True love travellers

The love story of 30-year-old Simone Gates and 39-year-old Andy Brown begins like a growing number of modern romance tales. Set in Thailand in 1998, it tells of two young backpackers – an Aussie girl and a British boy – who met at a beach party celebrating the final of the soccer World Cup. “There were loads of Aussies, Kiwis and Brits on the beach, all watching the big screens,” remembers Andy, who was holidaying in Thailand on his way home to the UK after living in Australia for eight years. Simone, who was 22 at the time, was just at the beginning of her own overseas adventure, and was on the beach with a friend when one of Andy’s friends asked her to take a photo of their group. “It seemed like everyone in the group wanted me to take a photo, so I thought I’d be funny and take one of their group with my camera,” she laughs.

This was when Andy made his fateful move. “I asked, ‘Are you a photographer?’ and she said, ’No, but I’d like to take your photo’.” A bit of mutual flirting ensued, and an immediate chemistry sparked between the couple. “We talked until the sun came up,” recalls Simone. Both she and Andy sensed they had found someone special but this happy thought was shattered when Simone admitted she was leaving Thailand that same afternoon. “I’d saved for a long time for this trip and I wanted to explore the world,” she says. “But when I told Andy I was leaving I was suddenly very sad.”

“I was sad too,” adds Andy. “I knew I really liked this girl, and my heart sank at the thought of never seeing her again.”

Reluctantly, the pair parted ways, with Simone wearing a T-shirt Andy had loaned her. “I rushed back to my hotel to tell my girlfriend about Andy; I remember telling her that you don’t find someone like him every day.” Later that day, Simone’s friend would discover just how special Simone’s encounter with the British traveller had been. “We were booked on a 4pm boat back to the mainland but I wanted to return Andy’s T-shirt first, just to see him one last time, so I told my friend I’d meet her at the dock,” explains Simone. “But when I got to Andy’s hut he just said ‘Stay’... I never went to the dock to meet my friend.”

Simone and Andy spent the next three months travelling through Thailand and Laos, sharing adventures and falling in love. “Being with Sim was almost as easy as breathing,” says Andy. When Andy’s money finally ran out the pair decided to go their separate ways, at least for the short term. Simone would spend the next three months fulfilling her dream of exploring Asia, while Andy would return to the UK. They agreed to contact each other at some point in the future, but neither knew when that might be. As they waited at the airport for Andy to board his plane home, the reality that they might never see each other again suddenly hit them both. “I’d found someone I loved and here I was saying goodbye to her,” recalls Andy.

 “I was crying my eyes out but I kept telling myself, ‘This is what you wanted so you have to get on with it’,” adds Simone.

For the next three months, Simone pined for Andy. But when she finally returned to Sydney, her anxiety was allayed when her mother told her an Englishman had been trying to contact her for weeks. “It was the best thing I think I’ve ever heard. My heart started racing because I knew it was Andy.”

The next day, the wait was finally over when Simone phoned Andy and told him she loved him. “I said, ‘I love you too and I haven’t been able to get you out of my head’,” he says. With the confirmation that this was indeed ‘it’, the two made plans to meet up again, but it would not be for another six months. “Simone had run out of money so she couldn’t afford to come to the UK and I’d overstayed my Australian visa so I was barred from entering the country for three years,” explains Andy. “So we decided to save up and meet in Thailand again.”     

The next six months were difficult for the love-struck couple, but eventually they flew into Bangkok airport on the same day in May 1999. Their rendezvous had all the makings of a classic romance story – spotting each other across a crowded terminal, running towards each other and finally meeting in a passionate embrace – but it soon turned into more of a melodrama. “[The authorities] saw us running towards each other and must have thought we were drug smugglers – they stopped us, searched us, and went through every piece of luggage we had,” laughs Andy.

It didn’t take long for the couple to decide they wanted to be together forever, but doing so would prove easier said than done. “I couldn’t return to Australia for at least two years and Simone didn’t have a UK visa, so she had to go home to apply for one from Australia,” explains Andy. 

Three months after arriving in Thailand, Simone and Andy said goodbye again – this time it would be nine long months before they were reunited. “Saving and getting things in order just took longer than I had expected,” says Simone. “They were the hardest months of my life – I was so sad about being separated.”

Simone’s sadness only subsided in March 2000, when she flew to Thailand to be reunited with Andy. “We decided to meet in Thailand for three months on my way to the UK, to give us extra time on top of my two-year visa,” she explains. Like their other Thai experiences, the couple’s time together was blissful, although it was interrupted with ‘visa runs’ to bordering countries, in order to extend their stay. “We only had three-month visas for Thailand so we had to officially go across the border then come back to get visa extensions,” explains Andy.

It was six months before he and Simone finally left Thailand to head to the UK. In the hustle and bustle of everyday London life, they felt settled for the first time in their two-and-a-half-year relationship. “We’d been living like a pirate and a mermaid for so long that we’d forgotten what reality was, so it was good for us to see how we’d go living together in the real world,” says Andy. The following two years confirmed what the couple had known from day one: “It didn’t matter where we were in the world, as long as we had each other,” says Simone.

Not surprisingly, when it came time for Simone to leave the UK, Andy went with her. “We went to Australia for a six-week holiday, and then to our beloved Thailand and on to Cambodia for another three months,” she recalls. But at the end of the holiday, they were again faced with the quandary of how to stay together: “I couldn’t work in the UK any longer and Andy couldn’t work in Australia; we didn’t know what to do,” says Simone.

Not willing to spend another day apart, the couple finally discovered they were both eligible for a one-year working visa in the Netherlands. “I didn’t care where we lived, so long as I was with Sim,” says Andy. Amsterdam however, proved more challenging than they had expected. “It was difficult to find work and the language barrier made it hard to find a place to live,” explains Andy, who wound up working back in London, flying to Amsterdam every weekend to visit a very lonely Simone. Disillusioned, the two moved back to the UK after a few months, with Simone on a holiday visa and unable to work. “It was tough because Andy had to support me, and I was lonely with him going to work every day,” she remembers.

At the end of Simone’s six-month holiday visa, the couple uprooted themselves yet again, and went travelling through Western Europe. “It was like we were constantly going from country to country to stay together, but we had some great adventures along the way,” says Andy. As always however, time continued to march on and this holiday also came to an end. Seemingly with nowhere else to go, the couple moved back to Australia, with Andy on a six-month holiday visa. After a few months though, they decided to go back to the UK to apply for a de facto visa, so that Andy could re-enter Australia and settle there permanently. In the weeks leading up to their departure however, he started working illegally at a market stall. “I was so bored sitting around with no money and nothing to do. I felt useless and I didn’t think I was hurting anyone [by working],” he explains. “It was my first day and two policemen came up and asked me for my driver’s licence. When they saw I was British they asked me for my working visa and when I told them I didn’t have one they took me straight to an immigration office... The next thing I know I’m in Villawood Detention Centre!”

Words: Linda Peatling. Photography: Sam McAdam. Hair & Make-up: David Novak-Piper.