Gili Goodness

January 17, 2012 //

The Gili’s are 3 little islands just off the coast of Lombok (which is the island to the east of Bali in the Indonesian archipelago). It’s about a 90 minute fast boat ride (7 hours if you take the slow boat) from Bali. I had no idea about them, but one of Jacques’ friends had told him going there was a must. And thank goodness for that! The three islands are called Gili Air, Gili Meno (the smallest one) and Gili Trawangan (the largest one). We headed for Gili Trawangan – which in the high season is the ‘party’ island. This being the low season, it was pretty quiet, with just a couple of bars busy at night.

When I say it’s the largest of the islands….it’s still very small. Jacques and I went for a run one day, along the road that hugs the shore around the island…7 km total – that’s the distance around the island. There are no motorized vehicles on the islands (thankfully) so everything is done with man, woman and pony power. It’s an interesting mixture of the tourist crowd with locals who live a pretty simple life. Have a look.

Fresh off the boat and onto our ride (pony express) to the hotel, which is on the north coast of the island.

Transport? Transport? Does anyone need transport?

Our hotel offers us a 'welcome drink' upon arrival - pineapple orange juice. Delicious. And yes, please, I'll have it on the beach deck

Again I've traded one paradise for another.

View from my bed.

When you're tired of swimming in the Bali Sea, you can swim in the hotel pool. Most of the time it was like we had it to ourselves.

The hotel restaurant, seen from the pool deck.

All in all, a pretty luxurious place. A vacation from our Bali vacation. Relaxation, sunshine, food.Then we walked around the island and I found myself wondering how the locals really feel about all this. Here’s a snapshot of their lives.

I am amazed how much these women can carry on their heads - and always with such grace!

Really, every shape and size - carried on their heads.

Manpower. With a load of freshly cut bamboo.

She said hello to every tourist that walked by, wanting only a hello in return. They learn young who the tourist is and what that means to their economy.

Just hanging out on a sunny morning. He gave us the thumbs up as we walked by, and a big smile. So damn cute!

Just about everything needs to be brought over from Lombok. And with all those tourists to keep happy and hydrated....that's a lot of bottled water. Everything that comes on the island needs to make its way off. How do you keep up with the never-ending pile-up of empties? Makes a girl wonder... Tourism gives a lot to their economy, but at what cost?

Feeling a little better seeing some of the empties make their way off the island. Just after passing us by, these were loaded onto a boat going to Lombok. There must be a steady stream of these shipments.

Typical local street.

Families have roosters, chickens and goats on their land.

Even the tourist beaches have rules - no going topless here. Good thing I brought more than one bikini and managed to hold onto my tops (and not lose them like I did in Spain....)

As we head to the boat to leave the island, cows are having breakfast on the side of the road.

Thank you Gili Trawangan. We loved every second of our time there.

Categories Travel

The Man Himself

January 13, 2012 //

Eat. Pray. Love. Most, if not all, of us have read the book and/or seen the movie. I will admit it, it’s one of the reasons I wanted to come to Bali. And while here I, of course, wanted to find Ketut. Does he say ‘see you later alligator’? How old is he really? What’s he actually like? What would he say to me? Mission accomplished. Jacques and I found him easily enough while walking around Ubud. I am sure that as I sat waiting to see him I had a huge smile on my face. Question #1 answered. Yes, he does actually say ‘see you later alligator’, which he said to someone who was leaving as we sat down to wait our turn.

I can say that Ketut is a charmer. Very sweet with loads of charisma. I can see why so many people have come to see him over his lifetime. He lets you know that whether what he sees when he reads your palm is good or bad, he’ll tell you. Luckily, nothing too terrible came out of my reading. Apparently I will live to be 100 years old. When it comes to work I will do many things, and have success with all of it. I’m impatient (can’t argue with that). I have very, very good energy and will not have accidents. And I’ll get married again and be with him until I die. Bring it! Ketut also went on to say that I am very pretty, and that he is 99 years old and”cannot make sex anymore”. Damn. There goes my chance. So much for my love affair in Bali!

