DETOX FAST AT SPA SAMUI ON LAMIE BEACH

VIEW FROM THE SAMUI SPA ONTO THE BEACH




I have not been onto the blog for a while.That is because I have been undergoing a DETOX FAST!!! yes me the woman who cannot stop eating. I decided for some crazy reason to deprieve herself of food. And to top it off I paid two hundred dollars for the privalage. And this is what I looked like just at the end of day one.


FEELING LIKE DEATH AT THE END OF DAY ONE ON MY DETOX FAST

I had to take to my bed with my carrot juice! They get you to eat raw foods and fruit for a couple of days to get ready for the detox. You also have to drinkd some liver flush drinks. These are made up of olive oil, some kind of pepper and loads of garlic and orange juice. I actually quite liked it in a strange kind of way.
The night before the fast starts I took two capsules to kick start things. Every morning I went to the detox counter and had a detox drink.This looks, and I am sure tastes like, wall paper paste. I glugged it down and got my days supply of capsules which I had to take every couple of hours. I never did find out what was in the capsules !Every few hours I had to have things like broth,which was the WATER left over from cooking the veg. Liver detox drinks, carrot juice, and coconut water.

COCONUT WATER



and lots of capsules. Then the highlight of the whole thing is the daily enema!! for those of you of a nervous disposition I will not go into detail, but suffice it to say, the whole set up is hilarious and I still cannot believe I did it, but hey ho, this trip is all about taking myself out of my comfort zone (and i certainly did that ) and learning more things in life.

I went to meditation every morning ,which I loved and I intend to look into it further and read up on it. Then I did Yoga. Well, that was hilarious at first, I could not even cross my legs for long, but after five days I could feel myself getting more flexible. It is fantastic. I am going to do lots of Yoga on this trip and when I get home. I loved it. And luckily for me the teacher made everyone feel as if they could do it, no matter what level they were at.
And I have been swimming like a madwoman in the spa pool. I feel very healthy and cleansed now. But the first day I had the mother of all hangovers. Everyone kept telling me very knowledgeably that it was because I was so full of toxins. I wanted to tell them they were full of Sh.t, but of course they were not!!! but by the end of the fast ,which incidently was only three and a half days, I could tell that it has been good for me and I feel that I will seriously look at what I put into my body from now on.(we will see how long I keep that up!)
There are a lot of strange people here. Some with obvious eating disorders and there are lots of things to laugh at.The topics of conversation you overhear are so funny. People are discussing their bowel movements and what day of the fast they are on. The hard core, who have been many times, do it for about seven,ten or even fourteen days .It is maddness to do it that long.That is just showing off!
But I have to say I have met some very nice people here as well. And there have been some good chats.


TEA CEREMONY


Especially at the TEA CEREMONY. That is at the spa village up in the hills. A fella makes up lots of different types of tea over a three hour period and everyone sits around trying the teas and talking about all kinds of things. Some local expats pop in as well to chat to the foreign tourists. I stayed the full three hours and loved every minute of it.Some of the teas had a special kick to them so I was buzzing by the end of it. I even took a book about Chinese medicine back to my room so that I could read up on things we had discussed.

HORRAY! DESERTED BEACHES

Yesterday I got the local bus (it is a great system you just flag a bus down say where you want to go, barter the price then hop on with the locals, who are paying far less, but I felt like I got a good deal)to the next big stretch of beach along called Lamai beach. A friend of mine has been to a spa there and says it is beautiful. I was heartened when I saw signs on the beach asking people not to buy from beach vendours, so that deters them from coming along to harrass everyone.
And there were hardly any people on the beach. The places to stay were mostly nice little bungalows. I walked along and found Spa Samui. It was fully booked over Christmas. Amazingly I bumped into Tilly who used to work on Inside out in Tunbridge Wells, before she move to Inside Out in London, she has just arrived. She is staying nearby but having treatments at the spa. I managed to find a lovely bungalow next door for over Christmas at just 600 baht a night ,that is about nine pounds! And it is so quiet I cannot wait. I get the local bus from here in Chaweng tomorrow. And I am going to do one of the fasting treatments which should be an experience.

Today I decided to be more pro active and I hired a motorbike and set off very early in search of places where the tourists do not venture. Again I saw Tilly, she was just cycling along from her accommodation about fifteen minutes along the road from where I am staying. I pulled up alongside her on my motorbike and had a chat. But then ventured off in search off my solitude. And after six hours on the bike I found so many secluded places that I plan to come back to.

