Bike-post finale.

Sitting at stupid Bangkok stupid airport waiting to get flight home. After bike-guy did an amazing job on the bike, and super-amazing pad thai (here follows photo of A Pad Thai More Ordinary, as eaten at Spa Samui restaurant):

I then came back to the jungalow and started the packscapade. My bete noire. I have been watching Northern Exposure while here - and that definitely lightened the packing load - having an episode playing meant I was only packing with half an eye. I went and met up with Sean and Pamela to say goodbye, sad, they are very good value and I hope to visit them in Honkers one day. I told Sean what had happened with the bike, and he did have a few fairly (belated, 20-20 bloody hindsight) comments about the fact that I should have chosen the bike less travelled (on) to make the trip today. Whatevah. Anyway - just for closure - the bike. So after it coughed out today by the side of road to nowhere (ok ok ok - strictly it was the road to Nathon, but it sure LOOKED like is was going nowhere) I got directed to the mange-iest and skankiest little mechanic shack I have ever seen. The guy looked pretty homeless, but took the bike into his little shelter thing, and spent 2 minutes trying the obvious, and then told me to take a seat. I learnt a few things. Firstly, the universal Law Of Mechanics dictates that all greasy workshops have to have immaculately laid-out tools. He could lay his hands on whatever he wanted, instantly. Secondly, all mechanics have to have centre-fold chicks displayed so they are always being regarded lasciviously by ladies who would be cold if a stiff breeze picked up, given lack'o'garb. And lastly, when sitting down, also look up. The last one is a general rule for life. I was parked on this beautiful teak wooden slatted bed thing, under a lovely energetic fan. Due to the usual 3rd degree sunburn I was forced to wear more clothes than strictly needed in 35 degree heat - in fact the attire of the ladies in rule 2 would have been more weather-appropriate. So there I am, happily sitting in the shade, being fanned to death, watching mechanic taking scooter apart, when I glance ceiling-ward to inspect my fan. It was a car fan. That fan thing that cools the engine. And that ends my knowledge on cars, but seriously - a totally exposed, very sharp looking car-fan about a foot above my head. If I hadn't looked up at that stage, and just stood up instead, it would have been Adios Atkinson. Or I would at least have come home looking a lot more Friar Tucky.

Homeless-mechanic replaced a few bits, sweated profusely, drained and blew air through the entire engine, drank some petrol (I think that bit was accidental - he was sucking the pipe to re-start the flow), and generally worked his @ss off for an hour while I was fanned. The bike was purring like a kitten (hello Kiki D!) by the end of his ministrations, and I was SO happy. I asked what I owed him. 100 bahts. That's £2. Two pounds. I could not believe my ears. So I talked him down by 50%.

I jest! I paid him 500bahts. A tenner to me, and five times the asking price to him. Whichever way you want to look at it, I'm not sure who left happier. What a legend! And I then commenced my scoot down to Ultimate Pad Thai.

So it's the end of another fantastic trip here. I think I'll be back. If I return...and I hope I will... I would do a 3.5 day fast at the Spa, and then spend the rest of the time doing more exploring and seeing and smelling and tasting. Maybe even a little touching if they played their cards right. There is just SO much left, I feel like I haven't even started with this neck of the woods yet. But for anyone who wants an escape to detox, re-discover Calm, and get massaged within an inch of your life, I definitely rate Spa Samui, even if just for a few days.

Righty ho. I'm off to hunt down some long anticipated chicken satay before boarding. I think that champagne on the plane is going to taste very, very good.

x

Damn this language barrier!

I am looking out over the palest blue sea, with blindingly white sand. In the distance are islands covered in coconut trees.

The waiter at little Thai restaurant has turned on tinkly waterfall next to me, and trained a fan on me. I have coke, and I have pad thai.

