The Backpacking Bride Read online

  It’s a story he delights in telling over and over again to all our friends and family.

  I’m so incredibly glad that I trusted my instincts about him that day and accepted his kind offer of dinner that very same evening. We’d sat at a cosy table in an intimate corner of a very nice restaurant in the city, eating delicious food and drinking very fine wine and we’d continued our conversation about interesting places and exotic travel, until it got so late that we were the last two people to leave.

  When we’d finally said goodnight, I’d known I’d found the man I wanted to marry.

  Before meeting Jon, I’d had a few boyfriends and several longer-term relationships, but they’d never reached the point of confessions of love and future commitment. I realise only now what it was that had held me back and why none of my previous partnerships worked out.

  Simply put: I’d never fallen in love before meeting Jon.

  I’d never met that special someone who truly connected with me on so many levels.

  No one had ever before taken the incentive and encouraged me to have adventures. None had ever suggested that we go off and explore the world before our opportunity fades.

  Instead, they’d all had the usual nine-to-five careers and weekend hobbies that didn’t include me. Dating had been an exercise in time management while allowing space to pursue our separate interests and then compromising on what we might do together.

  I shudder to think of how many concessions I’ve made in order to maintain my relationships.

  Sitting in pubs for hours with a glass of warm beer while watching boring darts tournaments.

  Standing on the freezing side lines at sports matches.

  Of course, they sometimes later asked me (with disinterest and indifference) about the book I was reading or how my rock choir session went this week or how I’d enjoyed the classical music concert I’d attended (alone) while they’d been playing five-a-side football or out stomping their feet at the country and western club, but it wasn’t the same.

  Never before had I found someone who was my alter-ego, my soulmate, and kindred-spirit.

  Just a few months after our momentous first meeting, I’d received a timely and highly lucrative offer of early redundancy from my bank, and I’d accepted Jon’s proposal of marriage. He’d proposed to me in the most romantic way possible, by whisking me off to Paris – a city of my dreams – where he went down on bended knee in the Louvre.

  We were both head over heels in love and we decided we wanted to marry straight away.

  I’d suggested a local church in Stockport, but Jon had soon convinced me that Sorrento, in southwest Italy, was a popular and more romantic place to marry. So, on a mission to find our perfect venue, we’d flown from Manchester into Naples one weekend and Jon had hired an open-top car to drive us along the amazing coastline overlooking Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples. We’d stopped off for lunch and a spot of sightseeing in Pompei before continuing on to Sorrento, where together we found this incredibly romantic fourteenth-century church in which we could marry. For the very first time in my life, everything felt perfect.

  For the first time in my life, I knew I was truly happy and deeply in love with a mature, fun, handsome, and considerate gentleman. Jon has all the qualities I could ever want in a man all rolled into one incredible person: he’s a passionate lover, an honest partner, a true friend, a trusted confidant … and today, this man will become my husband.

  I venture forward, stepping out of the arched portico with my heels tapping on stone steps.

  Then, suddenly, I’ve been spotted by the minister and the string quartet strikes up – with gusto – Wagner’s ‘Bridal Entrance’. And, as music fills the air, my twin nieces appear like little angels to walk ahead of me, scattering white rose petals on the old pathway.

  My heart beats in sync with the tempo of the beautiful and traditional music.

  Dah dah da dah … dah da da dah …

  I feel like I’m floating on air as I glide along the stretch of petal-strewn carpet. I can feel my practiced Mona Lisa smile slipping away into a ridiculously wide grin, as I see my fine-looking fiancé looking relaxed and handsome and with a wealth of love shining in those sparkling grey-green eyes of his as he grins back at me. I can see from the pride on his face that he approves of my understated wedding dress and the pale pink rosebuds and gypsophila flowers gathered into my bouquet and woven through my hair, which I’m wearing loose and curled onto my shoulders, just the way he says he likes it best.

  As I reach his side, he takes my hand in his and in a whisper, he tells me that I’m beautiful.