I also ventured into the hills, just taking the little tracks as I saw them, getting into the villages. And I came across lots of oxen tethered up in the fields next to their shacks.(i know someone is going to tell me its not an ox!!! but it looks like one to me)



I was fancinated to see the bannanas growing ( sorry do not know how to turn the photographs round..Sammie if you can work it out your end feel free to do it!! love you!!)


and there are coconut trees everywhere the villagers were collecting them and cutting them open.

Then I went to see the big Buddha..

Big Buddha is the one at the back!!! I had to make sure I had my shoulders covered witha sarong to show respect. It is the most amazing object. You had to climb up lots of steps to get to it and there were worshippers ringing bells in a circuit at the top. It was very moving, but I am not sure why. Buddhism is something I really want to explore more during my trip. There had been a rainstorm early in the day and I nearly came a cropper on the steps back down again, It really made me scared , so I decended like an old lady for the rest of the way down. I thought I do not care what I look like ,as long as I get down this thing in one piece!
I had lunch at the BBC




No not that one, The Big Buddha Cafe, but they play on the initials being BBC and have a naff studio in the corner.But the food was good. I had curried crab. And to my surprise ( I know, I just expected the crab meat to be on the plate for me) It was in its shell, I have never tackled a crab before. I tried to recall the cookery programmes I have seen, telling you what to do, but that was no good. Eventually I had to summon the waiter and he gave me a few tips. It was such a performance getting to the meat in the shell, but well worth it!

KO SAMUI

After my disasterous day on Patong beach I decided to hire a motorbike taxi to explore the island. It was great fun. He took me to a beach about forty minutes from Patong and the guidebook said that it was really cut off from things and quieter.It looked very promising when I got off the bike and he pointed to a dirt track for me to follow. It was very steep so I was optimistic about what I would find at the bottom because I though not that many people would want to tackle this track.
How wrong I was!!




I was confronted by row upon row of sun loungers and umberellas and i had to stay until the afternoon because the bike was picking me up at four. Every thirty seconds someone came past trying to sell sarongs, jewellery,silk bedspreads(i have to say there were very nice, but no room in the rucksack for them!!)and ice lollies etc.I just got my book out and lounged in the sun and swam in the sea sulking for a day. thinking how I just cannot wait to get off the island.
Everywhere around me on the trip back there were large concrete hotels and apartments springing up. All the character of the place was lost in commercialism.
Once again I retreated to my massage...And i love them!!!!! i have finally decided.


The lady who does them works so hard.They work seven days a week from ten in the morning until midnight and they still keep smiling. Most come from the north of thailand and leave their children and families so they can work here in the busy season.
The final day on Phuket I explored on foot and decided to be more positive about the island, but the more I saw the more I could not wait to get off the island. I overhead a German couple getting a taxi saying they were going to a quiet away from it all beach so I asked if I could share their taxi and cost.But then discovered they were going to the same place I had fallen for the previous day. And I declined to go and told them they would hate it. I then walkd as far to the end of the beach as i could and chilled out for the day watching the world go by. A couple sat near me on their sun loungers and the woman from Liverpool struck up a conversation. She extolled the virtues of the place and said that she had been eleven times and there was no better place on earth! It was this package holiday mentality that spoilt it for me and confirmed to me that I would not be returning.
on Sunday I got the plane to Ko Smaui
Now those of you who know me well know that I have a tendancy to call out things like "I dont want to die" when there is a little bit of turbulence on a large plane. Well the one that brought me here was a twin engined propeller plane that seats 70.And it had to be the cloudyiest day I have ever seen. you could not get more turbulence!! I was almost swallowing my tongue trying not to call out. The woman next to me was like an ice maiden she never even looked in my direction as I let out little yelps.



They paint the planes all nice colours, but I can tell you that does not make them any the less scary!

But the good news is the beaches are fantastic here with massive waves.



I am staying in a little beach bungalow and stones throw from the beach. There are still a lot of tourists but there is a nice mixture. There is enough room for me to find my space on the beach and reflect on life.