The problem is the pad thai. Every mouthful is an adventure. There is the ideal amount of toasted peanut, the crunchy bean sprouts, spongy egg, heavenly spring onion. The prawns are fragrant, even the tofu is aromatic and light. There is a symphony going on, right in front of me, on this plate. It's too perfect. I'm going to have to physically restrain myself from licking the plate - in Thailand if you polish it off it's offensive: they haven't fed you sufficient and will be insulted and bring you more. I want to walk into the kitchen and tell the chef that she has a talent which is a rare and precious gift. Buuuuuut I don't speak a word of Thai, and am going to have to leave this place with both-thumbs-up, plus face-bisecting smile. And maybe even a bit of "Best. Pad. Thai. Evah!".

As I watch the mechanic try to resuscitate the scooter...

Starting to feel the need to re-read Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

Yesterday, scooter broke down in the middle of what is probably the most hectic intersection on Koh Samui (getting into the one-way system in Chaweng). Nice-bloke got it going again (brute force - almost def grit in fuel).

Today at breakfast (goji berry and strawberry smoothie with coconut water), I had a talk with Sean about the breakdown. He said "trade the bike in for a different one before you do your 50km ride today.". I explained that it had been fine since then, probably just a little rust in the tank, now cleared, all good. I used to have the same with my 72 Beetle. I used to have to pop the engine and whack it in a certain spot - usually with the heel of a stiletto - and hey presto. I digress again. So we laughed, and said it was a philosophical problem. So Sean said "say you have to ride across the desert, and you have a choice of 2 bikes. One which has recently broken down, but now is fine, and one that you don't know the history of. Which do you choose?".

Well. Aside from this being a dilemma for life - including work, leisure time, food, relationships, let me tell you the answer. Fasting has made me sage.

The answer is: DON'T CHOOSE THE BLOODY BIKE THAT BROKE DOWN YESTERDAY.

Sunday: last day

Got cremated on the scooter yesterday (broke down a little, that was nice), so am sunscreened to within an inch  of my life, and about to hop back onto it to do a quick lap'o'island avec camera.

Coming home tonight. Boooo.

Muay Thai ... yesterday's post, due to stupid broken internet.

Woke up today with an sense of excitement. Super-sunny, and today is EXPLORING day. Popped to the beach for *ahem* breakfast (omelette with avo and a coconut), and am writing this on the BB while I await it's arrival. This is the beach on a less sunny day:

Charlie, you asked if they had any interesting birds here, well there are some that you would never, ever have seen or heard before, because they are the rarest of all rareness:

Ahem.

Last night's muay thai was FANTASTIC! We left at 8ish in scooter convoy, and headed 30 mins down the road to the main town on the island: Chaweng. Koh Samui has tried to revamp it's imagine of late according to the regulars and the locals. There is a strange mix of normal locally life outside of the bigger towns, in the touristy towns it's all ladyboys, HedKandi and Full Moon parties and and a fair few letchy old men with STUNNING Thai 'girls' - though I'd imagine a few actually are girls, FWIW. In the slightly more off-the-track places there are loads of top notch 5* places on the beach - there's even a Nikki Beach here now. Strange mix. I digress. It's just bizarre for an island that is maybe 35 miles to drive right around the outside. I do like the fact that a lot of 'local' still exists too.

Muay Thai: because it was a 30 minute scoot I elected to wear jeans and trainery shoes, rather than small dress and flip flops. That was great for the drive, but when I arrived: HAAAAWT. Very, very hawt. Paid THB1000 to get in, which is the princely sum of £20. Because it's Chaweng Stadium, it was probably about 60% tourists, but I was glad to see that the locals get a special section in prime seats that us touristos aren't allowed to use.  There were also the "expensive" seats, at THB1500, which turned out to be about as close to the action as mine, but they were big squishy green laz-e-boyz, so I had instant envy:

When we arrived, a friendly lady(ish) at outside bar stopped contorting around a pole in order to help me to park my scooter, as the place was rammed, and we made our way up to the seats. Bar was selling an array of booze, but am sticking to the water til I leave Thai soil (read: tomorrow night 2 minutes after takeoff). There were 9 fights, and they are 5 rounds of 3 minutes each:

