Finally got over my initial uneasiness with The Sanctuary…

Yesterday was a pretty fun day. I woke up in time to do yoga (a rarity, given that it is at 8 a.m.), so I went up to the yoga studio. The yoga studio is very high up on the hill, and open air with a railing and mosquito netting around it. It is high up enough that your view is above the palm trees and jungle, with the cove below. The workout was pretty amazing, and two hours barely seemed like one.

Then, downstairs for a big breakfast. My previous bungalow didn’t have a lot of breakfast options that interested me and here, I am hooked on one in particular, it is called “the full english veggie,” and costs $5 (a lot by Thai standards), but you get: two eggs, sunny side up; two pieces of whole grain toast with fresh strawberry jam; two veggie sausages, homemade; a grilled tomato; grilled mushrooms; and baked beans. I need to ween off that one, but it is hard not to order it.

After breakfast I either read or write, probably both, and end my morning with a catnap (literally WITH a cat, who insists upon sleeping in my cabin every night). Then, I finish up my writing over lunch. Then, off to an hour-long Thai massage, which is a delightful hybrid of pleasure and pain, and Thais seem fixated on trying to disconnect my calf muscle from the bone, whenever there is a new angle, they go back in and hit that spot again, but my legs stay intact.

Then, more reading in the lounge. Followed by dinner. Followed by me, on my balcony, in my hammock, candle casting a glow over the whole balcony, mosquito coil burning just north of my left shoulder on the floor and keeping me bug-free, with my book light snapped onto the back of my book.

As you can see, a torturous day.

Today I finished numberninedream, which was a very different but interesting novel. Not quite climbing my all-time list of favorites, but a very worthwhile time and I learned stuff from it, so that’s always good.

I am in Hat Rin now, the main city, and where the Full Moon Party will commence tomorrow. It is an all-night party. Never been a big rave fan, but it is rather famous, and insanly close, and probably worth watching in any event, so I willl check it out. Good news is that boats run around the island all night as a result, so if I’m bored, I can go home whenever I want. But supposedly there will be a LOT of chemically-enhanced tourists, in flourescent paints, dancing under blacklights, etc. And the full moon making the whole island seem to be in twilight until all hours, so it never gets entirely dark. We’ll see what the fuss is about in future reports.

That’s about it, just in town for a change of pace, to get more money, then back to the Sanctuary, still have to do my writing for today, and then I think today’s poison will be a sea salt scrub followed by a papaya massae/wrap.

Now, these two treatments alone would be phenomenal, but included in the massage is two, yes, TWO hot showers. It seems strange, but after a month of cold showers, this is actually enticing beyond belief.