Kicking back in Koh Samui

To attempt to formulate some sort of narrative out of our time in Koh Samui would be madness. It was too varied and full, and attempting to impose a story structure on it would make it into the blog equivalent of showing someone your holiday snaps - boring! (I will be doing this to some of you when I get home though)

Koh Samui was my first real taste of Thailand, and what a way to start. Evie says it is by far the friendliest island she has been on, and really everyone we met was lovely and helpful. The Secret Garden was on the quietest stretch of beach, fringed by coconut palms leading onto white sandy beaches and blue waters. Our room was simple with a balcony where we could sit and enjoy the sea breeze, and chat away the hours. Our first full day there we swam and sunbathed all morning - the first time I had done that in years. My poor pasty skin got a bit of a shock at the sight of the sun and all my little, long forgotten freckles appeared one by one, like stars in the sky.

We found the most wonderful travel agent lady called Lei, who booked our passage to Koh Phangan and our accommodation there as well (we procrastinators left it to the least minute and thought we might be speed boating to and from the NYE Full Moon Party) which meant we could relax about where to next. SHe also organised us a trip to Angthong National Marine Park - more about that later...

One of the highlights of my time on Koh Samui was our visit to an incredible spa (I will remember the name of it later, but right now the brain is fried). Having heard of the wonders of Thai massage (no happy endings thanks) I was keen to get one, but Evie refused to let me first experience of this wonderful art be from some woman who sat on her stoep screaming 'mahsaaaaase' and who would then continue watching TV and chatting to her friends while you attempted to reach your zen state. So, we choose a fancy shmancy spa, which sent an air conditioned taxi to fetch us, and from the moment we set foot in there we were queens. After choosing our oils (a forest blend) we were led upstairs where our feet were washed in beautiful scented water and we changed into wraps. Our massages took place under a wooden gazabo draped with mosquito netting a few feet from the sea. The massage was a combination of swedish aromatherapy and traditional Thai massage and after the week's travelling toils was precisely what I needed. The setting was so restful and the sound of the waves so calming that I felt everything slip away. It lasted 2 hours and cost 2300B (approximately 50 quid) - well worth it.

And so while the main point of our Samui stay was relaxation and rejuventation, we did have one night of total, debaucherous indulgence. We ventured out from our sheltered beach paradise into the fray of the Samui night life. Chaweng is the hedonistic heart beat of Samui. Picturesque white beaches are lined with tourist filled bars. Music beats and blasts out of each one, blending to create a cacophany added to by the shouts of stall holders and lady boys. The lady boys strut their wears up and down crowded streets, hollering at tourists. The young ones are dresses ala Pretty WOman in tight mini skirts and thigh high boots, but as they age they add head dresses, sequins and sparkles. The older the face the bigger the head dress. The calls melt into the haggling and bartering sounds of the market. We follow a strand of good music, through the thumping base into an Aussie bar called Bondi, where an all Thai band were playing incredible rock covers. Island Rock played everything from Led Zeplin to ACDC, and they played it well. We bopped along for a few hours drinking ice cold Singhas and meeting a rather strange selection of people, until the bar shut ans we were turfed out into the night once more, so sad to leave our new favourite band.

Now if we had been smart at this point we would have headed home with a good night out behind us, but oh no! We poured out of Bondi and into the Chaweng night, keen to keep the party going. This led us to follow the crowd of drunken sheep to the entrance of Sound Club. The beats and lounge furniture outside did nothing to prepare us for what we would find inside - a heaving, sweating beast of a trance party. I was totally floored by the mix of crazy dancing, bumping and grinding, and the hook ups taking place everywhere. There was a host of pretty Thai girls, and an equal number of horny tourists. By this point we were off our faces and trying to aclimatise to the electro thumping out of everywhere, but I am still pretty sure I could figure out what was going on here.

But we closed our eyes and let the beats take us somewhere primal. Perhaps all in preparation for the carnal carnage of Koh Phangan...

Simple Pleasures - Day 10, A Photo Taken of You Over Ten Years Ago

This photo of me was taken at least twenty years ago. I must have been about 3 or 4, and we were still living in our house in Greenwich before we moved to South Africa. It was summer time, and even at that age I remember the magic time that was. Long evenings, that stretched on to infinity, when my brother and I really couldn't understand the need for a bed time.

This is one of a set of photos taken on the same day. Everyone smiling into the camera - my mum and dad making a bonfire, my brother barely a toddler naked and grinning in a little paddling pool, in the background trimmings from the garden piled high on a cheerful green wheelbarrow.