The evening begins with the lightest fighters (110lbs) and steadily they get heavier, up to 160lbs. Only one of them was anything but pure muscle. The first 2 looked like they weren't a day over 16, and v v skinny, but they still came on swathed in the shiny bath-robe things to 'Eye of the Tiger'. Class. They start with about 2 minutes of what I guess probably relates pretty closely to the haka - a kind of traditional dance thing which respects their parents, the sport, their belief system etc. And then it's ding-ding: game on! So, first-off: the v v young ones:

Then they got bigger, and older and more experienced, so the excitement level rose and the gambling happening in the Thai section increased rapidly! Apparently they will literally gamble on anything, and it's a bit of an art form. Like watching that bloody moron who I cannot stand doing the horst-racing on TV. The one in the hat. John McCririck or whatever his stupid, fat, lumpy name is. I digress. They changed referee half-way through from slim and quiet referee, who broke things up fairly quickly to a lardy referee who let the pumelling continue, shouted a lot, and also didn't seen to feel the need to apply the blood rules. I think he may have been hitting the hard stuff, because at one point he was also on the canvas, which struck me as sliiiightly unconventional:

As we got to the last fight, the atmosphere was electric (and quite smokey and boozy), a lot of the tourists had left to hit the bars, as it was getting late (gone midnight) and so there were a lot more Thais there, and the standard was very high. The last fight featured Swedish-bloke v Thai-bloke their names were all fairly elaborate. And it was a corker.

Intially I thought the meatball was going to get the kicking of his life, and after a decent heel to the forehead, he turned red. And I mean that in the blood sense. Eww.

After which the Swede started seeing red in all senses, and quite quickly he took the lardster down. One rule of muay thai which is quite interesting is the whole it's ok to hit a guy who is down rule. So, as you an see from the following 2, Swede has Lardster in the corner, cowering, looking totally beaten...but he's not on the canvas, so Swede punches him to the ground while he's swaying and undefended. Innnnnteresting:

Cause and effect:

Wow. What an eye-opener of an evening for me.

What a soireeee

1.20am, and back from night'o'muay thai!  What a most fantastico spectator sport. Took about a million photos, so will get posting in the morning. 8 fights were thai-on-thai, and the 9th was a thai guy v a Swede (and no, he was not kicking 7 shades of s--t out of a much maligned root vegetable).

Had v v v nice salad for dinner. Feel on top'o'world. Body no longer sulking. Shibby!

Oh and Charlie: thaaaaaanks for the amaretto cheesecake comments...cow! (email me recipe forthwith).

Day Six...Black Day...

I am cheesed off. If I may add 'to the max'. Maximally cheesed.

I woke up at 7 feeling dire. Nausea, cramps, dizzy...cold and sweaty and minging. Tried to get myself together to make the climb to the McSlurry counter and fainted. 3 hours later situation had not improved, and had passed out again on way to bathroom, so made the call that enough is enough. Yep. I phoned the spa people, who gave me the "listen to your body" lecture, and when I cocked my head to one side and tried to hear the message, it was both loud and clear. It went along the lines of: "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, I am seriously p*ssed off now and demand anything containing any form of energy, pronto, or I'm striking worse than BA". So I cracked. Yep. Day 6. I'm most ashamed of myself. Due to lack of walking-without-fainting ability I phoned the restaurant and begged them to bring me a some juice and some grated carrot. I ate a few forkfuls of that, necked the pineapple juice, fell asleep and then woke up feeling MUCH improved. There you have it.

