The Islands

The Islands

After dragging myself away from my beloved northern star, Chiang Mai, with my 'family' of masseuses next door, media lab garden and cheap living, I arrive in Koh Phanang, after 2 days travelling, and am disgusted to find the party beach where I am booked for a week such a far cry from what I had hoped for. In my misguided expectations, I was thinking hippy vibe, sing songs around the fire and tree loving dippy shit. Instead, I am confronted by a load of tattooed gap year kids cramming down 'fuck buckets' down their neck, being obnoxious and encapsulating everything I was ashamed of in my hedonistic soulless generation of excess. Oh dear.

On the 2^nd night, I reunited with Amanda and Nikki, my Scottish roomies from Chang Mai. We hire motorbikes and whizz about the isle in a spirit of laid back adventure, climb the highest (yet puny) mountain (a mere 500m) and scramble through waterfalls to 'viewpoints' which are simply large rugged boulders offering panoramic view of the mangroves below which roll out to the sea. Evening falls and I accept the girls offer to see their swanky hotel on the other side of the island where we enjoy a spectacular sunset from their front row, marble floored balcony, and end up taking the hotel's cheapest room for the night - a fan hut half a mile up an uneven staircase. I don't mind this, it beats the pain of thumping trance from competing bars on Haad Rin's shore each night. Also, the rocky road home from here that is notoriously dangerous at the best of times, let alone in the dark. Think life sized Toblerone bar with giant chunks bitten out in the shape of pot holes, sprinkled with dust and sand to offer more slipping potential. Hmm, methinks, leave it till morning.

Paying double hotel fees wasn't part of my plan and I felt a pinch of guilt about it but when I told my mum about my distaste for the Full Moon party resort, she replied in her usual frank wonderfulness “It all sounds great sitting here in grey miserable London but it isn't until you get there that you know what the experience will be, grass always greener my dear. All part of life's rich pageant Anna. If you feel unsafe, get the hell out. We have a saying in Ireland, 'To hell with poverty, throw another herring on the fire”. Coming from the world's most disciplined saver upper who rarely splashes out on herself, I took great comfort in the fact that even she wasn't binding me to any unpleasant situations or responsibilities. This year of travel was for adventure, for exploring passions and yes God help me for using the disgusting bantered phrase 'finding myself' which really should be expanded to 'finding out about myself, how I deal with situations, what I'm good at and how my energy inspires others'. The weight of rationale in my head saying “you've paid up for the week and must endure it” only came from myself. Why are we so hard on ourselves?

I make it through the week by forcing myself to stop judging other people's conception of fun and finding some interesting folk to hang with. Friday night arrives and it's Party time, come on Anna, get your shit together and allow yourself to enjoy this. But as the midnight hour approaches, and the party is heating up, for the first time since departing on this independent year of travel, I feel really alone. Maybe it is the many groups of friends and couples I have met which have reinforced it all of a sudden. I lay limp in my bungalow hut, curled up in foetal position and self pity, pining for my friends. I suddenly wanted to share this experience with my nearest and dearest, email was not enough, and I felt totally, coldly, universally alone, like an amoeba who has lost its pond, so small and alone. Longing for the familiarity of belonging, I knew it was pathetic but had to sit under the dark cloud until it passed. A saving grace was a line from one of my best friend's songs “Sometimes......life grinds.....” (cheers Az) It reinforced the knowledge that this feeling was fleeting and that I would soon be back on the bandwagon enjoying myself, but for that horrible little while I had to submit to the darkness.

Looking back at the scene, I realise that even at the time, I was fully aware of my feelings yet able to distance myself from the emotions. It is so nice to be able to simply observe one's moods and fluctuations of energy when all the usual distractions of 'normal life' are taken away.

This Buddhist line of thought - accept the situation without judging, take the present for what it is and no more - worked only so far until the animal instinct, hunger, roused me to move. I headed down to the beach for some butterfly prawns and surrendered. With the kindness of some snow boarding Canadians, the rough warmth of an Essex crowd I'd been hanging with, and the miracle that is red bull, I ended up having a blast. Intoxicated by the spirit of the psychedelic surroundings, I let myself blend into the festivities. Before I knew it the full moon had morphed into a pregnant red sun of dawn.