And then he told me that I am a Queen. And here I was giving myself a hard time for having a “princess complex”. The problem isn’t that I have grandiose ideas, it’s that I’m not aiming high enough! Queen Lise it is.

He’s a busy man. We got there just at the right time, only having to wait for one person to see him. While we were waiting another 3 walked in – from all corners of the world. Russian, Eastern European (not sure from where) and American.

I’m still smiling when I think of him. He’d been sick recently, but luckily he’s feeling good again.

My reading with Ketut

As part of the reading Ketut looks at the top of your back. When Jacques turned around he said “you bald!” and laughed so hard he forgot where he was in the reading and started over. It was too cute.

Categories Random Thoughts, Travel

The Outdoor Washroom

January 11, 2012 //

I love the outdoor washroom. Think of it. A washroom au naturel. No lingering odors, always fresh air, a shower under the stars, don’t need a bath mat – so no worries about getting it too wet (Carla), no shower stall to scrub or floor to clean. Of course it only really works in tropical locations…but wouldn’t it be nice?

Love, love, love the shower

This shower really is very, very nice.

The view from the shower.

Categories Random Thoughts, Travel

House of Singing Bamboo by jac! yes i have invaded the blog!

January 11, 2012 //

Made it! To my grand joy Lise was waiting at the airport with my taxi, good thing seeing he had forgotten the billboard with my name… We got to the house it was past 1 am and all i could see was vegetation! So i was looking forward to getting up in the morning to see where i would be calling home for a week or so!

I have heard in a movie that everyone has a love affair in Bali…. i have had mine! For the first 2 days we got monsoon like rain! Oh wait Lise why Bali in the rainy season?? oh yeah you live in rain all year round Vancouver…. So i take it mother nature knew something i didn’t, i needed to sleep, whether Lise liked it or not! So lucky for me my love affair was with my pillow! days of mostly sleeping and now i am feeling somewhat human again! Lise didn’t seem to mind as i was awake to make her laugh for at least a few hours a day! When Lise told me she had found our spot in Ubud and sent me the link to their website i had complete faith and can’t even remember if i opened the link… You tell me did she pick right? here is my little room which has its private bath tub connected to a garden. The room is off the main office of the complex, by complex i mean a really nice house occupied by the two owners, the office and my studio room and the villa Lise is staying in. Of course her majesty the queen ( i did not give her this name! more on that later) had the villa!

Bed + Shower, notice it's surrounded by windows....

Bath with private garden! well private until i realized owners could see out of the corner, will be closing the curtains for my showers now...

and my wake up view

all in ll i am very pleased with the queen’s selection! we have access to an infinity pool which like most of the complex’s gardens, has a view of a gorge filled with rice paddies! I’ll let her majesty fill you in on the rest! i am going back to the balcony, music and my cold drink!

🙂

Categories Travel

An Auspicious Day

January 10, 2012 //

Bali is known for its cultural celebrations and ceremonies – they happen almost daily. Some are small, some are large and there’s every size in between. Saturday, January 7th was what they call ‘an auspicious day for trees’, so offerings were made to trees. It also happened to be a day where two of the local villages (I’m in a village 15 minutes outside of Ubud) were having ceremonies. In the morning a neighbouring village had a fairly large celebration which included performances – dance and music. I was lucky enough to witness it. So cool. Two of the staff at the House of Singing Bamboo (my home here) were involved in the performance. Wayan, the driver and pretty much doer of anything, was playing music. Made Sugeta, the gardener, was the main attraction in the dance. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

Made Sugeta performing at the celebration

Made Sugeta comes back out as an ‘old man’

The hand gestures are amazing

Another dancer joins in. He also did a lot of speaking…wish I knew what he said…

Once the ceremony was over, it was time to hop on the motorbike and go home – still in celebration gear. I loved it. And it’s typical of Bali.

Some of the musicians.

Unfortunately we got there after the girls danced. But are they ever beautiful.

