‘I came home browner, leaner and more relaxed than ever’

A break from her high-flying TV career gave Elaine Bedell the chance to experience a slower pace of life on a solo trek in East Asia.

In my late 40s, I had three months off between jobs. My two teenagers were still at school and, having always worked, I now made myself very available for home time, and waited with tea and cake. But teenagers don’t come home straight after school. They loiter. I often texted my daughter to ask when she would be home, until one day she texted back, ‘Mum! When are you going back to work?’ My son felt the same way.

And so it was agreed that I could go on a solo trek. They would get back their lost freedoms and I would be alone for the first time in decades. I would travel down the Mekong, from the Golden Triangle through Laos and into Cambodia. The bargain with my husband was that he could ice trek in Greenland the next year.

Despite my impeccable planning, things went wrong. As soon as I landed, jetlagged and missing the family, my bus failed to appear and, in the panic, I left my schedule and all my documents

in the airport. But gradually I learned to adapt and abandon my schedule when boats and buses didn’t materialise, or the timetable was outdated, or I decided to visit one more romantic temple. After the days slipped into weeks, I surrendered myself to the languid pace of the Mekong and the sounds and smells of Asia: lemongrass and coriander, the croaking of bullfrogs and the temple drums heralding the full moon.

I trekked, I sailed, I cycled. A guide I’d hired for the day in Luang Prabang offered to cook me supper in his home. Under no other circumstances would I have said yes, but once I’d established he had a wife waiting for us, I hopped on the back of his motorbike and we drove through lush paddy fields to a straw hut lined with torn pages from celebrity magazines. We squatted on the floor and ate grilled Mekong fish with mango rice and it was the best meal I’ve ever had. His wife spoke no English but smiled all the time and once shyly reached out to stroke my arm.

I came home browner, leaner (all that fish!) and more relaxed than I’d ever been. My daughter flung herself into my arms; even my son allowed me one hug. Later, over dinner, after several hours of anecdotes, the children looked nervously at each other and my son asked bravely, ‘You are going back to work now?’ I laughed. ‘Yes, I’m ready to go back to work.’

But I’m still wearing my travel bracelets, fastened around my wrist. A reminder that another, slower, more contemplative life exists elsewhere. Another solo trek to embark on – when the time is right.

 Elaine Bedell’s About That Night (Harpercollins) is published on 11 July. Elaine is now CEO of the Southbank Centre

I learned to adapt and abandon my schedule