Around Thailand with a Marge

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  Ko Tao, Thailand
Tuesday, January 1, 2008

It's either a sad reflection on my work ethic or a fine reflection of the amount of fun we had, but not updating our blog ONCE while in the thick of Thailand is a little remiss of me. We spent almost a full four weeks island hoping around the south of the country staying in some wonderful (and not so salubrious) places doing some amazing things but most of all, meeting some fantastic people and enjoying ourselves inside and out.

When we first left Bangkok, we headed down towards Ko Samui to try and sluice off a little city slime in the blue waters of the Gulf of Thailand. We stayed for the first few days in a small bungalow on Boput Beach, one of the quieter parts of the island and only a few minutes walk from the quaint little Fishermans Village. It was perfectly paced for us. We could walk out from our bungalow onto the beach, sit on our behinds or wander 10 minutes to the village for a drink. Our second day there, we discovered a little yoga studio with a special "one week unlimited yoga" offer for around EUR20. So, feeling in need of a little focus for our stay, and reckoning that a bit of exercise never killed anyone, we both signed up.

Now I thought yoga was a pursuit for scrawny guys and skinny girls, really just a way to work up an appetite for tofu. At 10am on the first morning, I showed up for the first class in my heavy fishermans pants and a t-shirt, all ready for a little light stretching and maybe a bit of leotard watching. But I hadn't read the small print, or at least hadn't read it very closely. I mean, what on earth is HOT Yoga anyway?

Well let me tell you that HOT yoga is a form of yoga developed somewhere beneath the seventh circle of hell. You have a super stretchy elastic-gymnastic instructor who turns the heat in the room up to 37degC (although it feels like 107deg) and then proceeds to move you through some of the most ridiculously bendy postures known to man - at speed. I have never sweated so much in my entire life. The 1.5litre bottle of water I brought in with me vanished, although I don't think I could have been any more saturated by the end of the class if I'd poured it over my head. It was nuts - and I'd signed up for a week of this?! As for Marge - well, all I'll say is that if horses sweat, men perspire and women glow....she was glowing like a horse beside me through the class.

It did get easier through the week - yes we did stick it out! - and the class became the basis of a fine daily routine while we were on Samui. The only other thing that seemed to approach a routine was getting drunk, either just the pair of us or more frequently, with Aoibhne (a college friend of Marges) and her partner Dave. Aoibhne and Dave had thought they'd spend a quiet couple of weeks on the beach in Samui over Christmas, but hadn't banked on being press ganged into drinking competitions by Marge and I on far too many occasions. It was great to meet up with them both and we had a great laugh over Christmas with them, but it didn't entirely assuage our feelings of homesickness over the holiday season. It was tough trying to find a sprout, a turkey or a cracker in a Buddhist country like Thailand and Marge and I both missed our families particularly keenly on Christmas Day (the fact that we had hangovers the size of Neptune didn't help). But I was reassured by my crazy mother who told me that she's put a turkey in the freezer and an extra Christmas pudding in the cupboard so we can have a mini-Christmas when we get home. I'll have to pick up a nice patterned jumper for the occasion before we fly home....

Once the appeal of being able to touch my toes for the first time since puberty wore off, Marge and I took off to Ko Tao, a small island north of Samui that is reputed to be one of the best places in Thailand to learn to dive. Not having enough on her CV is one of Sineads recurring nightmares, so we decided we'd spend 4 days over New Years getting our PADI Open Water diving licence and seeing what this scuba lark was all about. After a day and a half sitting in a classroom learning all you never wanted to know about buoyancy control and air pressures and 2 and a half days jumping into the water, Marge and I passed with flying colours and walked away with our PADI licences in hand. Diving around the coral reefs on Ko Tao was taking a trip into another world, but it was never the most comfortable or relaxing experience for me. I couldn't quite shake the feeling of nervousness knowing that I had 45ft of seawater between me and my next breath if things went pear shaped. Marge said it was me being a control freak, which she was probably right about, and the fact that I wanted to drown our instructor probably only added to my discomfort.

The highlight of our time on Ko Tao was ringing in New Years Eve at a wild beach party. Things got off on the right foot with a fabulous meal at one of the islands best restaurants (which even then only cost around EUR15) and a chat about what 2007 had brought us and what we had to look forward to in 2008. We talked about all the things we've done since we left Dublin in May and how much more was ahead of us - and how much we were looking forward to getting back to Ireland in March and kicking off a few new plans. So having spent a few hours clapping each other on the back, we headed down to where the party was on. The stretch of beach we were staying beside had 4 bars side by side, all open to the sand and sea. Each of them were filled to overflowing, and we wandered from bar to bar through the night, sampling this and drinking that - all the while trying to avoid the fireworks and candle lanterns going off every 5 yards. The atmosphere was incredible and seemed like a slightly less hedonistic version of the infamous Full Moon Parties that Ko Pha Nang is famous for. Marge and I kicked off our flipflops and  wedanced the night away in the sand, and counted down to 2008 with a crazy glint in our eyes....

We hadn't known that 2007 would change our lives so much and God only knows what adventures lie ahead of us in 2008.

As the saying goes..."Bring 'em on...."

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