  And for the first time in my life I truly feel beautiful.

  Jon and I have many friends but none mutually acquainted, so we’d decided on an intimate family-only wedding. Jon’s aunt, uncle, and his cousin have come over from Manchester. Jon’s bachelor brother, Malcom, who is two years older than Jon and lives in London, is his best man. On my side of the family, I have my sister Pia as my matron of honour, her husband Peter, and my nieces, their eight-year-old twin daughters, Libby and Laura. All are here to share in and witness our happiness.

  After our wedding in the cloisters and our wedding breakfast on a restaurant’s private terrace, Jon and I are planning to stay on for a further week on a ‘mini-moon’ here in Sorrento.

  We plan to further explore the islands and the Amalfi coast. After that, we’ll leave on our honeymoon proper, the itinerary of which has been entirely managed by Jon and kept meticulously under wraps. It has been his top-secret project while I’ve been liaising with our wedding planner and busily organising our Italian nuptials.

  He’s described our honeymoon to me with great excitement as being something of ‘a magical mystery tour’ which is of course the name of a Beatles song. I didn’t know exactly where we were heading but he had let one or two clues erroneously slip. Firstly, he’d mentioned several times since we met how he’d dearly love to go back to Asia to show me all his favourite places. For that reason, I heartily suspect that our trip might involve us exploring many of his old haunts in Singapore and Malaysia and all the exotic places that I’ve always dreamed of seeing one day. I’m also hoping that we’ll be off to Hong Kong – I’m positively dizzy with anticipation and excitement at the very prospect!

  As Wagner’s ‘Bridal Entrance’ fades out, I arrive at Jon’s side.

  We turn, smiling and feeling so very happy, to look into each other’s eyes.

  Jon gently takes my hand and leans in to offer a loving kiss to the side of my cheek, taking the opportunity in this special moment of pause and closeness, to whisper sweet words of love and devotion into my ear before we turn together as one to face our officiating minister.

  And, in that moment of silence, I hear another sound.

  It’s a gasp. A cry. A sharp intake of breath.

  Once again, I turn to my love, wondering what might have taken him by such surprise.

  The next few moments seem to play out in slow motion.

  Jon is looking at me not with love and passion in his eyes but with a pained expression.

  He has reached up with both hands to grip his forehead and I see his handsome face looks pale and twisted in pure agony. He’s faltered on his feet. I reach out to him as his legs collapse beneath him and he falls to the floor. He’s now staring up at me with wide eyes and the sharp intake of breath that he’d taken just a moment ago is now leaving his body in one long, slow sigh. I hear someone screaming and soon realise that it’s me.

  ‘No. No. No! Jon, please don’t go. Please don’t leave me … not now … not like this!’

  Chapter 3

  Rishikesh, India

  I wake to a flurry of activity and a bevy of voices on the bus. It’s still pitch black outside. I check the time. I’ve been travelling for five hours now and I’m relieved to see that we’re pulling over into a brightly lit rest stop. I would really welcome a chance to stretch my legs and grab a cup of coffee. ‘How long until we reach Rishike
sh?’ I ask our driver.

  ‘Just another two hours. We’ll arrive at dawn.’

  I climb down from the bus and gulp in the damp night air. I realise we must be on a high road in the foothills of the Himalayas now because there’s a much cooler breeze blowing. Is this the so called supernatural air that Jon swore to me was conducive to meditation?

  I see there’s a shop here to buy hot chai and coffee and breakfast items. I join the queue.

  I also see that some of my fellow travellers and spiritual seekers, a motley crew of youthful hippie types, are using this time to do a quick yoga practice. I watch them curiously as they stretch and bend. One of the yellow Post-it note instructions in Jon’s wallet simply states:

  Yoga

  I think back to my surprise when Jon had explained to me about his passion for yoga.