This afternoon, on the contrary, was lovely. I went to the beach and did some Vitamin D producing. Ate a bit more raw vegie stuff and had some more juice. Met up with Dutch-Carolien, another Canadian girl, and Annoying Stalky Australian Hosebeast (ASAH). ASAH the proceeded to annoy all 3 of us by (a)extolling the virtues of banning the burqa (b) telling Canadian she had very bad cellulite (she didn't), and (c)telling me that feeling rough this morning was due to me detoxing, and that I must be a very toxic person. Made me feel like a fricking Britney Spears song. She had the worst table manners ever, chewed with her mouth open, over-filled every mouthful (my pet hate) and then spoke over the excessively full mouth, spitting food back into her plate. Ugh. ASAH is now no. 2 on the Avoid list (no 1 is neighbour). Speaking of neighbour, he caught me coming out of the steam rock earlier. Yuck! You go into steam rock (massive hollowed-out boulder full'o'steam made with thai herbs etc) wearing a thin cotton wrap. This obviously gets incredibly clingy when wet. Neighbour saw me on my trip between steam room and cold-water-shower and spent an inappropriate amount of time gawping at me. He MINGS.

Off to the restaurant to see if Sean and Pamela and Japanese-Canadian are still on for thai boxing tonight. Apparently Pamela saw 2 knock-outs the last time - I'm quite excited!

-me

Scooters, screaming and sky-gazing.

Another busy-bee day on Koh Samui, it's almost 8pm on Day Five of Hunger strike. I was *shock* up in time for early morning meditation, not the yoga I was expecting, but hey ho. It was fairly relaxing if you applied enough anti-mosquito, but others were slapping themselves silly. Was feeling a bit drained so yes...had the green drink again, and it's still so foul I have to hold my nose while I'm drinking it, but it definitely adds zip.

So - today I rented a scooter, and did some exploring. It was tentative today, because the scooter-hire-lady insisted on telling me about 100 000 times that nowhere on Koh Samui rents with insurance...so that I'm 100% uninsured, and then proceeded to go through a list of many scenarios where I would not be insured. In detail. Including a long-winded story about falling off when she was 14, and how she had to have a lot of gravel extracted from her elbow, complete with showing me the scar. HELLOOO? Did she not want my £5? Anyway - zipped into town (slowly), and was one of the maybe 1% of people wearing a helmet. I ran into Japanese-Canadian guy on my way home and he'd spent the day doing an entire lap of the island, looking at waterfalls and also going to a shooting range - where you can shoot AK47s! So. That's my Saturday sorted!

I had a most pleasant experience earlier, when noisy-neighbour got so frustrated with something (probably the fact that he couldn't turn his TV volume up any higher) that he did this outraged scream thing. It was like having the Incredible Hulk in the room next to me (you can come out from behind the sofa now, Decs). I found this oddly calming, and made me distinctly smirky. He is VERY annoying, and this is exacerbated by the fact that he looks...weaselly. And NIAGW.

Tomorrow night is a big one - muay thai fight night! It only starts at 9pm, so I see a leetle afternoon nap in my future. Saturday is deffo shooting range and island-exploring, and Sunday is ... day coming home. Sad and going to be relieved in equal measure.

No photos today, but tomorrow I am going to head down to the beach for a spot of sunnage, as maroon-5-ness has now faded back to white as usual. The beach is VERY beautiful, lots of powdery white sand going on, so I'm quite excited and will take the camera.

Massage-free day today. *shock*.

x

Still Day 4. But it's nearly over.

Well well well, past half way! Shibby! There are 2 people here contemplating stopping after day 6 (uh no, I am not one of them...) and it does make you think along the lines of "I don't HAVE to do this to myself", but fret not, my resolve isn't wavering because I am BACK! Past the anguish of day 3 and 4, and now it's much easier. No more headaches and aching joints. I wouldn't go as far as to say easy peasy, but definitely easier and peasier. The full 7 (and a very crucial half) days will be completed.

I just had 'dinner' with nice people from ... guess where - though they did leave 6 years ago for Honkers, which they technically call home now. Anyway, I took evidence of my dinner, which is a bowl of what they call 'broth' which is actually a bowl of brown water that vegetables have been boiled in at some point. And the ubiquitous coconut. And I ordered a side of fresh herbs that you can then float in the broth and eat around:

Oh - Sean also took photo of me looking pleased to be eating this smorgasbord of delights, which is plainly a trick of the light, with Pamela taking the P out of me in the background:

Today has been extra-rainy, and therefore (just to please Mrs A) extra-froggy. Not that I've seen one yet, but I can hear them going full tilt. I am THAT nerd, walking back from dinner with my torch - so would you be if you'd had a nearly-breaking-neck-slipping-on-frog incident. They are super-slippery little sods.