The boys performed a warrior dance. Apparently this dance was becoming a thing of the past and not being performed. But luckily there is a resurgence.

The priests close off the celebration with prayers.

Offerings made by the women. I am told there is only one God, but he takes on many forms.

Then later in the evening, my local village had a ceremony as well. Smaller in scope, but beautiful.

My hostess for the evening celebration is Annie. She is the daughter of the chef who comes to the house and cooks us dinner – Made Karsa (more on him later). Annie doesn’t want to speak much, but she made sure I knew what to do and when. She is gorgeous.

The women prepare some of the offerings as the priest performs the prayers.

The offerings. Our driver Wayan’s wife was sitting beside me. I asked her if these take a long time to make. She looked at me like I was a little nuts and said “no, no. These are easy. For big celebrations we make some that are 1.5 meters high. They take a long time.” And…they walk down the street to the temple with these offerings balanced on their head.

The villagers gather on the street for the ceremony.

He is just sooooo cute!

During this ceremony, we held up flower petals at certain times, the priest did his thing, and then you tuck the flowers petals into your hair/pony tail. Clearly, I was a little challenged with that, so I tucked them behind my ears (much to everyone’s delight). Then at the end the priest comes down and sprays you with some sort of vinegar/water mixture, then puts some in your hands (which you drink a few times, then put on your head). This apparently cleanses you – on the inside, exterior, your mind, and a general apology to God. I am now a local. 🙂

Later that night, Wayan and I were off to Denpasar to pick up Jacques.

An auspicious day indeed!

Categories Travel

Musings From An 8-Day Silent Retreat – It’s Time To Go

January 7, 2012 //

Day 8 – An end to the retreat. We had one last sit at 6:15, breakfast at 7:00, then back on the banana boats at 8am. At the end of our sitting Julie (the yoga teacher) advised us that some people would feel grief over having to leave and some would be excited about taking what they got out of this retreat back into the world. It hadn’t occurred to me that I might feel sad about leaving. To be honest, I was thinking it was time. But as soon as she said this…I have to admit I got a little teary-eyed. Dominica (from Sydney) said that she thought the grief was about leaving a place where you are completely safe – it doesn’t matter what you say, feel, do – you’re safe and supported by everyone else. And because everyone is ‘mindful’ of what they say and do there’s no friction. Smart lady.

As much as people didn’t want to leave, it was time to go. And why would you want to leave? Everything is taken care of, the food is fabulous and the setting unbelievable.

There are a lot of other things I could say about the retreat, but I’ll end with just a couple of observations:

Have to admit my butt was sore by the end of it – not because of exercise, but because of spending so much time sitting on it! I really need to work on ‘being with the discomfort’ and not repositioning myself as often. I’m told the trick is to not move around as an automatic reaction, but to do it out of care for your body and knowing the difference between the two. Something to work on.
Day 7, 5:00pm circle. Seated on my mat I look up and see Michelle and Steven. In my little head they paint the perfect picture of balance. Steven: strong, grounded – the anchor. Michelle: light, full of smiles and laughter – she just soars. And I smile. “Stay grounded and let yourself fly Lise. Just fly.”

To close off on the retreat, here are some more of my favourite photos. Thanks for reading. The next posts will be about Bali experiences.

This is actually the clouds and sky reflected on the lake. Crazy.

Taken from in front of my hut.

Even in the middle of nowhere Thailand...

The view as you walk down from the washrooms.

The retreat-ees

And we're off. That's Michelle and Steven. She is too darn cute.

That's Tim. He's 78 years old. He and his wife (not sure how old she is, but approximately the same age as Tim) came from Hawaii. This was no easy trip for them. Still, they were here. I was fortunate enough to witness what was probably the most beautiful kiss I've ever seen. Tim and Caroline kissed while on the boat back to the dock - there was so much love, affection, respect, tenderness....it was phenomenal. Only Silla and I were behind them on the boat. We just looked at each other and new we'd been witness to one of the most wonderful moments. They are so inspiring.

And the race is on. Michelle is actually trying to paddle her boat past ours.