  The first day we met, I’d already guessed that he worked out regularly and was in perfect health. I never suspected that he could drop dead due to something as terrible as a sudden brain aneurysm. I had dabbled in yoga and Pilates myself on occasion, attending classes at my local sports centre, and always thought it was a gentle form of exercise and a way for me to stay fit and flexible. But Jon had insisted that true yoga was much more than just exercise and stretching.

  He said it was also a spiritual experience. That it provided a divine connection between the physical body and a person’s spirit.

  He told me he had first learned true yoga in India, and how it had been the catalyst to him taking up martial arts. Jon was a sensei of Aikido and Karate as well as a Tai Chi master.

  All were sports that over the years had strengthened, honed, and sculpted his body.

  And he credited yoga and deep meditation for his positive mindset after depression.

  It obviously worked because Jon was the most positive person I had ever met. His glass was always half full. He believed that a positive mindset attracted positive and divine energies from the universe. In truth as a practical minded and logically thinking person – with a tendency to see my own glass as half empty – I’d never really quite understood or believed in this divine connection that Jon often spoke of as it all seemed a bit wacky to me.

  In my raw grief and desperation, I’ll do anything to feel closer to Jon.

  In the past, I’ve been admittedly fickle when it comes to matters of religion – I swing from atheism when all is well to praying like a pilgrim when I need something – so I suppose I can’t ever expect to be ‘blessed’ in the way that other people believe.

  I’ve also never believed in luck. I believe the harder I work, the luckier I will become.

  But despite my real fears of the unknown and my innate scepticism of things I simply don’t understand, I find myself looking forward to spending a whole week in India and learning new things. In particular, real yoga.

  I’m also curious to try group chanting and sitting down to quietly meditate, as well as explore the possibility of experiencing some kind of divine connection to Jon in an authentic ashram.

  I’m up for trying it all. Because right now, I’m in the deepest darkest pit of hopeless despair.

  And it feels good to have a task to hold on to and to be looking forward to something.

  Today I can feel India all around me.

  Half an hour later, everyone’s back on the bus and two hours later, we finally arrive in the sacred town of Rishikesh, surrounded on all sides by the rolling hills of the lower Himalayan Mountains. As we all spill out from the bus, the town is bathed in a pale pink morning light, and I can see it’s all and everything that I’ve been promised.

  The holy Ganges flows like an inky signature between the opposing banks of the sacred river, upon which stand ancient-looking flat-roofed buildings and gold domed temples.

  I take a long, deep breath to appreciate the cooler air here and I gaze around in wide-eyed wonder. There are several cows and lots of dogs roaming the street and I can see a troop of small, cute monkeys sitting on a bench fastidiously grooming each other. Monkeys!

  There are very few people around at this hour, but those who are look to be heading purposefully down to the riverbank, perhaps to meditate and to do their yoga salutations as the sun comes up on what looks to be the start of a beautiful day here in Rishikesh.

  I see there’s a line of rickshaws waiting to greet passengers from our bus.

  I approach one of them. The driver is no more than a boy and he is sloe-eyed with sleep.

  He wobbles his head when I mention the name of the ashram where I’m headed and he only wants a few rupees to take me there. As it turns out, I could have walked, because we’d only travelled for a few minutes down a dusty road in his rickshaw when he stops at a gate.

  I look past the gate and along a line of mature trees heavy with clusters of white flowers and hanging grey-green foliage to see a winding dirt path leading to the same big yellow house that I recognised from the ashram website. This is it. I’m here. I’m at the famous Moksha Ashram.

  The former sacred spiritual retreat of The Beatles and their entourage and also my darling Jon. I breathe a sigh of relief to have arrived. I’m just about to haul my heavy backpack onto my back again, when it’s suddenly whisked away from me by a small skinny man wearing a white robe and a turban head wrap. I was so busy gazing all around that I hadn’t seen him rush out of the gate to assist me.

  ‘Namaste. Welcome to Moksha Ashram. Are you Miss Maya Thomas?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ I tell him, appreciating the welcome. ‘I’m pleased to meet you. And you are?’

