A few days ago I started running up the mountain. With it being so hot it’s difficult to find time that’s cool enough to run, so when it started pouring rain I threw on my shoes and headed off, confirming for the whole village that, yes, I am totally barking. My comeuppance was quick to appear, as predicted by all the Thai people who had shaken their heads at my folly, this morning I couldn’t get out of bed.

This is not an uncommon occurrence for me, being definitively NOT a morning person. But even my addled morning brain could detect this was something different, and a slightly extreme reaction to having inflicted one little mountain run on my poor  unfit body.

My back feels like it has collapsed, any strength or power I had there is gone completely and my legs and hips felt like they belong to the dingly dangly scarecrow, disconnected from my body’s centre and barely under its control. I drag myself through the morning washing of body parts, wrestling with t-shirts and scrubbing of faces before moving like a zombie to the car and going slowly through the motions necessary to get Clear Sky to school.

Only when I am at home again, and despite the mountain of stuff I’ve got to do today, know that I am only fit to fall back into bed, does it dawn on me that my bones are aching unaccountably all over. I remain prostrate in the bed for the rest of the day, adamant this can’t be Dengue Fever because I’m not hot, until Shrimp comes in, feels my head, and says actually I am on fire, burning up. At which point I begin to consider that this might well be Dengue.

Aedes Aegypti Mosquito

And so it begins, the days of lying inert, pained, unable to move, unable to look at anything due to stabbing pain behind the eyes, so just staring at the wall. The doctor confirms I have dengue and runs blood checks to see how low my white blood cells are, if they drop below a certain level I could be in danger of developing Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever, which can be fatal.

I ride out the wave of the illness in bed, sweating it out, alternately hot and cold, cold and hot, bathed in sweat and shaking with chills. As the virus runs through my body I develop agonising head pain and swellings all over my skull, an insistent nagging pain like toothache, but consuming my entire head.

When I start to feel better I crawl out of bed and eat some dry crackers, everything tastes like metal and makes my stomach turn but I force down the food and water as best I can. After a couple more days the nausea leaves, although the head pain remains, debilitating and frustrating me from being able to concentrate or write.

What is more disturbing when the illness finally leaves, is that I find I have sunk into a lethargic depression, from which rousing myself is proving virtually impossible. I can get up and fake that I’m okay enough to get Clear Sky off to school, but that saps all of my energy and as soon as she’s gone I’m a teary heap, unable to tackle even the smallest of tasks. Apparently this is quite common with dengue, but it is so demoralising and frustrating to feel almost well, but puffed out and exhausted from just climbing up the stairs.

Apparently there has been an outbreak of Dengue, with 26,000 cases throughout the country and six deaths in the last week alone. Dengue is transmitted by a small daytime mosquito, one of the really pesky ones that it’s hard to swat. There are around 40 million cases of Dengue each year globally, and several hundred thousand Dengue hemorrhagic fever each year.  By the late 1990s, dengue was the most important mosquito-borne disease affecting humans after malaria, in Africa and Asia.

There is currently no vaccine or treatment for Dengue. It’s hard to imagine a disease being this common, and this devastating, in a western country without serious effort and funding being put into finding a cure, treatment, or some kind of adequate prevention.

Just saying.

Related posts:

1. The One Small Change Challenge
2. Night Fishing, deserves a quiet night

The Full Moon Party is legendary around the world as one of the most hedonistic parties on the planet. I get asked the same questions repeatedly about attending the full moon party and how to survive the madness, so I’ve put together some advice (most of it’s just common sense) for those that are thinking of taking a walk on the wild side. Photos are kindly provided by my friend Aishlin.

I’ll also soon be posting a story about the Full Moon Party twenty years ago compared to today, with some great old photos provided by my friend Ross.

1. Don’t take Anything you’re not Prepared to Lose

This applies to everyone – I hear so often “I’m not going to get trashed, I won’t lose my stuff”. You’re going to a giant party, with buckets of Thai whisky, you never know what’s going to happen. So just don’t take anything you’re not prepared to part with.

Even if you are a sensible head and don’t get wasted, pickpockets can be rife, and if you’re a young man with a few drinks inside you beautiful lady-boy pickpockets are particularly rife. I can pretty much guarantee that all those people comatose in the sand, stripped from head to foot of all their worldly possessions, didn’t intend that to happen. But it did.

Particularly don’t take your passport, your fancy phone, your ipod, your laptop, digital camera or in fact ANYTHING worth more than $10. I always advise people to just take a disposable camera, I’ve had people who’ve not only been relieved of their cameras but droped them in the sand, down the toilet and in buckets of Whisky.