Our chauffeur.

Thank you lake retreat. And thank you to everyone and everything that made it possible for me to be there.

Categories Health & Wellbeing, Random Thoughts

Musings From An 8-Day Silent Retreat – The Retreat Itself, Part 3

January 7, 2012 //

Day 5 – I felt “sad” and “tired” (really, really tired actually). So I let the tears come when they felt like it and I napped during the afternoon break and was back to my peaceful self by evening. This was also the day of my 2nd interview, this time with Steven. I told him I was feeling tired and sad. And I proceeded to explain where I felt the sadness came from. He reminded me to let go of the story around the sadness and just feel it. One of the ‘lessons’ is around being able to simply sit with whatever emotion you’re feeling and not get all caught up in the story that goes with it – just feel the emotion. And then realize that you are not your emotions. Michelle said “not all emotions need to be acted upon, but they do all need to be understood”. Right. Thanks for the reminder Steven. I told him about a quote that popped into my head. In one of his books Paolo Coelho says something to the effect that ‘the more I tell my story, the less my story it is’. And somewhere in my head this was all coming together and making sense. I just couldn’t quite put it into words. It seems I get it on one level, but don’t have the words to explain it. Steven said “don’t try. If you understand it on an intuitive level, there’s no need to explain it.” Right. Part of the vipassana retreat is to get out of your head and understand things on a pre-cognitive/intuitive level. Great, seems like I’m doing this, so no need to try to figure out the words to describe it. Phew.

Day 6 – Irritated. Everything irritated me – and I mean everything…. the rain, the sound of someone breathing, the way someone sat….anything and everything. The thing is, as much as my head was telling me what was irritating me, I just didn’t get completely caught up in the “stories”. I just kind of sat quietly with it. Michelle and Steven who run the retreat are exceptional at letting you know that whatever happens for you in a retreat is exactly what should happen for you, and it is completely different and personal for everyone. Still, feeling irritated isn’t all that enjoyable. I was happy to be back to my peaceful self by dinner.

Day 7 – We come out of silence. Instead of the 2pm sit, it was a time for questions about how we take whatever we’ve cultivated here and bring it with us to the ‘real world’. Then from 3:00-5:00pm it’s time for ‘mindful talking’. After spending a week with people you’ve never spoken to, you want to talk to them. See if the stories you’ve made up about them are accurate – and they rarely are. Still, some people might not want to talk as much as others, so be mindful of that. Also, don’t formulate your response while people are still talking. I don’t know about you, but I do this a lot…. Don’t be afraid to take some time in silence before you respond. Got it. But to be honest, it seemed like most people just wanted to talk to each other!

At 5:00pm we come together again, sat in a circle and people were invited to share a ‘snapshot’ or insight of their retreat. It’s not mandatory, you speak if you want to. Here’s my snapshot:

In one of his teachings Steven said “any kind of comparing is conceit. It’s never accurate, it’s based on an accumulative assessment of ourselves”. When he said that I thought, Holy Crap! Am I ever conceited! I do this all the time! I sat with that for a bit and then realized that this ‘conceit’ is born out of insecurity, which is born out of the fear of not being loved (or more accurately, not being loveable, or deserving of love). The good news? I went through this without freaking out. I just kind of thought “huh, okay, onwards.” So thanks for that.

Then it was dinner and back to silence for the remainder of the day.

My home for the 8 days.

One of my favourite views - the huts across the lake at night.

Zooming in on the huts across the lake.

Categories Health & Wellbeing, Random Thoughts

Musings from an 8-day Silent Retreat – The Retreat Itself, Part 2

January 7, 2012 //

My ‘little’ brother Jacques arrives from Italy tonight. So time to get up to date with these posts. I’ll try to be as concise as possible re the rest of the retreat. Here goes.

Day 2 – first full day of silence. This is a Vipassana retreat. “Vi” = nature, and “passana” = as things are. This means a vipassana retreat is the practice of seeing things as they are – without acting upon it, doing anything about it, fixing it, obsessing over it, whatever. Just see things as they are without attachment. All in all, a peaceful day as I try to sit without fidgeting.

