#Samui one of THE places to visit in 2011 - New York Times

Samui inspired 'The Beach'

The New York Times has come out with its annual list of 'must visit' places. Often these are a top 5, a top 10 or even  a top 20. Why theirs is 41 is anyone's guess (maybe it was going to be 40 but the editor wanted to include his cousin's new resort at the last minute, who knows?)

Thailand's Koh Samui comes in at Number 3.

The NYT calls it "a toned-down version of Phuket, heavy on wellness and food." That's like saying San Francisco is a toned-down version of New York, heavy on gays and bridges, jing jing.

 It the bangs on about Samui as a "tropical gem" which is "the stylish luxury alternative to crowded Phuket" citing the opening of W Retreat last month, Beach Republic, the Banyan Tree (which I blogged about in 2010) and the Absolute Sanctuary's yoga and detox focus (who can forget my anal invasions there that I blogged about early last year ... I certainly can't!).

On the gastronomic -- as opposed to gastric -- side, eateries such as H Bistro at the new Hansar (blogged late last year) and Orgasmic get a run. Not mentioned because it's only just opened is Namcha Samui tea shop and cafe (www.namchasamui.com) ... a really stylish and charming addition to Fisherman's Village.

So if you haven't been ... go.  And if you've been before ... go again.

Then let me know: is Samui a toned down version of Phuket???

Koh Samui -- IN A CONSTANT STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Born and raised in California, with parents who were both yoga instructors, it seems that Marc was really fated to become what he is today. That's right, a merchant banker on Wall Street. I'm joking of course -- he's a senior yoga instructor at Absolute Sanctuary. 'I am in a constant state of California,' jokes the wiry silvering gent in his soft-spoken tones.

Growing up in that state, and living in San Francisco's Bay area, he witnessed the genesis and explosion of the adoption of this ancient eastern practice being absorbed into the western mainstream. He's been in Samui a year so far spreading his skill.

When he sees me and several other physically challenged specimens waddle into the spacious, mirror-lined studio, he probably wishes he had become a merchant banker. But the class is also attended by some far more shapely specimens who naturally head for the mats of the front of the room. It is my first ever yoga class, which, along with wonderful lymphatic drainage and pressure point massages, is part of my three-day Ultimate Detox program ...

Soon the air is filled with soothing sanskrit chants and ethereal music. Think Enya.

'Ok, we're just going to start in the Lotus pose,' says Marc who eases himself into a wonderfully erect, fluid, seated position with his legs crossed in front of him and somehow crossed over each other. I go to cross my legs. Ouch! Those rugby knees. My legs are way out in front of me somewhere. I grab one knee, trying to force it back into the same postcode as my torso. There. I'm now listing dangerously at a 45-degree angle. I reach forward to grab my other knee ... reaching ... reaching ... there, got it. I wrench it back toward my body with the creaking and groaning drowning out Marc's instructions: 'Inhale ... feel the energy flowing in.'

Feel the energy? All I can feel is tendons in the knee at near snapping point. And my spine. And now my shoulder. Feel the energy? What the hell are you talking about, Crazy California Guy??? 'And exhale ... let's lose all those nasty toxins from our systems ...'

I sneak a glance around the room, and note that I'm not the only one struggling to imitate the graceful symmetry being displayed at the front of the class. There's one guy, Michelin Man -- who hasn't seen his knees in years -- in front of me.

Then Marc calls for the Downward Dog. Soon there are inverted V-shapes on command. My view of the entire left side of the studio is blacked out by the voluminous backside of Michelin Man. 'A little smile is OK,' says Marc. Smile??? Who the hell can do this and smile? I bet it's one of those sycophants up front. And soon we're inhaling and raising legs behind us. We're exhaling and pulling legs in under us. We're in the Warrior pose, we're in the Cobra, we're in the Pretzel. Ok, I made that last one up, but my limbs are in an absolute tangle to the point that I can no longer tell which is up or down, which is my left leg from my right, my ass from my elbow; and nor do I have any idea of how to undo myself.

'Remember to breathe,' cooes Marc. Oh yeah, that's an important one, no wonder I'm blue in the face. Michelin Man is blue all over, collapsed in a sweaty heap on his mat. I expect Greenpeace will be along to rescue him any time now. 'It's OK to rest anytime,' reassures Marc.

Yoga is surprisingly demanding. I am pouring perspiration despite what seems like very little movement. Who needs Hot Yoga (a variation in which yoga is performed in a room heated to 37 degrees celsius)? Hot Yoga is actually one of the variants that Absolute Yoga offers in their seven Thailand and three Singapore studios, along with Flow, Hot Flow, Yin (Tao) Yoga, Anusara, Hatha, and Pilates classes.

Even as I 'om', the builders are creating a 50-mat studio near the pool to cater for Absolute's increase in Train-the-Torturer, er, Trainer, sessions.

The lithe bodies up front -- clearly more experienced practitioners -- are barely glistening. Then there's the Sun Salutation, the One Legged pose ... and I'm sure at some point I'm balancing upside down on my nose while my legs in the air emulate the branches of a tree swaying in the wind. 'Don't forget to breathe,' says Marc.