I have committed to getting myself OUT of bed to go to yoga at 7.30am tomorrow - no more sleeping in - and I am also going to head out to a thai boxing soiree on Friday night. Please Lord don't let anyone be selling chicken satay there. That's the only thing that I swear I would kill for. OK - kill is a strong word. Maim. Definitely there will be maiming.

buenas noches

 ps: The Wick: YOU SHOULD BE HERE.

Day Four. DO NOT WANT!

It's official. I am feeling rougher than a badger's arse. As they say. Absolutely d-rained.

Sorry Mom.

Anyway - total velcro-pillow syndrome again today, and barely had strength to climb 50m slope to get McSlurry and other morning-time accoutrement at 7.30am. Back to room and straight back to the scratcher©. Then I did something radical. I had a shower etc (so far, so normal) and went up to the restaurant, boycotted my 10am McSlurry and instead felt compelled to actually order the Green Drink.  I amazed myself. With a coconut, for good measure. For the record it still tasted just like juiced celery and garlic, and I had to drink it while not breathing through my nose. That perked me up no end, and ended up chatting iPads to Yet Another Australian (what the hell!) and even had a semi-sane conversation with "Dr John", resident chiropractor (he has a doctorate in Being Nutsy - he could run the KP factory in his sleep - he comes out with lines like "Only dead fish go with the flow"... ) The word "nuts" has (a) made me hungry. Bad. And (b) reminded me of my all-time favourite nut-related joke:

A guy goes to the psychiatrist only wearing shorts made of clingfilm.
The psychiatrist says, "Well, I can clearly see you're nuts."

Yep. The green drink has definitely made me more like me (ie: ancient bad gags ahoy-hoy.)

(ah, sorry Mom, again).

So given comedy sun-burn, I have boycotted the pool today, and it's just been chucking it down with rain, and then the sun came out, bright and glittery...I know this because I can see it all from my window as I languish on my bed watching Mad Men on the MacBook. God bless technology! I did poke my nose outside my door to take a photo of the rain, to notice from the corner of my eye that Neighbour was on his verandah in the hammock, reading a book and watching the rain, while I am plainly being totally un-zen by being holed up in my room watching TV series with the aircon cranked. BAD! BAD KATE! I pretended not to notice him, and faked being fascinated by the rain for a few moments (I, too, can appreciate nature at it's most raw...), but then decided I totally couldn't be bothered with the pretense and came back in to finish the episode. I totally heard him watching trashy american teenagey movies last night through the wall, so his At-One-With-The-Planet routine doesn't entirely ring true. Ha!

Well. One more episode, then herbal tabs (I am rattling, it's the only thing even vaguely solid going down my neck), then McS, then ... radically...a massage, I reckon. Life = hard.

So - just one observation - as much as I usually don't much appreciate my friends loitering in the rafters, crapping liberally all over my room with total abandon as to whether it's landing in my flip-flops, on my pillow, etc, but I really am appreciating my little gecko compadres. They are fiendish mosquito-eaters, and are very cute. Though they do make an unbelievably loud calling sound for things that are so little. And I always thought "it was a barking gecko" was just a way of passing the blame.

Right. Laters!

The only person sleeping more than me...

Day Three, and the fun continues

Shameful. Shameful, Atkinson. I just woke myself up during a massage by ... breathing loudly. It WAS NOT SNORING. But definitely loud, and quite vocal breathing. The shaaaame. Back from town mission: mother dearest, I am having your trousers made in one extra material. They're either going to look really cool, or like someone with narolepsy on hunger strike chose them. Either way, they're maybe a little...cheffy...or sailory?