Day 3 – I break silence for the first time – it came at about 5:10am, in the washrooms when a critter of some sort bit my leg. Wasn’t an all-out scream, more of a wimpy squeak. I knew it was going to be a bug that caused me to break silence…I just knew it. This was also the day of my first ‘interview’. You meet with either Michelle or Steven for 15 minutes. It’s your time to ask them questions and their time to check in with you to ensure you’re doing okay. I interviewed with Michelle. She is a phenomenal lady. Funny, light, smart, laughs a lot. Love her. We chatted and the one thing that I took away with me was Michelle saying “side by side with the thinking mind, concentration happens”. So when concentrating on whichever meditation we’re doing, it’s okay for thoughts to come and go, it’s when we get lost in the thinking that we need to anchor back into our bodies. I explained to Michelle that a while back in either a yoga or meditation class, I started picturing thoughts as ‘cartoon bubbles that float over my head’. She said she loved that, so I figured I’m doing okay.

Day 4 – The Jungle Puts On A Show – and boy was it ever amazing. During our lunch break my neighbour noticed there were monkeys in the trees behind our huts (she whispered….I tried not to, but ended up whispering ‘thank you’ as she leant me her binoculars so I could have a closer look. There was a mum with her baby – she was black with some white on her face, and her baby was orange. It was wonderful seeing them jump around and eat in their natural environment. If you look closely, you’ll see one in the picture below.

Take a close look. He's in the middle...little black spot. Wish I had a camera with more zoom.

Next came the prehistoric looking Hornbill. He was AWESOME! Unfortunately he swooped down as I was eating lunch and I didn’t have my camera with me. You heard him coming before you saw him – his wing span is that large, and his arms/legs are fairly close to his body so part of the noise is the rubbing on the body of the arms/legs. I honestly felt like I was in Jurassic Park and that a T-Rex was going to come next. If I wasn’t already in silence, I would have been speechless.

This was also New Year’s Eve. And we were lucky enough to participate in a Thai tradition. You build ‘floats’ and then once the sun goes down put them in the water and they float away with whatever wishes or ‘letting go’ you send with them. I’m not sure what the base was made from, but we folded large leaves and stuck them to the base with toothpicks. Then we put a candle in the middle, 3 stick of incense and decorated them with flowers. We also had to add a piece of thread from our clothes, a fingernail clipping, and a strand of hair. A strand of hair? I looked at Beth our hostess (she runs Jungle Yoga) and said “a strand of hair”. She was quick to reply “you’ll just have to get it from somewhere else, you have to have a piece of your hair in it”. Enough said. Enough said.

I was trying hard not to laugh out loud here. Wish I could remember the Thai name for the 'floats', but apparently when you're busy trying to empty your mind it's difficult to retain anything.

I'm all done. Can't possibly add any more flowers.

And there they go. Happy New Year everyone! Lots of love, laughter, joy, good health and prosperity for 2012.

It was a great day. It was also the first day I had any challenges with the silence. No challenge in keeping silent, or wanting the silence. But when we started working on our floats, people starting talking and laughing and I found myself thinking “no! don’t intrude on my silence!”. Interesting.

Categories Health & Wellbeing, Random Thoughts

Musings From An 8-Day Silent Retreat – The Retreat Itself

January 6, 2012 //

I was told by a few people that the ‘norm’ for these retreats is that it takes 2 – 3 days for the voice in your head to quiet, and then “all your shit will hit you in the face”. So, it wasn’t without some trepidation that I set out for my first retreat. What shit was going to hit me in the face? Haven’t I already worked all that out? I know what my shit is, I’ve been dealing with it…what now?

Well….To those of you who were looking forward to stories of my total breakdown and rebuild….there was no major breakdown. Which is not to say there weren’t breakthroughs…there were. If I had to come up with only one word to describe the retreat I’d say “peace”. But one word really isn’t enough. And it is entirely possible that this is my word for the retreat because it’s over and that’s what I feel now. There were some ups and downs, but generally speaking, I really just felt “at peace”. Here are some highlights.

