‘A man is to guard himself against taking a thing in general.’
—Dr. Johnson
‘A man is to guard himself against taking a thing in general.’
—Dr. Johnson
I’m still here at the Starvation Spa, determined to make up in the second week for the privations of the first. Cruelly, the Spa has one of the 50 best restaurants in the world according to some magazine or other, and the aromas had tormented me throughout the fast. But an odd thing has happened: I now want to eat fruit, salads, steamed vegetables, goat yoghurt, occasional fish. I bounce out of bed at 6.30 a.m., though I haven’t had a cup of coffee in two weeks. I’m all shiny. You’d find me obnoxious.
Aside from food, the other great delight here is the company I keep. On a one-week vacation, I’d never give up a precious day to spend with, say, a psychologist who’d lived in India for thirty years, or a professor of Criminology, or a landmine control activist, or a San Francisco software engineer (okay, maybe the latter). But with an open-ended year ahead, I can putter about from one to another, listening to their stories like a little girl at bedtime. I feel rich in people. And I’m starting to believe my life’s work lies in persuading others not to miss out on their own lives.
I’m still here at the Starvation Spa, determined to make up in the second week for the privations of the first. Cruelly, the Spa has one of the 50 best restaurants in the world according to some magazine or other, and the aromas had tormented me throughout the fast. But an odd thing has happened: I now want to eat fruit, salads, steamed vegetables, goat yoghurt, occasional fish. I bounce out of bed at 6.30 a.m., though I haven’t had a cup of coffee in two weeks. I’m all shiny. You’d find me obnoxious.
Aside from food, the other great delight here is the company I keep. On a one-week vacation, I’d never give up a precious day to spend with, say, a psychologist who’d lived in India for thirty years, or a professor of Criminology, or a landmine control activist, or a San Francisco software engineer (okay, maybe the latter). But with an open-ended year ahead, I can putter about from one to another, listening to their stories like a little girl at bedtime. I feel rich in people. And I’m starting to believe my life’s work lies in persuading others not to miss out on their own lives.
I could have eaten a farmer’s arse coming through a ditch. A baby’s arm through a wicker chair. I was that hungry.
Today is Day Eight of my seven-day fast. Mostly, I felt dreadful, while others glowed like Christmas lights. The advertised seven days was a marketing lie told to lure in clueless softies like me. The day before, I was only allowed fruit and salads, which don’t really count as food. Today, though I’m supposed to be finished, I’m still only allowed fruit and salad, and had a special bonus colema in the morning. So that counts as nine days of suffering by my reckoning. There’s a German lunatic here on Day Twenty.
And the regimen! So much for sitting on a beach contemplating a changed life.
As for the colemas, which are eliciting reader interest, Spa Samui is the Disneyworld of dysentry. Experience the thrill of cholera in a controlled, safe environment. Buzz, the manager/instructor, is worldweary as only someone who has trained 4,000 strangers to administer a tube up the butt connected to 16 gallons of weak coffee solution can be. He struts about, the (Aussie) Jeff Goldblum of this movie.
‘Here’s yer cappucino,’ he says, pointing at the bucket, ‘I’m off to have a beer and a pizza. Heh, heh. Just kidding.’
It’s very low-tech. We got a plastic catering bucket, a tube, a bulldog clip, and our ‘own personal colema tip’, which connects to the tube. There’s a white plastic board that you balance between the toilet seat and a plastic stool. Lie down. Grease up. Away you go.
I had a pet gecko that stared at me throughout each operation, while I swore at him for not eating the mosquitos. One particularly bleak morning he ran up the wall, all cocky-like, and fell off and landed on his back on the floor. He lay still for a while, then slowly crawled back up and stared balefully for the rest of the time. I think he blamed me.
A large coconut had caused my bathroom ceiling to cave in slightly, so that when the rains started in the afternoons I was pelted with wet leaves. I began to contemplate what an ignominious end it would be to be brained by a coconut, indoors, while pinned to a colema board on Koh Samui. A fitting end for a reluctant New Ager.
Day three of my seven-day fast. This morning I fainted at morning meditation, keeling over dramatically into the circle drawn on the sand. First I felt nauseous, then goosepimpled despite the heat. My vision went dark, I couldn’t hear, and I toppled over. Woke up almost immediately and crawled out of the circle into the shade of a palm tree, where the teacher revived me with coconut juice.
It was very satisfying, I must say. Irish Catholic girls have a self-dramatizing streak, as my friends know well. We are brought up on stories of various fasting and masochistic female saints, who lick pus from beggars wounds and flagellate themselves horribly for the love of Jesus. (When I found a major religion, it will have entirely different devotional requirements.)
After just two and a bit days without food, I had the joy of fainting in the quest for an enlightened state, and then being terribly brave about it while fawned over by people who murmured soothingly ‘It’s the toxins releasing.’ rather than ‘Get a grip.’ And all on a tropical beach.
This place is a trip. And worth it for the cast of characters alone.
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