2. Take Money in Two Different Hiding Spots

Take some money, again not a huge amount, and put it in two different points on your body. I don’t advise taking a credit card back up unless you’re prepared to lose it. You probably need to bring about 5,000 baht to cover any eventuality, but you can have a good party and get home again on 1,500 baht.

Drinks are cheap: a bucket of Thai whisky with mixers and red  bull (for party power) will set you back about 250 Baht or 7 USD. Mind the buckets, Sangsom, is particularly potent, you have no idea how much you’re drinking, and it does funny things to some people (see folk comatose in sand above). And PS. Don’t ever put a drink down, ladies especially, and don’t ever share a bucket from a stranger.

If you’re a real grown up and buckets aren’t for you,  I’d advise setting up camp at the furthest left hand side of the beach ( at Paradise – the original home of the Full Moon Party). You can sit at the low tables there and spectate, while quietly drinking BYOB of wine, or proper mixed drinks from the bar.

3. Take Contact Information

Know where you’re staying, bring the phone number. If you’re planning to get wasted write it on a body part. Know the name of where you’re staying and write that on a body part too. I can’t tell you the number of people stumbling around Haad Rin the next morning who literally don’t know, or are to drunk to pronounce where they’re staying.

Have a friend who is not going to the party who you can contact in an emergency, such as getting arrested. Preferably someone staying at your guest house so they can access your room or safe to get your passport and credit cards should the need arise. Also if you’re going alone, let someone know and be aware to check you return safely.

4. Do Not Get on a Moped for any Reason

There are more casualties on Full Moon Night than on any other night. Every year people die. The road to Haad Rin is totally lethal on a bike on party night. Not only is it winding, steep and with a sheer cliff face, its traversed by a massive number of people who should not be operating any kind of vehicle. There are also stories of robberies along that road, with people being pulled from the back of bikes.

The best way to get to the party is by speedboat from one of  the other beaches. Pretty much everywhere runs boats on the night. If the weather is bad and the boats can’t go then take a taxi, preferably a 4 wheel drive, especially if you’re coming from the more remote beaches like Haad Salad, Than Sadet or Thong Nai Pan.

If you try and get a taxi back in the morning, there will be plenty of choice, but you might have to wait a while for it to fill up and it might be a bit overpriced. The best option is to take the speedboats back while it’s still dark!

5. Have Fun!

Despite all the dire warnings and dangerous things that can happen, the Full Moon Party is still on of the most amazing experiences on earth. If you’re sensible about transport, mind the buckets, and go with a good attitude you will likely have one of the best nights of your life. Even for non-party-heads the people watching opportunities are unlimited, the spectacle is a sight to be seen, and the fire dancing is amazing. Whether it’s your cup of tea or not, you should probably check it out once in your life.

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This is one of the most beautiful places in the entire world. This island, with its powerful jungle landscapes, cascading waterfalls and stunning beaches can take your breath away with its startling beauty.

I’m honoured to live here, I try to appreciate the beauty of nature that surrounds me here, and I try to respect it. It is terrifying to see the impact that living has on the environment here. In the west it is easier to ‘not see’ as your trash gets carted away, debris put in skips, waste removed.

Photo credit: Anja (thanks!)

Here everything gets dumped: in the river, the ocean, on the street, everywhere. Some rubbish is removed but you have to pay, so most of the time it’s easier to chuck it in the river. You literally see the impact of peoples’ trash around you at all times.

I’ve been wanting to make a few changes to reduce our impact on the environment, and then I found the brilliant one small change challenge over at hip mountain mama. Basically you make one small change at the start of each month leading up to earth day on April 22.

The changes I’m committing to this month are:

• Switching to canvas shopping bags
• Moving the washing machine pipe to water the garden
• Switching to all natural laundry detergent.

I’m working on implementing a guttering system and a couple other things, but will do my best to do these this month.

Will let you know how it goes……

Related posts:

1. Kids’ Day
2. Doing the Dengue Merengue

All is quiet in Jungle Town, after the raucous New Year celebrations. We have settled into some kind of rhythm of life again after the busy busy days surrounding the holidays.

An exciting new project has come up for me, and this week I will be off to experience the joys of night fishing. I’ll be taking a longtail out to fish with the locals, authentically – lao kao and all. Really looking forward to it, although I’m hoping the waves will be coming down and the moon sheds enough light.

Will update with my tales from a Thai fishing boat as soon as I can.

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The fridge’s brokeness has got me more than slightly miffed. Apart from the car, and the baby, that fridge is the most expensive thing we own, and in all its shining stainless steel glory is testament to how far we’ve come. In fridge terms it is a victory monument, and the fact that it has given up the ghost after one short season, and now sits brooding in all its gleaming expensiveness in the bar is highly depressing.

