Failure to blog warning...

I received a letter from the Sincere Travel Blogging society yesterday, asking me to close down my site on the grounds that the number of entries I have made since abandoning UK soil is, and I quote ‘outragous, if not downright offensive.’

They gave me 24 hours to write an update or they’d shut me down. So here we are. One installment of several, to better educate you on my escapades in Koh Phangan.

This may take a while.

In my defense I have been living in the jungle for the past 3 weeks, although it feels more like 3 years and therefore, predictably, have had little access to the internet. In fact, I’m not even certain they know what it is there.

Frozen in indecision, once I arrived on Koh Phangan’s Had Thien I seemed incapable of leaving. I have since decided that the energy of the place that makes you feel like you’ve just clawed your way free of a Sunday afternoon laundry spin cycle in fact sends out some kind of jamming signal to your brain, rendering you completely useless.

I spent the best part of the intial week trying to decided whether to stick with my Ashtanga practice – and frankly, who wouldn’t want to when it had so much going for it – clambering the jungle trail, over rocks to the next secluded bay of Wae Nam, I get to Salute the Sun, etc. etc. on a platform set right into the cliff, with views across the Gulf of Thailand. Not only this, but I have not just one but two highly qualified teachers on hand to offer some (much needed) assistance, across a group of a mere dozen and before I know it I’m practically binding solo in my nemesis Marichyasana D and get Kurmasana and Supta Kurmasana added in to.

The alternative is to go to Agama, for a month long course in Tibetan Tantra. Whilst there is an element of harnessing the sexual energy this shouldn’t be confused soley with Tantric Sex; Tantra was originally part of Buddism before it splintered off and shaped its only philosophy.

However, after a bit of asking around amongst the responses I get are – ‘Agama is a cult, the Swami is Sleazy and indeed everyone is having sex there, which sounds like a good thing but it isn’t.’

So after very little thought, I decide to hold back from putting myself in the firing line of some fat westerner, posing as a Guru trying to awaken my Kundalini. After all, I can get that for free on Had Rin beach on Full Moon Party night.

As I’m going nowhere in a hurry, I decide to upgrade my accommodation – sleeping on the floor of the dorm is all very well and good, but where’s a girl to put her shoes (that’s she doesn’t need to wear)?

Always one to romantically overlook practicality in favour of idealism, I opt for a bungalow right on the beach that has no fan, electricity and the shower could easily pass for a derelict greenhouse, simply because it has a cat on the porch. I’m not entirely sure why this was a selling point for me, because I’m allergic to cats but it seemed like a good idea at the time. However, after night one, with approximately zero hours sleep on account of the fact I’m just drifting off, the sea breeze cooling the air, when the cat and half a jungle zoo want to share my bed.
Un-amused, I flee the following morning and move into a cute little cottage style bungalow, that looks like it would be better placed on a prairie. It may not have a sea view, but I only have to share the bathroom with a couple of cockroaches who keep themselves to themselves, and get used to being greeted by a water buffalo when I stumble from my porch, yoga mat in tow at 8am every morning.

To be continued...