HIPPY-TIME IN THAILAND

With my 3-month contract finally concluded (after 7 months), and trips to Belgium and Hungary under my belt, the logical next travel destination was Thailand. There's some logic in that, right? No? Ah well, logic is over-rated anyway...

I hadn't been to Thailand for four whole years, so was very excited about this trip. Most people go to Thailand for the beaches, or the exotic nightlife, or the food. I like all those things, but my trips there usually serve a different purpose: "detoxification". That's right, I travel somewhere with delicious food, cheap booze and 24-hour entertainment, only to sit under a tree and meditate while fasting and abstaining from alcohol. That's pretty crazy, huh? It's cool though, and feels awesome...once it's over. I wouldn't recommend this type of trip for everyone though, and when you read what I get up to below, you'll know why.

I first heard about this place when I was visiting a mate living in Hong Kong. There was an article in the South China Post about a cleansing program at The Spa on Koh Samui. Titled "Down the Pan", N was reading me excerpts from it while grimacing with disgust.

"It says they eat NOTHING for seven days. Why would somebody do that?"

"Eww...this guy flushed a marble out of his colon that he had eaten when he was 4 years old."

"They pick through their poo with chopsticks. Urgh...yuck. I'm skipping lunch."

As my mate's face contorted with revulsion, my interest was becoming piqued. Could people really have marbles stuck in their colon for twenty years? The fasters in the article said they were eating nothing for seven days, and not feeling hungry. How was that possible? And they said they felt amazing at the end and had glowing skin and clear eyes. I LIKE feeling amazing and having glowing skin and clear eyes. It sounded interesting and unconventional and challenging. That combination made it irresistible.

So six months later I went to The Spa for the first time and did their seven-day fasting cleanse. It was strange at first, it was certainly uncomfortable going without food for seven days, but ultimately it really was amazing. There were no marbles or lego bricks liberated from my colon, and I couldn't really bring myself to do that thing with the chopsticks, but I was hooked. So there it is. My secret. I've been back to The Spa twice since then (2004 and 2006) so it was no longer strange and unfamiliar and scary for me. Not challenging = boring, so I decided to find somewhere else to do a detox program this time. I found a guy who offered a one-on-one physical and spiritual programme on Koh Pha Ngan, and signed myself up.

Now you're supposed to prepare for one-week fasts by eating lots of raw veggies and salad, avoiding fat, drinking lots of water blah blah blah. I knew from experience that I wouldn't be able to enjoy eating my favourite Thai delicacies once I finished the program (after a week without food, all your body craves is fruit and healthy shit - SUCH a downer), so I was determined to cram in as much Thai deliciousness as I could beforehand. Phad thai, som tum, Singha beer, cocktails by the beach and curry curry curry. It was awesome. I stayed over on Koh Samui to enjoy the decadence there. Eventually though, the time came where I had to foresake the pleasures of the tastebuds and head over to Koh Pha Ngan to start my fast. My last supper before commencing the fast included a Singha beer and hot chips. Whoops.

I met the guy who would be running the program, I'll call him my "guru" (although he would never call himself that). He was a young, tanned, attractive American guy who was relaxed enough to remain completely unoffended (or at least pretend to be unoffended) when I said I wasn't interested in hearing a whole lot of hippy shit. That said, by the end of the week I was nodding sagely away as he talked about the energy levels of different types of foods and how to create a psychic cloak of protection. Then again, at that point I hadn't eaten any food for seven days and had been throwing up the bentonite clay and juice mixture that one is supposed to drink twice daily to draw out toxins (and avoid the sensation of hunger), so my brain may not have been at its sharpest.

All in all, it was a really good experience but much much more difficult than my visits to The Spa. Mostly that was down to the fact that I couldn't stomach the juice/clay mixture, which meant I was hungry for almost the entire week. Also, as I was the only person doing this course, spending a lot of time with only my nutrient-starved brain for company wasn't as pleasant as I would have hoped. Oooh, plus I was forced to do yoga every morning which I HATED passionately. I hated the teacher, I hated the broiling humidity we practiced in, and I hated the fact that I couldn't do any of the stretches. However - proving once again how incomprehensible the female psyche is - I ended up really missing the yoga once it was over, and even paid to attend some more classes a few days later.