The weird thing about being in town is the constant buzzing noise, which I have now realised comes from the highly make-shift power lines everywhere. Yet more evidence:

Loads of new people, apparently there's been an influx of boys (boys! boys!), as 4 blokes have all arrived in the last day. All looking a bit shattered and in need of no-booze, no-coffee, and a bit of sunshine, detox, and TLC. Which is probably exactly how I looked when I arrived on Saturday morning. Looks-wise, now that it's very much Day Three, I'm feeling (and probably looking) quite 'meh' as the detox is kicking in. In fact, here's photographic evidence taken on my way onto town (look Larry B - it's me NOT holding an alcoholic beverage of any kind - how bizarre!).

And finally, someone has moved into the other half of my jungalow. And I can hear them through the wall. This is very bad news - mainly for them, because when I play Plants v Zombies at full whack at 11pm, they're not going to be loving me so much.

Off for... yet another massage and mcSlurry. Apparently if you get it with lemon juice it almost eradicates the lingering undertone of sand. Just had a sudden attack of the cassoulets...thank gawd France-weekend isn't too far away!

Rookie error.

The aftersun is in the fridge. I over-estimated my ability to stay awake at 9.30am, after 9 hours of kippage, and therefore had accidenti-snooze by the pool for 2 hours. Thank GOODNESS for really-irritating-cough-guy who turned up at 11.30 and lived up to his name in spades.

Now on stationery tuk-tuk waiting for driver to materialise to take me to town. Hmm. Is it stationery or stationary. Brain-freeze still in effect. I mean that it's not currently moving, not that it's laden down with highlighter pens, staples, and - if you're lucky - an A4 notebook.

Took a picture of le jungalow earlier, while being dive-bombed by a mahussive butterfly. Evidence follows....

Also, Major, you asked about birds (stop outing my twitching tendancies!) - I can hear LOADS but it so jungley it's hard to see any. I spent ages in hammock deliberating if I was watching a gigantic insect or a tiny hummingbird - no binos and no zoom lens - so basically: no idea :) will pay more attention.

Day Two. And now it gets hard.

Well. Another hectic day of sitting on my @ss. Today, I have been mainly thinking about coconuts. They use monkeys to harvest the coconuts from the palms, which is pretty cunning, given you can *boom boom* pay them peanuts. I learnt this factette on my way back from the beach. An open-backed tuktuk thing went past piled super-high with loads of coconuts (they have a tendancy to pile all cars/mopeds etc here beyond the call of duty) - anyway - coconut-truck went past me, and on the back was clinging a big, angry looking monkey. Now if this had been a cute and fluffy little smiley monkey, I may have had something akin to sweat-shop-guilt, but the monkey was so damn frightening and ... tooth-laden ... I am officially relishing punishing the monkey by having coconut water twice every day (stop it).

Not my monkey photo, but the internet giveth (and I assume it also taketh away...)

Day Two of no food, and I had my first real Food Thoughts (helped along by making cheese and wine plans for a few weeks time with Madame M). As per last time, I still firmly believe this would be a cracking place to write a recipe book. I met some new people who are starting their fasts tomorrow, and they were having their last suppers. New-Australian-sounding-guy (what's with all the Ozzies?) was having FRUIT. Seriously people, if you're going to stop eating for 7.5 days, would you really choose fruit? Very stupid brave. Skipped the Green Drink today.

This is yet another subdued entry - not least of all because today I have (a)slept, (b)drank about 10 gallons of McSlurry/water, (c)had a massage, (d)played Plants v Zombies on the iPad (I know, I know, not very detoxxy on the gadget front)... and (e) made some new friends, but mainly because today I have been on total space-cadet mode. I even managed to try to leave the restaurant without paying once, and then charged a coconut to the wrong room... accidentally. Apparently this is not behaviour that's encouraged. I feel asleep during agony-massage (saying that, he wasn't a patch on yesterday's bruiser). I fell asleep after I woke up from 9 hours of sleep - for another THREE hours. I nearly fell asleep in the hammock this afternoon. Does not exactly make for a rivetting read. I have written myself a list for tomorrow, to try and get myself more Out There, including a trip into the town, and a walk on the beach. Let's see me try and sleep-walk through THAT!