  ‘I’m Baba. We’ve been expecting you, Miss Maya. Please, follow me.’

  I follow Baba and my backpack through the gate and along a path through the trees and then through a garden of lush and fragrant foliage until we reach an open foyer in the yellow building. When I hear the harmonious sound of lots of people chanting, I feel my heart soar and a wave of goose bumps ripple across my shoulders and down both of my arms.

  Om Namah Shivaya. Om Namah Shivaya. Hara Hara Bole Namah Shivaya.

  I respectfully slip out of my shoes and walk barefoot up the stone steps.

  Once inside, just beyond a foyer decorated with flower-strewn Hindu statues of various spiritual deities wearing serene expressions, I see lots of people – young people – also wearing serene expressions and sitting cross legged amongst banks of candles, flowers, and smoky incense sticks in a communal area under a palm-thatched roof. This must be the shala. The gathering place for those staying here and where all the activities take place. The atmosphere feels harmonious and I’m delighted to find that the whole place smells exactly how I expected with exquisite notes of patchouli oil and jasmine and heady spices in the air.

  I can hear Jon’s voice in my head enthusing about his time here.

  It was pretty cool to laze around all day in a shala listening to a real Indian guru.

  Baba leads me through the building and outside again and we patter along the length of a long, mosaic-tiled terrace from which the elevated views of the valley are stunningly beautiful.

  I realise that I’ve seen this enchanting vista before as it also features on the ashram’s website.

  The photo must have been taken from exactly where I’m standing right now. The view is breathtaking, with the newly risen sun shimmering on all the rooftops below us and bouncing brightly off the temple domes and the higher sections of the pedestrian suspension bridges that I can see crossing the sparkling holy river.

  The river that is said to be the lifeblood of India and apparently a lifeline to millions.

  Jon had once told me that The Ganges, with its source in the icy Himalayan mountains, runs for thousands of kilometres and that throughout the year it attracts many tens of thousands of worshipers and pilgrims from across India and indeed all over the world, who come to bathe in its waters, because they all believe them to be pure and magical and healing.

  I shade my eyes with my hands to peer further into the distance and along the horizon to see laye
r after layer of mist-coated hills, every single one of them progressively more beautiful and a lighter shade of green. Then I continue to follow Baba and my backpack into a small annex room off the terrace that contains old cabinets and an untidy desk and an ancient looking computer. Filling the entire back wall is a large colourful painting of a lotus flower.

  Beneath the lotus flower petals are the words: Let It Be.

  I’m really excited to see a reference to The Beatles.

  I’d expected to be greeted with images and murals of John, George, Paul, and Ringo, painted onto the walls of the ashram, especially in the foyer, but I’d only seen images of religious gods and deities instead. I can’t understand why they wouldn’t capitalise on their claim to fame. The ashram’s close association with the Fab Four is, after all, what originally led Jon here and is essentially why I’m here too. But, strangely, except for the ‘Let It Be’ – which is, of course, a lovely song and a poignant sentiment – there’s nothing.

  I’m introduced to a tiny, smiling Indian woman who tells me her name is Swami Nanda.

  She presses her palms together in front of me and bows while saying namaste.

  I repeat the word. I’ve heard it before, but I don’t actually know what it means.

  I also bow and smile. Swami Nanda looks to be very old. I’m relieved to see there is at least one person here who is undoubtedly older than me. She has a small, round, wrinkly face and toothless smile; together with her small stature, she looks something like a happy but mischievous child. She’s wearing a white cotton sari wrapped tightly around her body and her head is completely shaved. I’ve already assumed she must be an ashram lady monk.

  I’ve also realised that she’s the person Jon had been corresponding with by email and with whom I’d emailed just yesterday, in order to explain that I would be arriving here alone.

  Although for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that Jon had died.

  When Swami Nanda spoke to me, she did so in an almost inaudible whisper.