Are you ready for the most hilarious story ever? The first day off from yoga training, me and the crew decide to hire a boat to bring us around the island to visit the beaches. Relaxing day on the beach? Think again…
Meet my amazing new friends: Knut and Julie (Austria), Johanna (Texas), Kate (San Diego)
Lily (New York), James (Hong Kong)
After about an hour of shopping for necessities in Thong Sala, we headed to Baan Thai Beach. I had a beautiful massage on the beach for only $5 Canadian. It was the best that I ever had, my body needed it after all that intense yoga training I have been getting. Naturally, I floated in the water afterwards in a blissful state of mind you can ever imagine.
James starts telling me this hilarious story, and he made me laugh in a way that only your gay best friend can make you laugh. I laughed so hard, that I bore my entire weight on a prickly Sea Urchin!
Now I thought I felt the most pain during my Vipassana training but this pain was a million times worse. I was like god that hurts, I hope its not poisonous. I say to James, I’m not feeling so hot, I think I’m going to head back to shore. He takes a look at my leg and he’s like dude, that is not a good sign. He ends up carrying me back to the beach. It was a stinging kind of pain, like your foot is numb from being frozen on a block of ice with an element of extreme pain sensation.
I was immediately encircled by about 20 people on the beach, all of whom had different advice. There was a french dude who insisted that if I pissed on it, that it would go away on its own as he has had it many times. There was the Israeli doctor, and Bangkok med school student who thought the spikes should be removed. There were a total of 13 punctures in my feet.
But my favourite was the little Thai guy that James rustles up from the Thai shop. They show up with a cup full of limes and a little bottle of Jack Daniels. The guy tells me that I should bash the bottle of JD on my foot to improve the blood circulation and then rub the lime all over my feet.
By this time, my eyes have swollen up and I’m like what the F is happening to me? The obvious choice was to start chugging the Jack Daniels.
In the end, the group consensus was for me to pee on my foot. I know, gross right? I hobbled to the washroom with much needed support, and peed into a cup which I proceeded to pour on the bottom of my foot. It actually took away a lot of the stinging. This is like another version of that Friends episode, except with an element of booze and cigarettes.
After that we chilled out and took the boat back to the Haad Yuan beach otherwise known as our temporary home where we met our yoga instructor for Lily’s birthday dinner.
After dinner, Canut, the Austrian guy and his pre-med school girlfriend Julie came to my bungalow to help me take the spikes out of my foot. She carries these sterilized needles around because she performs acupuncture. They hung out for about 2 hours trying to get all the spikes out. They gave up after about 5 because they were so soft and they were already starting to dissolve into my body. Needless to say, I was super enthused that they stopped. You can see from the photos that this was not the most pleasant part of my day. The upside is that the spines are made up mostly of calcium carbonate so they can be dissolved in the body over time.
At the end of the day it was quite the experience. It’s still painful but I’m free from infection, and the spines are naturally making their way out of my body well with the aid of soaking my foot in the salt water on the beach, hot water and trying to get the spines out with tweezers when they start to come out. It’s like having crazy long splinters stuck in your foot. Electrical shocks sometimes when you’re stepping down.
Finally after one week, of soaking my foot in vinegar, they all came out on their own, and I am now jogging again pain free. yes!
Anyways, aside from that adventure – the yoga course has been amazing. One of the first days of class, there was an all night party going on at Guys Bar – The techno party in the forest on our beach that happens every friday night.
We were invited by Lily, our amazing yoga instructor who invited us to wake up around 6 AM and go for a “morning boogie” because that’s when the best music is playing. Then to go yoga class after at 8:30 AM. We took her advice and it was a blast. If you look closely at the picture below, you will see her dancing.
It was actually really fun. This was the first time I had ever waken up and gone dancing at a crazy party, and also not drank any alcohol because of my yoga class. It was a unique experience, and I just realized you really don’t need to drink in these situations to have fun.
Below are some shots from of the fun stuff we do at yoga boot camp.
Lunch break with the girls, practicing and resting at the Blooming Lotus studio.
This was taken during our Acro-yoga session yesterday. Sebastien, our instructor for the day reminded us to always be playful in our practice which was a brilliant lesson. I was lucky enough to be the one paired up with the dreamy instructor for this.
Life has been amazing on the beach. One night when we were hanging out over dinner, I decided that because there are 15 people in our class, I could make a yoga calendar of all the students with 3 bonus pages for 2011. Lucky me, I get to work on my creativity as a photographer and take pictures of my hot yogi friends on the beach. It is like a dream job! Here is one of my favorite pictures during sunrise taken on the beach of my beautiful friend Alex from Hong Kong. She is this beautiful girl – half german and half philipino.
BEAUTIFUL!
