seabed are starfish, and all around me there are tiny colourful fish. I’ve never seen anything like it.
It’s like being in Finding Nemo. I float on the surface, with my face in the water and my arms and legs splayed out so I look like a starfish myself, watching all the fish darting about in the corals and rocks and sea grasses. It’s so fascinating that I soon forgot to panic about breathing through a narrow tube or getting a little bit of water in my facemask.
I’d absolutely no idea that the underwater world could be this stunningly beautiful.
I’ve watched Blue Planet, of course, but even that hadn’t done the real thing any justice.
From above, I watch the underwater creatures going about their fishy business, looking for food, having little fights, falling in love, chasing bubbles and each other, and all the while being unaware of the crazy world of people who inhabit the land above them with their lives and loves and wars and politics. I decide that I’d much prefer to be part of their watery world than my complicated earth-y one. I swim up and down that rock face for I don’t know how long. I completely lose track of time. It’s so peaceful, so very tranquil and calming.
Now I’m even more determined that while I’m on the islands I will learn to scuba dive.
I’m sure there will be scuba diving schools on the next island of Koh Lanta, which is the first and the largest island in the chain that I plan to visit and explore. Once I get my dive certificate, I’ll be able to do even more scuba diving, and build up my experience and confidence in the water.
Eventually, despite the expensive factor thirty sunscreen, I’m sure I’ve got rather too much sun on my back, and so I decide to head back up the beach. Summer and the boys are all lying flat out on the sand and in the sun but I know that I must find some shade. It has to be the hottest part of the day right now. But I see that all the palm tree shade has already been taken.
I wander up and down the beach for a while, until I spot a just-vacated chair in the shade of a palm-thatched parasol and I run like a sprinter to plonk myself into it. It isn’t long before a hostess comes over to ask me what I’d like to order. It seems the seat comes with a price. I order an iced tea and it’s by far the most refreshing iced tea I’ve ever tasted and well worth the exorbitant cost.
Later on, that same afternoon, spruced up for the evening and while Summer is taking her shower, I’m feeling mellow and reflective so I take a walk along the shoreline. The beach is quiet and the tide is going out. There are just a few families still building sandcastles with their kids now the sun had lost its burning intensity. A few local people are walking their dogs. The lads have invited both Summer and I to join them for sundowners on the beach tonight. I can see the bar owners at the top of the beach are getting ready by expanding their pitch and putting out beanbags and rugs and low tables on the beach in front of their bars. I imagine that I’ve been invited out of kindness and because Summer and I are travelling together. They clearly all have the hots for Summer, and must be at least a little furious at me for finding the only available bungalow on the beach – when they’d all had high hopes of sharing a dorm with her! I smile at foxing their plans. I do remember what it was like to be their age. Young and high on hormones, trying to fit in, desperate to fall in love.
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