At the bottom of the garden, along the fence, raspberry bushes grew rapidly, heavy with fruit for a few weeks of the year. That day my mum gave me the bowl and told me to pick until it was full. Her and dad had explained to me how to check that they were ripe and to pluck them carefully from the bushes so that I did not squash them. As I went along I squashed the odd one here and there, until my fingers were stained pink and the nails red rimmed. I remember the tart sweetness of the berries, and looking up to smile into the camera, filled with a days worth of simple pleasures.

Picture Perfect - Day 7, A Photo That Makes You Happy

This photo is of my best friend and I. It was a self portrait taken just before I left for London. I was throwing a hens party and Evie and I had her car rammed full of a billion pink balloons. We were running late, but one look at ourselves in the rearview mirror and I quickly took this shot. The drive to the party was hysterical, balloons bumping about our heads, the AC trying to keep the Durban summer at bay, me fighting them off Evie's face so that she could see the road, stereo blaring Zeppelin. It was a bitter sweet time. No work, all play - knowing that I would soon be leaving. My family were all over here already, and I spent my last month with good friends having good times and doing exactly what I wanted when I wanted. Wonderful and sad together. This picture reminds me of that time.

This is the newest picture of Evie and I. I made it the other day, as a pick me for the office. Everytime I feel a little miserable at work, I look at it and remember that in 5 months I will be somewhere in South East Asia with my best friend. On a beach, far from all the madness of the city and work and everything else. And so this picture also makes me happy.

African Rain

London was steamy for two days. Heat radiated off the cities sea of concrete edifices, and it slowly baked itself. Dew faced commuters shoving onto trains on Monday morning were still cheery in these first tropical days and at lunch bankers and bus boys alike peeled themselves of clothes like bananas and worked on turning their milky tea skin into something more mocha. I went to work as drippy as everyone else, and as cheerful, but slowly wilted heading towards lunch and lay under a tree instead of attempting to get myself anything other than alabaster.

As I toiled, computer bound, towards early evening and its promise of water beaded beverages and barbecues, I couldn't help but feel there was something else I was looking forward to...

The heat continued to close in over me as I rode home on a train that would be more aptly described as a fast moving sauna. English summer nights are long, and walking home at seven the sun still rode high and proud in the sky, and I noticed there was not a cloud marring the perfect blue. And that's when I realised... All the heat and pressure was not building to anything. And I was shocked - because in Durban right now the air would be filled with a crackle of a promise, as an electrical storm gathered its powers from god knows where and prepared to unzip the heavens and pour down buckets of strong, life affirming, drenching rain. You can feel the moment approaching, as the air thickens and begins to jump with electricity, and suddenly the sun bleached sky darkens, and the clouds gather and with a crack visibility disappears as the deluge begins.

People shut doors and windows against the ricocheted spray, others dive for cars and verandas as the rain pummels the tin roofs over head. An umbrella is useless against it. We don't even own them - we know to instantly give in and not fight this, take cover. An instant torrent rages down roads and out of storm drains, and everything from flowers to kids perk up as they are given brief respite from the ravages of the day's heat.

I refuse to believe that it is not an inner fight for every person to stay out of that rain. I have often given up wrestling with myself and dashed out from under cover to dance in the rain. The sort of rain that soaks you in seconds, so that your hair becomes slick dreads and your lashes starfish and your eye-liner melts away with all the dust of the day.

And so while my sun blushed skin revelled in the beginning of a London summer, it also missed the tropical mad fury of a momentary African storm, and its ability to wipe the slate clean.

Udderbelly

I love silly! Silly is not stupid, silly is not self conscious, silly is irreverant, silly is not subtle, silly is childlike, silly is fun and funny, silly is necessary to cope. I love silly! And what is sillier than a purple cow? I'll tell you what is sillier... An upside down purple cow, that is in fact a tent! Yes this summer the Udderbelly tent has landed on Southbank and brought with it much ridiculousness and Pimms and cider - all such good things. Outside the tent is a glorious little cider garden, complete with picnic benches, umbrellas and foosball. The setting is perfect, with a view of the London Eye and the Houses of Parliment, and of course many vitamin D starved sun worshippers cripsing themselves rather revealingly in the first watery rays of the English summer - but what would a London sumer be without pink Poms (she says, rather pink herself).

One happy birthday kid

My lovely friend of Charlotte has had a week of Birthday celebrations (as you should) and we ended these off on Friday with a good splash of summery beverages in the shade of said purple cow. Charlotte is silly, in the best way, and looked totally at home among the cow print, astroturf and udders. A variety of comedy shows will be held inside great violet belly well into July, so try and catch one, I am gonna...