By then I had caught a ferry around to Haad Tien and was staying at The Sanctuary. Now THIS was the Thai holiday I really wanted to have. I could eat again (joy!) and spent my days reading, swinging in a hammock, or swimming in an ocean that was so salty I'd pop up to the surface the minute I relaxed my legs. I'd fall asleep to the sound of waves, and pretend I was a princess as I fell slept under a mosquito net canopy draped from the ceiling. This illusion was spoiled ever so slightly the morning I woke up to find gecko poo on the top of my mosquito net, but I'm sure that must have happened to Beatrice or Eugenie once or twice too, right?

So that was the end of my idyllic island retreat. I sailed back to Koh Samui, passing final preparations for that night's Full Moon Party at Haad Rin without an ounce of regret at missing it. My next stop was Ho Chi Minh City - my former hometown - and I was terrified about the amount of change I was likely to see after six long years away.

Oh, I appear to have forgotten to mention earlier that this trip coincided with the anti-government rioting in Bangkok that saw the centre of town blockaded by protesters and a number of buildings, and the Sky-train, fire-bombed. There was no way I was going to let burning buildings and an official "reconsider your travel" warning stop me from spending time in Bangkok. But, in a concession to the fact that at my age I'm supposed to be  a responsible adult, I decided to delay the Bangkok leg of the trip until after I returned from Vietnam. By this stage, the riots had been ongoing for more than a week, and with rioters already having burned down Bangkok's largest shopping mall, and survived one attempt by government troops to clear them out of the centre, I figured they'd get bored and run out of things to burn before too long. I gave them two weeks to sort their shit out. In the meantime - Vietnam!

HUNGARY AGAIN

I've gorged myself on travel recently. You'll not that I avoided use of the word 'overdosed' because honestly, how can you have TOO MUCH travel in your life?

So I've already told you about Belgium at the start of April, next was Budapest at the start of May. It was a long weekend with 12 friends, and marked my second time in the lovely twin cities of Buda and Pest. We went to the baths (of course), ate lots of food (of course), went to a salsa club (of c... actually that probably was a bit unusual in Hungary).

One of my favourite adventures was when a few of us were wandering the streets looking for a drink in which to rest our weary livers, and ended up at the surprising and delightful Piaf club. We were walking along the street and passed a nondescript black door with an enticing sign reading 'Ring Bell'. Having no idea what lay behind that door - perhaps it was the meeting place of some modern day cultural revolutionaries? - I found the simplicity and invitation of the sign too much to resist. I Rang Bell.

The door opened a crack and a head popped out. The view behind that head was of a dark, smoky room, seemingly decked floor to ceiling in red velvet. Sounds of jazz drifted out from behind The Head, and I thought I caught a glimpse of a singer in an evening gown drift past the entrance. The Head itself was brusque and Hungarian, and didn't seem welcoming by any definition of the word.

"Um...is this a bar or something?"
"Yes." No further movement, no opening of the door crack.
"Ah...can we come in then?"
"You pay."

Unsure what we'd be getting ourselves into, I was feeling the weight of responsibility for the group's decision on whether to enter this odd and uninviting establishment. However, once The Head elaborated that the entrance fee would include our first drink, all concerns were brushed away and we stepped inside to find out exactly what lay behind the door.

Piaf. It was red velvet curtains and sofas. It was red lamps, barely lighting the dark room. It was a sultry older woman with impressive cleavage revealed by a clinging ball gown, singing Edith Piaf songs and evoking the atmosphere of the 1940s. It was fantastic.

After an hour or so there, we noticed that other people were walking through the door, down some stairs at the back of the club, and not reappearing. At first we assumed the bathrooms were down there, but the 'not reappearing' aspect made that either unlikely or eerie. A couple of us went down to investigate, and we found a cavernous space, populated by flashing disco lights, flashy disco people, and pumping music. A proper nightclub!

The party moved downstairs, where we stayed until the wee hours. It was great, with lots of classic oldie tunes from the eighties mixed in with more modern dance numbers to keep the kids happy. We had such a good time that we returned the next night with the complete group. The second night was much, much messier than the first  (sponsored by Jägermeister) but equally as awesome.

Everyone was notably subdued the next day, but we still managed to get ourselves out and about. We found a very chilled bar for some hair of the dog afternoon beers. It was spacious and eclectic, with graffiti on the walls, old bath tubs transformed into cosy sofas, a pot-plant installation made from cut up plastic water bottles, and cheap beer. It was reminiscent of a squat or a student sharehouse furnished by particularly creative and ecologically aware students. It was unpretentiously cool.

Altogether, it was a cracker of a weekend. I returned to a three-day work week that would mark the end of my contract. So what do I do at the end of every work contract? Travel! Next stop...Thailand.