There are women who are all wrapped up in lots of clothes to protect them from the sun, who set up food stalls on the beach and sell things like corn on the cob and fresh fruit. It takes me hours to tackle a mango , and watching them peel and prepare them to eat is a show in itself. And then they sell them for about fifty pence!

PHUKET

Thanks to everyone who sent me messages hoping that I would soon feel better. The antibiotics did the trick and I feel a lot better. It is nice to get the messages on the blog and the emails from everyone. I do love my own company and travelling. But it is nice to keep in contact and Know what is going on in your lives.




Rob and Heather from Melbourne whom I made friends with on Ko Pi Pi have kindly taken some of the weight from my rucksac. I will collect it from them when I arrive in Melbourne in the early part of next year. They were really nice and saw me off on the boat to my next destination..Phuket

It was scortching hot on the boat trip so I was glad to take some shade at the back of the boat. When we got to Phuket it was unbearably hot. I got a minibus to the hotel. Along the route you could see where there had been a lot of rebuilding post Tsunami. This Island was hit particularly hard. Many roads and properties were destroyed. It is just mind blowing as I go from Island to Island trying to imagine how they have rebuilt their lives. There is something just not right about the way we come and holiday in places where there was so much loss of life. But I do know that they rely on tourism and the revenue it generates, so I reconcile my concerns with that knowledge.

I am really pleased with my hotel..it is set back about fifteen minutes from the beach. It has the most amazing little swimming pool.There is only enough room to do about ten strokes. But it is so beautifully made and the water feature at the end creates a very relaxing atmosphere. I love to go and relax there and read my book. And chill out in the heat.




I have to say that I was really looking forward to coming to Phuket because I had heard so much about the island. But it is making me feel very unsettled. There are so many dodgy looking foreign men with beautiful Thai women. On the route from my hotel to the beach there is just bar after bar with loads of beautiful Thai women just waiting for the letcherous foreigners and there money.It is making me so angry. I am at Patong beach, which is just a big pick up joint with lots of shops selling loads of cheap goods. It is everything I hate. The beach was packed with sunbeds and umberellas for miles.


I walked the full length and found a quiet place to sunbathe.



The only problem was when I came to go home I had to walk the full length in the full glare of the sun. Consequently I am very red tonight! I need to think that one through in future. Tomorrow I am going to get a taxi or bus and find a quiet little cove somewhere away from the shops and touting.

I have just had the most amazing massage!!! yeh!! There is nothing wrong with the traditional Thai massages and I know some of you were concerned that I thought foot massages were not good(Particularly you Paul..great to get your messages by the way x) but they are good, its just my body is in such bad shape that they have to push and prod so much to try and get my ching and chang in line, that it is very painful for me.I am sure the better shape I get into the less they will hurt!
The massage today was a mixture of Thai and western oil massage and I felt a lot better afterwards. It only cost three pounds which is incredible. Back home the same kind of thing would cost about fifty pounds!.
I am going to try and fit another one in before I leave the island. I do hope I discover some redeeming places in Phuket before I fly off to Ko Samui on Sunday.

Ko Pi Pi

I decided to take a relaxing stroll along the sea front and have an early meal..I chose a lovely place overlooking the sea..and sat back to relax. But as I scrambled around in my handbag for my glasses I pulled the little pin out of my panick alarm I carry with me. Well you have never heard such a din. For a second I did not realise that it was my alarm, I thought some alarm had gone off nearby and wondered what it was. When I saw all eyes on me I panicked and started throwing all the things out of my bag onto the table to find the thing..it was SO LOUD. eventually I got it out and then panicked and sat on it to try and muffle the sound. At various intervals I took it out and fumbled around to try and shut it up,only to admit defeat and sit on it again. With the people having ,or rather trying to have quiet romantic meals getting very annoyed with me. Eventually I shut the thing up. Needless to say I have left it in my room tonight. My nerves will not take that again in a hurry.

After counting the bruises on my body from the Thai massages I thought I would try a Thai foot massage, that had to be relaxing. How wrong could I have been! I was in agony when he pushed certain areas of my feet.