I leave on the boat with a hangover and arrive in Koh Lanta 16 hours later, dying for a shower. I had booked a room in The Sanctuary, promised by Lonely Planet to be ' a delightful place to stay'. A 16 year old with braces named Felix drives me to his parents hotel. The idea of morning yoga and veggie Indian food sounds right up my street. However, I arrive and find the door to my shack opens like a house of cards, doesn't lock from the inside, is right next to a dusty noisy building site and has a outside bathroom that has the potential to be rustic and perhaps an integral natural experience apart from the colonies of ants that have claimed it as theirs. Plus there is no mirror, I mean come on people!

All of this may have been passable; I am trying to get acquainted with the earwigs, lizards, cockroaches, ants, cats and dogs of Asia, welcoming in new creatures so as not to be offended by their presence, until I am undressing and notice an ominous dark shadow behind my bed. Uh oh, like a forewarning of gloom, I prance around the room to the other side to get a better look, wondering did I just see that or did I immagine it? Rounding the bed's corner I come face to face with a big black cobra. Muth*F#*ker, this is the last straw, get me out of here! Bags repacked, I evacuate to the hotel bar and poise like a frigid spinster for half an hour waiting to be rescued by the free transfer service of Lanta Paradise Resort.

Never have I been so glad to see a sealed concrete floor in all my life. I settle in and enjoy a perfect BBQ dinner on the beach front, fresh King prawns and grilled Barracuda fish, meet a Dutch girl and hang out with her at Mongs bar next door. Thai reggae music wallows around the night air. This is the after party to Koh Phnang. This is the Sunday afternoon chillout after a hectic Saturday. No aggressive base or ridiculousness here. There is a pleasant family vibe and the staff are friendly.

We meet some French, Maltese, Kiwi, and Irish travellers and I am invited by the owner, Mong, to a free shot. Rarely one to turn down a freebie, I find myself in a parody episode like some sort of 'I'm a traveller, get me out of here' I have the option of Snake wine, Monkey brains, or Scorpion brew. Good God almighty. The crowd who have been through this the night before unanimously warn against the monkey and the scorpion. Apparently the taste of the monkey isn't so bad, it's the chunky membrane that gets stuck in your throat. Well methinks, I've eaten baby scorpios in Beijing, drunk snake wine in Yungshuo, better try something new. Mong points to the monkey and rubs his chest, “Make you clean inside” and now pointing to his head “Give you new ideas”. I'm sold, monkey it is. The crowd cheers and grimaces together as I down the rancid cerebral shot. Whatever was in there may have been salubrious or toxic but the surrounding liquid was such pure bootleg alcohol as to kill any bugs that may have been lurking therein.

Why are we such suckers for punishment I wonder. The full moon party was a place of the walking wounded. Between licks of the fire skipping rope, motor accidents, drunken misdemeanors and the newly tattooed, I have never seen so many bandaged people in one town. Where do we draw the line of fun, pleasure and pain? I met a few people who had had very negative experiences in Haad Rin, from theft of bags, clothes and money, to jet ski accidents costing them between 600 and 1000 pounds in repair costs (which won't be covered by insurance – So youre a dumbass who wants to pump gasoline and adrenaline into the atmosphere whilst high on vodka redbull and you crashinto the rocks, how is this our fault?), to waking up on the beach half naked, totally disorientated and unable to remember the night before or where they are staying now. I'm glad I avoided the circumstances that lead to these consequences.

My time in Thailand is drawing to a close and my various jaunts (not nearly as much as I wanted to see, but leaving plenty to come back for), have demonstrated that I am much more a mountain lady than a beach girl. Whereas the mountain slowly draws the air out of you, the sea traps it on surface contact. The physical elevation suits the way in which my mind is travelling at the moment – onto theological themes and spiritual discoveries.

So much so, in fact, that I have decided to follow an intuition to a wonderful, gargantuan challenge awaiting me in Nepal for my next birthday. The Everest Base camp trek has become a new focus towards the end of my Asian travels and training is required. As my sturdy stomach seems to be refusing to give in to a nice little bout of make-me-skinny travel dysentery, it is up to me to transform the 'potential muscle' (to pinch a term coined by one very positive and funny writer, cheers Aa) that has been hanging around. The beach is great for morning runs. Never exactly my favourite sport, I endure a couple of laps solely in order to plunge myself in to the cooling sea at high tide. This moment of total refreshment of mind and body makes the pain worth it.

India beckons like a siren calling out across the sea. Meditation, yoga, writing, adventures, challenge, tea, incense, silk, vegetarianism, poverty, volunteering, friendship, colour, love, dance, devotion and ancient Ayurveda, here I come!