Fluff & Spangle Finally Leaves The Bay!

Fluff & Spangle was a nickname given to me by “the community” I think because it took me a while to understand what the term meant.  And thus I had properly been initiated into the family love tribe.  Fluff and Spangle denotes the dress code of any party or family outing.  Fluff being the fluffiness and spangle being the sparkly attire that everyone wears at any given point in time. 

Leaving the bay has been difficult because I had become so accustomed to the spiritual beach life of the adjoining beaches:  Haad Yuan, Haad Tien, Wy Naam.  So much love, laughter and friendship.  The bonds and friendships I  developed here were accelerated as there were so many good times and great memories formed that take years to accumulate in my regular life.  In fact, I left 2 weeks later than I had originally planned.  It got to the point where no one believed I was actually leaving.  I would say my goodbyes and everyone would say, “Yeah right, I’ll see you tomorrow!”

The days before I left, we took a group outing to The Tree House.  These were the lovely beach bungalows in Than Sadet which overlooked the beautiful secluded beach.  In fact, there are only 12 bungalows here so we basically took it over.

 

We took the supply boat over, which took about 15 minutes I think.  But who was keeping track of time?  We were having so much fun.

 

Acroyoga is one of my favorite forms of yoga.  I like it because it is contact yoga and you are basically playing like you are kids. 

You may remember Sebastien as my acro yoga instructor from my previous posts.  He is one of the beautiful people on this trip I was fortunate to really connected with.  We became fast friends and I have to say I am really inspired by his passion and quest in spirituality.  

He’s a healer from Portugal and he teaches everything from Ayurvedic &  Thai Massage, Dance Meditation, Contact Yoga, etc.  In fact I can’t even fully describe to you everything he does because he is so humble about it.  Attached are the links to his bios so you can read them for yourself. Seb's Bio & Seb's Dance Meditation Bio 

If you are ever  in Koh Phangnan and you get the chance to attend one of his courses or  get one of his massages – I would recommend him 110%! He’s based out of The Sanctuary in Haad Thien. 

 

I had a chance to hang out with our beautiful yoga teacher Lily who is also from Vancouver. Another inspiring person who is extremely dedicated to her path in yoga and meditation.  I am so thankful to have had the chance to take the 200 hour yoga foundation course led by her at The Blooming Lotus.  Her teaching style is very intense but I learnt so much from her, and I can’t wait to put my training to use.  I can’t think of a better place than the beach paradise that is Koh Phangnan to do a Yoga teacher training!

Okay enough of the seriousness.  Here is the bar we hung out at.  The staff at the Tree house were incredible and playful.  At certain points in the night they even donned our colorful wigs, and some even joined the dance party!  The drinks and bungalows were very reasonably priced and absolutely delicious.

 

 

Here are some more pictures of my beautiful new friends.  So much Love, so much Laughter, so much Playfulness!

  

Yeah… Life is hard when you are on a beach, and you are surrounded by beautiful shirtless people and you are at liberty to smoke and drink and do yoga wherever you want!

 

This is the moment everything changed for me.  I put on the pink wig, and because there were no mirrors, I had someone take pictures of me so I would know how I looked.  I quite liked the pink – it matched my bikini =)

 

And of course, here is Rui.  Rui had actually just arrived in Koh Phangnan days before from Portugal and as you can see he had no problems fitting in.  One of my favourites, he patiently taught me impressive Portuguese phrases the duration of his trip. He is one of those lovable shiny sparkly personalities with amazing good hearted energy.

         

The crew having dinner before the party.  Glitter, pirate hats and sparkly shiny people.

  

The night was magical.  There was a big fire on the beach, and we had a wicked dance party with incredible music.

And here we are playing cards the morning after.  Shithead is the name of the game, and well after I taught them Slapjack – the buckets came out. My bucket of choice:  Oreo Vodka Shake.  MMmmmmnnn!

 

There were these two adorable kids playing in the restaurant when we all woke up. It was incredible, they didn’t even speak the language but they were in perfect communication. 

  

Another one of my favorites, Cuban sensation Andy!  I actually don’t know him really well… but I know that I like him. Look how photogenic he is!

This is us on our boat ride home.  Still feeling amazing, I think we were blissed out and glowing from the amazing time that we had.

Goodbye to my dear friends.  Thank you for the incredible journey.  I am so blessed to have had this wonderful experience and I will cherish the moments and hold them dear to my heart.

Hopefully we will all cross paths again!  