Day 1 – arrival – “Let it be”. Being a planner, arriving to see that the daily schedule wasn’t already figured out and that the times for massages weren’t already sorted and that everything wasn’t as ‘set up and organized as I would have it’ was a bit of a surprise. Good news is, I didn’t immediately take over and ‘fix it’. Really, who am I to do that? I did, however, point out that the massage schedule needed to be fixed or they’d have two people showing up at the same time and considering there was only 1 massage therapist, that wasn’t going to be good. Mind you, having two people who are in silence battle it out for the massage might have been interesting. Other than the massage schedule, I just rolled with it. And you know, it all worked out. Here’s the daily schedule:

5:30am – wake up
5:45am – sit (seated meditation)
6:30am – yoga
7:30am – breakfast
8:30am – sit – guided (by either Michelle or Steven, the two leaders/teachers of the retreat)
9:30am – walking meditation
10:30am – sit
11:30am – walking meditation
12:00 – 2:00pm – lunch and ‘mindful rest’
2:00pm – sit – guided
3:00-4:30pm – yoga
5:00pm – dharma talk – i.e. Buddhist lessons, by either Michelle or Steven
6:00pm – dinner
7:00pm – sit
7:45pm – walking meditation
8:15 – lying down meditation
8:45 – sleep

A very structured day, which started on ‘day 2’, as day 1 was the day we arrived. People volunteer to ring the bell to indicate the sessions that happen after a break. My friend Alex (who sat this retreat before) gave me some very good practical advice before I came. He said: when you pick your hut make sure you test the boards, you don’t want to fall through; if you’re the first person in the washroom in the morning look for spiders; and volunteer to ring the bell to wake people up in the morning at least once. Why? because it’s amazing to be the only person awake, out in the middle of nowhere. Thank you Alex – that was great advice. The way this retreat was structured, if you volunteered to ring the bell at any given time slot, you rang it the entire retreat. And so I volunteered to be up ringing the bell from 5:20-5:30am every day. And as the first person in the washroom, I made sure I looked out for spiders. Happy to report that none were seen, or felt.

Ringing the wake-up bell quickly became one of my favourite things. The huts, dining sala and meditation sala form a u shape. And to ensure everyone woke up, I walked the docks ringing the bell in front of each hut. If I new whose hut it was, I said a silent good morning. I got up at 5:00am, went to the washroom and sat on the main deck looking out to the lake and up at the sky. One morning I was treated to shooting stars. Beautiful. A sky full of stars reflected on the lake, and shooting starts to boot. I felt both incredibly small and alive. And extremely fortunate. Just before I’d head out to ring the bell, Ira, a 72-year old from Florida, would get up to have his coffee. There he was, like clockwork, every morning. It put a smile on my face.

On the second to last day a few more people were up early. Everyone was used to the schedule now. As I finished ringing the bell, Mitch (from Calgary) jokingly whispered he should have paddled me around the lake to ring the bell (they have kayaks). I laughed and said ‘tomorrow’. That’s right – silence was broken a few times by whispers…more on that later. So on our last day, I hopped into a kayak and Mitch paddled me around the lake for the ringing of the morning bells. Fabulous. Later that day (once the silence was over) Silla (born in Quebec City, now living in Hong Kong) said I was like “the lady of the lake”. Mitch remarked that it was too bad we hadn’t been doing that all week – if we had I would surely have been standing at the front of the kayak by day 8. I had visions of standing up, ringing the bell and yelling “I’m the Queen of the World” – and immediately falling over into the lake. Hmmm, maybe it’s a good thing we didn’t do that all week.

Alex – thank you, thank you, thank you. I likely would not have volunteered to ring the wake up bell if you hadn’t recommended it. You were definitely right.

