A WOMAN who lived in a hut in Thailand for almost six years with no possessions now runs a thriving business back in the UK.
Sam Clarke, 51, from Huddersfield, trained in Thai massage before selling her house and embarking on an adventure to combine training with travelling.
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After volunteering at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand, she helped set up a project and ended up living within the community there.
She spent five and a half years living in a hut – which consisted of an empty room but for a mattress and mosquito net – living and cooking from one electric wok on her veranda.
Most people would share a toilet outside, but because she was a “shy foreigner” they built her a breeze block wall to form a cubicle.
She said: “You’re living outside most of the time”
“You adapt really, to the lifestyle. It is really freeing.”
Although she wasn’t paying rent on the hut, she did have to pay people to build it for her and contribute to the community, making it financially difficult for her.
She said she would never have imagined staying so long in Thailand, but “it does have that effect on you”.
She eventually came back to the UK because her dad became ill, and decided to stay to support her mum who was on her own.
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One of the biggest adjustments was wearing normal shoes again, having spent the entire time in Thailand wearing flip flops.
Now she runs a successful aromatherapy product-based business after starting out with an Etsy shop.
Sam was able to grow her business after meeting other professionals in a shared working space, and now runs her aromatherapy brand Bliss Therapies.
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