FOOT MASSAGE


The chap inflicting the pain said "oh not good .painful, you have bad colon" that may be as well, but I now have bad foot!!! once again I told myself no pain, no gain and let him continue for an hour massaging and inflicting pain. But when he had finished he said that my colon would now start to get better...and do you know today my colon was very active. so it did something!
Just as I was coming to the end of the massage the Canadian lot appeared at the window of the place and so I joined them later in a bar.



to see a LADYBOY caberet show.Basically that is when some Thai men dress as beautiful ladies and perform a caberet.It has to be one of the strangest things I have seen. The lady in the middle of this picture is one of the ladyboys. we then had a few more drinks





and somehow they all ended up persuading me to have a henna tattoo on my foot.It is of three little feet. I know Sammie I have always said that I would never do that ,but this trip is going to be full of things I thought I would never do..and at least this one wears off after a while.They tried very very hard to get me to have a real one!



Tomorrow I get the boat to Phuket where I will be staying for 4 days.

Ko Pi Pi

The last night in Krabi had a few drinks with some Canadians and a girl from Brighton.They were all very sweet and made me feel really welcome. Even though I am old enough to be there mother.They put me down as early thirties so that made me feel good. I have to say they had had a few beers by then so they may have had beer goggles on!!!They were very funny and I had a good time. We exchanged email addresses.



I then got the ferry to the beautiful island of Ko Pi Pi and I am staying in the most amazing resort..my room is up on stilts overlooking a breathtaking sight.It made me feel tearful with the wonder of it.


VIEW FROM BOAT APPROACHING HOTEL


VIEW FROM MY BEDROOM WINDOW


HAVING A DRINK IN LOCAL BAR


I have been suffering a bit with a sore throat and really bad cough so went to a local pharmacy and was able to buy cough medecine and antibiotics. He said he thought I had a chest infection. So better safe than sorry. It just amazed me how easy it was to purchase the antibiotics. I am sure all the soakings on the various boat trips over the last few days has not helped my cold. glad I had also put a couple of lemsips in my first aid kit.

Last night I had dinner with a couple from Melbourne. I got chatting to them because I was sneezing a lot with my cold and she said "bless you". They had knocked on my door to see if I wanted to join them. But I was wandering back from a beach on the other side of the island and lost time. So it was dark when I got back and they were at a table on the beachfront. They called over and said they would wait until I got ready. So I rushed off and showered then we had dinner. Which was very nice of them.

Today I headed for the pool and did plenty of lengths to try and loose some weight!! Being a glutten for punishment I decided to try another Thai massage. I am literally black and blue from all the pressure points they have pushed and prodded, but I keep hoping my body will stop hurting eventually. These tiny little ladies literally clamber all over your body, pulling it in directions that it does not want to go!! And they do it with such a nice smile. They keep saying "ok" and my head is screaming "no it is not ok" but then I tell myself to be brave as this must be good for me and the pain in my shoulder is getting a bit less. I think they devised their massages to just inflict terrible pain on the smug tourists who spend all day bartering them down to the last Baht for an item they want to purchase in the markets. They are probably killing themselves laughing when they see the contorted faces of people having a massage!
Never say die!, I will have another one again soon.They are about three hundred Baht that is about four pounds fifty!

I logged on to find a message from the Canadian lot to say they were heading out to Ko Pi Pi today and hoped we could meet up again. I read it too late to catch them. But then bumped into them on the seafront. So hope to meet up again later.

JUST ALONG BEACH FROM MY ROOM

ISLANDS

Walked down to the river and got a long boat to the Hat Rai beach. It is described in the guide book as a hypnotic and a honeymoon destination. The boat trip was really nice. We all just gathered at the pier until enough people were there, then we paid less than one pound fifty for a forty minute boat trip to the lovely Hat Rai Leh beach.





I spent the day exploring and sunbathing. Got chatting to a woman form New Zealand at lunchtime but was glad to wander off on my own again in the afternoon. I also had a Thai massage. I have to say I am still not sure If i like them. There is a lot of pulling and pushing of bones and joints.And they push on points that you never knew hurt so much. But then strangely after all that pain and suffering you walk away feeling good. I will try them again a few more times before making up my mind totally.
We gathered for the last long boat back from the beach at five. The sea in the meantime had got very very choppy. I am not the best person on boats but I have to say Iwas terrified, it was bouncing about so much. I was hanging on tightly.We all got thoroughly soaked.



I have never been so glad to reach dry land. I went back to my room and had a hot shower. I had a lovely spicy curry and chatted to some people who have been travelling for a year .They gave me lots of tips about places to stay in fiji and New Zealand.