Need to sign off now, as my computer is almost out of battery. A solution for recharging is being figured out my by lovely hosts (as I can’t use the adapter on my mac..). So hopefully more to come tomorrow. Meanwhile, here are a couple of photos of the meditation/yoga room.

Our meditation and yoga room

The view from my mat - what can I say, I'm a 'back of the class' kind of girl.

Categories Health & Wellbeing, Random Thoughts

Musings from an 8-day retreat – Getting there

January 5, 2012 //

I seem to have traded one paradise for another, having just arrived in Bali. But more on that later. First – the 8-day silent meditation retreat. Part 1 – Getting there.

To my pleasant surprise, the 13 1/2 hour flight to Hong Kong ‘flew’ by. With the help of a few movies…

Crazy Stupid Love — was wondering how many times I could watch it during the flight, but resisted that temptation and moved onto…
Love Actually — hey, it was boxing day, and I consider this to be a Christmas movie
Friends with benefits — liked it a lot more than I thought I would (could have been the wine…)
The Help — awesome. Now I really want to read the book.
Elf — really, it was still Christmas!
2 episodes of Modern Family. Oh how they make me laugh.

Love flying Cathay Pacific. So friendly, so many flight attendants, and the meals are actually meals. They still give you menus – even in the back of the plane, which I can guarantee you is where I was.

Hong Kong to Bangkok was uneventful (thankfully) and after a short night at the airport hotel I flew from Bangkok to Suratthani, which is where the adventure really begins.

There were a number of us on the flight from Bangkok to Suratthani, but mostly we didn’t know each other. I was the first to find the van driver with his small ‘jungle yoga’ sign – which he wasn’t really all that interested in actually holding up for people to see. Apparently there’s something about me that made people think I was the yoga instructor who’d organized the retreat registration – so slowly people started asking me if I was here for the retreat. I’m putting that down to my shaved head, not so much to exuding a ‘yoga/meditation teacher’ aura. Julie, the actual yoga teacher at the retreat, was also on the same flight and we were soon put into two vans and on our way to Khao Sok National Park. It really is an amazing place. You get to the dock, pay 200 Thai Baht (about $6.50 Cdn) as an entry fee to the park and then you’re loaded onto big banana boats with even bigger engines at the back. Just look for yourselves…

Yup, that’s it alright. Noisy sucker too.

The lake itself is quite incredible. It was made in 1985 when the Thai government built a dam. It’s a reservoir that provides southern Thailand with power. I can’t imagine the lake not being there. Trust me, this is no small lake! And very, very beautiful.

That’s our banana boat driver, and you can start seeing the limestone cliffs and jungle.

It was a little hazy when we got there – it is a rainforest after all. But still so incredibly gorgeous.

Khlong Saeng Wildlife Sanctuary

45 minutes after leaving the dock, we approach our ‘jungle home’. This is where we’re going to spend the next 8 days resting, reflecting, meditating, doing a little yoga, eating some of the most wonderful food I’ve ever eaten – seriously, every mouthful was an explosion of deliciousness. And we never ate the same thing twice! Well, other than the fresh papaya and pineapple, which I just could not get enough of. All the ‘buildings’ are on water, except for the washrooms which are on land. So we’re also on water for the next 8 days. Thankfully it’s a calm lake. As we get closer, we know we’re headed to an incredibly special place.

Our homes for the next 8 days

When the banana boat’s engine cut, we all fell to silence. Partly in awe of this place, partly because we simply did not want to intrude. We were surrounded by the most amazing ‘quiet’ – filled with the sounds of the jungle: birds, gibbons, monkeys, cicadas, etc. Slowly we came out of it and started talking as we unloaded our boat and waited for the second one. Then it was time to pick a hut and get settled. Our first sit (seated meditation) was at 6pm and that’s when the silence officially began.

More on the silent retreat to come…this post is long enough! I thought it important that you see where exactly this retreat takes place – it is incredible, and honestly, part of the reason I decided to do this. So thank you Erin for telling me about your experience here and getting me hooked on the idea of doing it myself. It was awesome.

Categories Health & Wellbeing, Random Thoughts