The yoga teacher experience

Life is such an incredible journey and lately I have been experiencing it with full awareness.  That’s not to say that I don’t feel that way when I am living at home in Vancouver, but being out here in paradise every moment is exemplified.  I am being exposed to so many key life moments out here that it feels almost like a fast track to spiritual empowerment.

Yoga teacher training is so much more than learning yoga.  There have been so many emotional moments and life lessons I’ve figured out about myself over this past month.  I’m not sure if it happens to everyone but when I talked to the other students about it, they say most people will tell you that there’s more than just yoga that happens because yoga can open up so many things in people.

Out here in Haad Yuan, I have taken up the practice of self meditation for an hour a day on the beach.  I end up waking up at 5:30 AM because I get to see the sunrise and its much cooler in the morning. This is followed by a half hour jog and a swim in the ocean.  Then my yoga teacher training would start at 8:30 AM, finishing at 7 PM, with 2 2hour breaks with which you can head to the beach.  The beach is literally 20 steps from my bungalow and I love it that way because I have completely integrated the beach into my daily routine.  Meditation in the morning, both the beach breaks, and evening walks a lot of the time just on my own. 

I am usually more of a sunset person because the times more convenient for me.  But we only see sun rises on this part of the beach, so I have been taking full advantage by snapping pictures every day.  It’s beautiful to be here before anyone else.  This picture is of me taking a calendar picture for the photo project I’m putting together for my class.

You may remember James from my earlier blog post.  I adore James.  For this picture I begged him to take a “conservative asian couple” picture with me.  Which is really hilarious because neither of us would fall in that category.  Sorry ladies, James is one hundred percent pure gay.

Naturally, the other girls also wanted to join the harem but I got to keep my title as first wife.  Megan (the other asian) got 2nd wife and Lily got concubine.  Yes mostly because she is white.

Another beautiful sunrise ….

Right, this shot epitomizes one of the most cliche beach tourist photos which has even been written about in Backpacker magazine.  Apparently everyone and their dog takes jump shot photos in front of the beach.  We just so happen to actually have a dog with us as well.  And I don’t care what anyone says, I LOVE this photo with me and my yoga class.  Look how high our legs are!

Here’s another one of our calendar pics.  Claire and Kate!

  This was a really cool experience.  Our yoga class decided to go to a drumming circle at someone’s house.  I have always had an interest in learning how to work the bongo drums.  It was insanely fun, and I hope to learn more when I get home.  Drumming is meditative yet harmonious, which is an amazing spiritual experience.  

Here’s a group shot of the yoga class in front of the studio.  Well I can’t just refer to them as just the yoga class anymore, they have all become dear friends of mine. Our teacher, Lily who is also from Vancouver is the beautiful yogi in the flowered pants far right.   And yes, I have become the annoying person who needs to capture everything on camera.  You can thank me later.

I ended up staying an extra 2 weeks along with Kate and Lily after the class was complete.  We had connected during the first week of class when we discovered how much we love dancing.  Our instructor invited everyone to come out to Guys bar, and we were the only 3 that went, and we were the only 3 that stayed after.

 

The moments after class were just magical.  This particular morning we had hiked up to a view point in Haad Thien at 6 AM in the morning.  Everyone asks what my favourite moment has been while I am out here.  And I have to say, my favorite moment is up at this view point, where Kate, Lily and I sat in a circle and said our 3 Om’s while the sun was rising.  

This is the view from The Sanctuary where we had our morning coffees and shakes afterwards. 

We went for walks on the beach.

We did Yoga before lunch.

We went on nature photo safaris.

We dressed up to go to a birthday party.  I LOVE these girls, they are like my sisters and I really felt like I could tell them anything.  Thank you for such amazing spiritual connections!

This is what the triple threat birthday party looked like as we were descending the stairs into Wy Nam beach.

This is the dog whisperer who calmed this dog down and kept him from scrapping with the other dogs.  

More spectacular views.

 

Here’s what the party looked like up close.  It was absolutely surreal.  We were fortunate enough to get in with the local community and they are an amazingly interesting group that everyone is really spiritual, open minded but also crazy party people. I felt like I had met them all before, but I actually haven’t.

 

 

 

Here’s a super sexy photo that Kate took with her portrait lens.  We all thought it was really cool and beautiful and romantic.  Except they are not a couple.

Time has flown by so fast that I can’t even keep track anymore.  In 2 days I am going to meet Seb in Bali, and we will continue the rest of the trip together.  I am so ecstatic about this that I have been singing everyday, and I can’t wait to carry on together.  I really feel like I am getting the best of both worlds right now.

One word sums up everything for me right now in this moment and that word is this: GRATITUDE.