On our opening day eighteen months ago, we had no refrigeration of any kind at all. We had blagged a cheap industrial sized fridge off a friend for a knockdown price and when on opening day we hefted it off the truck we discovered two things. One, it didn’t fit in the kitchen door, and two it didn’t work.

Cue frantic calls to fridge man who had to be enticed with some particularly fine expletives to make the treacherous journey to the back of beyond to fix it. Cue large scale conversations about knocking down of walls, ripping out of doors etc (which are all cheaper options than buying a new fridge in this topsy turvy country we call home).

To cut a long story short, we opened the restaurant by the skin of our teeth with large plastic ice boxes borrowed from friends stashed everywhere desperately chilling beer. When push came to shove we even converted cardboard boxes into coolers by filling them first with bin bags and then with ice – a handy American portable cooler trick, gleaned from knowledge of the great american sport of tailgaiting (getting pissed sitting on the tailgate of your truck). To be honest it was not the highly polished and professional look that we had been aiming for, but as I have had thrashed into me over the last two years: what the hell is?

Once the behemouth of a fridge was fixed we were able to use it for the highly creative tasks of storing food and beer. Unfortunately due to the general occurrence of Thai time, and lack of good ideas about how to achieve it, it remained outside the kitchen for another six months.

This was most difficult on Shrimp’s poor younger sister Sao, who, when an order was placed had to slip slide across the treacherous ice rink of a wet kitchen floor, charge outside the kitchen, stand on a rubber pad, grab the handles with cloths (again to avoid electrocution, this fridge had issues too) and remove the food.

Unfortunately due to the complete lack of a bar fridge she also had to repeat this process anytime anyone placed a beer order, and at parties, poor valiant Sao would remain at the ordering hatch until dawn, just waiting to begin her beer charge should anyone of the remaining dribbling drunkards fancy a refreshment.

After about six months, with the aid of six men, a sledge hammer, some corrugated metal, a pulley, and after removing all the doors and screws, and with a hefty dollop of Thai ingenuity we did manage to get the beast into the kitchen. Where it has sat ever since, having become the bane of my life in its finickityness: constantly freezing stuff you’d never want to freeze, like salad, and refusing to freeze stuff you’d always want frozen like meat. I probably shouldn’t slag it off or it will die on me too, and even in all its drippy/icey, energy inefficientness, like many things in my life, I don’t know what I’d do without it.

When our generous benefactors visited us to survey the riskiness of their investment they spotted the bar fridge issue as the crux of the matter and kindly relieved me of my misery by lending us the cash to buy one. This was one of the greatest reliefs of my life, releasing me as it did from endless time spent daydreaming and fantasizing about refrigeration.

But as always the story did not end there, we went over to Samui to buy our second baby, and spent agonizing hours choosing the over priced new addition to our family, in the end we settled on a model that was ever so slightly too large, and a bit more expensive but had vastly more space and a hardcore freezer (yippee).

Once the long arduous process of hefting the monster onto boats and trucks and finessing it in the back of a pick up over the diabolical mountainous jungle track we discovered two things, one it was two long, and two it was too tall and you couldn’t remove the legs as the salesperson had promised.

Cue long discussions involving most of the village about smashing down countertops, removing structural pillars and demolishing reinforced concrete to get the bugger into place. Which we finally did, putting an end to our refrigeration nightmare and making us feel like shiny, stainless steel professionals. Until it decided to pack it in that is.

Related posts:

1. Plugging the Dam Again

What a glorious day today was. I awoke to the smell of warm air and the glow of sunlight for the first time in days.

What a difference the sun makes! I have been valiantly washing everything we own since we got back due to above mentioned smells, today for the first time things felt clean and crispy dry – the smell of clean laundry and sun-baked linen was everywhere around me, and what a welcome relief.

We spent the day as usual, madly trying to catch up on all the damage and refurbishment after the monsoon. But despite all the cement piled around, the buzz of saws, wood dust and hard slog, today the world is a beautiful place to be.

She is literally bopping her little socks off along with the highly dubious tune – and all this without the aid of a TV. Priceless. At the end of the day we have very little money, every week is a struggle to keep our heads above water in the most basic of ways, but we are raising our daughter in beauty and nature and with the love and adoration of both her fully present parents and the help, care and support of an entire village. When it is tough, and other aspects make me weep with exhaustion or worry, I can hold on to this strength.

Nong mail also arrived back from her holidays today, and what a sight for sore eyes is this little angel. No longer a baby, she is fast becoming a wondrous girl-child, quieter, a little more cautious perhaps than in her boisterous, romping babyhood, but with the same gorgeous humour and character present in her eyes.

Related posts:

1. Kids’ Day