It's chucking it down with rain again, making a lovely sound on the roof and trees. I am living in a wooden bungalow-style house in the middle of pretty dense jungle, which I have now christened The Jungalow. Things are getting desperate, people.

Coconutz

Oh yeah - here's my breakfast.

And so it begins.

Hello. I wasn't going to blog this trip, but the low-level hecking from I&Y, The Wick, Major and Marmie means it's probably easier than writing 5 emails to you, updating you on this round of fun, fun, fun.

Back on Koh Samui, back doing hunger strike. Sorry, I mean fasting. Today is Day One of Seven, and it's a very different first day this time round. I think it's because I know what's coming, so there's less mystique and time spent wondering what it's like. I'm already cheesed off with just how much liquid I have to get down my gregory (you wouldn't hear me saying THAT in First Edition), however the sheer agony of Thai massage took me by surprise again. And they say muscles have memory! Actually...saying that...most peoples muscles probably do, but since I have limited memory generally.... damn. DAMN MY BAD MEMORY.

So. Today is Sunday. I landed at crack-of yesterday morning, and spent a most chilled out day walking on the super-soft white sand beach, eating unbelievably good food, and having 10 shades of torture inflicted on me in the massage sala. Yet again it's the innocuous ones who inflict the most pain - saying that, this lady wasn't small by any means, and when she rested her entire body weight onto my back with her elbows I swear I heard a rib crack. My last meal was a faaaannntastic brown ri(c)e salad, with cheese and cashews and loads of nice salady veg like spring onions, red pepper, tomato etc, with a great little garlic and lemony dressing. *sob*.

Woke up today for McSlurry number one, which was supposed to be at 7am, but I had slight velcro-pillow syndrome, so day started at 7.30. ish. I have since necked 5 of the bloody vile things - I've gone exra hard-core this time, so no pineapple or watermelon juice to soften the blow - it tastes like drinking a pint of cotton wool flavoured with sand.  And I use the term 'flavour' veeeery loosely. I have also consumed the water from 2 coconuts, about 200 00000 glasses of water, mystery herbal tablets (alleging to be kelp or algae or some-such) and.... wait for it "green drink". I am served one of these 'green drinks' a day. See now I wish that I had left the term 'green drink' in inverted commas, too, however after tasting it (OMG - viiile) I had a look at the menu to discovered what the hell it was. Ahem: Green leafy vegetables, juiced with garlic and coconut oil. Oh yesss. Delightful. And it was room temperature. Slightly worried that on the first day my mind already trod the path of Heyyyy, this would be awesome if it was chilled as a gazpacho with some sour cream, loads of pepper and some good olive oil.

I will aim to make this less 'meh' and more lighthearted as I get to know some people - only met one Ozzie girl (who left today, thank gingus (as William would say), because she pranced around in yoga-lycra, had no volume control, called everyone 'chook' and labelled everything "amaaaaaaaaaaazing" - aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh)... and a couple who seem really nice. Also Australian, but not annoying-as-hell. They are easing themselves in slowly by spending 3 days eating raw food and juices, which is what you're supposed to do. What you're NOT supposed to do is drink loooooads on the plane,  have a 4 course meal, with port, and then land and start fasting. That would be ludicrous. (note: the Swiss sparkling wine at Zurich airport is much nicer than you'd expect).

On that note, and having done a small, and ladylike green-drink-burp in the sanctity of my own room, I am going to sign out. Green drink definitely contained celery and possibly also green peppers. Ming. Ing.

Headache so bad I feel like slamming my hand in a door to take my mind off it. Deep joy. Probably should have quit the daily double macchiatos BEFORE coming here. I blame Carpet Byrne....

Over and outski.

x