There's one pose which almost makes me exhale from the wrong end. I find out later it's called pavana mukta asana - the wind-releasing pose. Talk about bad breath! 'A lot of the best detox positions are lying on the back and bringing the knees up,' Marc explains.

And after an hour, I finally discover a pose which feels so natural to me, like I was called to this position. My chakras are fully alligned. I feel connected to the universe. I am communing with nature. It makes me feel truly alive. A Zen state, man. I find out later it's called the shava asana -- the corpse pose.

Koh Samui -- MIND, BODY AND ABSOLUTELY NO SPIRITS AT ALL.

'Another Tequila Sunrise, please!'

'Hahahaha,' Khun Son, the barman, beams the sunniest most radiant smile you've ever seen in your life. He returns moments later with a pineapple shake laced with psyllium husk and some other mysterious murky ingredient. 'Your detox shake.'

This has got to be the worst pool bar in the world: I mean not a single bottle of Malibu Rum or Curacao to be seen. Not even a beer. Not even a light beer. Instead the bar fridge is piled with carrots, pineapples, watermelons, coconuts, ginger, limes ...

Let me explain. I'm at Absolute Sanctuary on Koh Samui ("Thailand's premier detox and yoga resort" being their claim). Just beyond the Morrocan-styled cupola of reception is the South China Sea. Directly in front of me is a wonderful infinity pool, around which laze an assortment of bodies in various states of repair and disrepair. In animal kingdom terms there are gazelles and there are hippopotammi. People who clearly take care of their bodies everyday in the real world, and those who are suffering from years, nay decades, of neglect.

There are Finns, Japanese, Brits, Europeans, a gay expat couple from Hong Kong, a couple of Thais and a lot of Aussies. There's a whippet-like model from the Gold Coast. There's a madam from a Kings Cross establishment. And a 114-kg poker king whose checked in for five weeks. 'I just really let myself go, I had to do this,' says Richard, proud of the 12 kg he's already shed in a couple of weeks of farting, er, fasting, fruit shakes, and fitness including yoga, swimming and jogging.

For the fasting programs guests are put onto a program of four fruit shakes a day and four packets of 'supplemental' tablets, which is breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner effectively. That's it, jing jing! The tablets are Vitamin C, chlorophyll and some really disgusting brown ones.

'Most disease takes  root in an acid environment,' explains British adviser and Emotional Freedom Technique practitioner, Alister, 'so we need to get into  more alkaline state. All the secret is alkaline.'

The Love Kitchen dishes up suitably alkaline raw and vegetarian food such as spinach gaspaccio and Broccoli Delight. Yes, dear readers, people fly across the world and pay good money to do this. Funny thing is, after day two, I'd KILL for Broccoli Delight! (Absolute's new expanded kitchen due to open in mid-2010 will dish up more fish, seafood and chicken options.)

Guests can also enjoy a daily program of meditation (including sunset sessions on Karma Beach), massage, and yoga for total wellness. This is the passion of executive director Claire Bostock-Huang -- former banker, psychologist and yoga instructor -- who is the living embodiment of the Absolute ideal. I mean, this 30-something Singapore Eurasian radiates ridiculous amounts of good energy, with calf muscles that could choke a water buffalo and glutial muscles that could probably crack walnuts (this is all the product of my increasingly feverish imagination, I hasten to add).

Which is in direct contrast to myself and other inmates around the pool, where the Bob Dylan lyrics leeching from the speakers -- such as 'Knock knock knocking on heaven's door ...' and 'There must be some way out of here ...' -- possibly sum up the current mindset of most who are still mid-fast.

'It's bloody hard but I've glad I've done it,' Richard beams. 'It's ridiculous but I've got so much more energy without eating. Why do I eat pizza? Now I know I don't need it.'

'I needed a kick in the face, and I got it,' opines a large American lady enthusiastically.

After my three day 'Ultimate Detox' I have lost a couple of kilograms, feel very clear-headed and do sense I have more energy. Now I understand fully why people do this to themselves.

'Hey, Khun Son, I was only joking about that Tequila Sunrise. I meant Pina Colada.'

'Hahahaha ...'

Koh Samui -- Absolute Sanctuary: WARNING: TOILET HUMOUR

I just gave birth to triplets. Or rather, it felt like it. You see, I am at Absolute Sanctuary wellness resort for a three-day 'Ultimate Detox' program. And part of the daily itinerary is a thing called 'colon hydrotherapy' ...

So there I am reclined on a fibreglass platform with knees in the air, as though I'm going to give birth. I'm at the mercy of Petch, a qualified hydrotherapist who's been doing this for about three years. Working her way up from the bottom, you could say.

She snaps on the rubber gloves. My sphincter tightens. She smiles at me as she unwraps what looks like a thick drinking straw (pictured), and asks me to turn to my left. With liberal lashings of some KY jelly -- oh, hello sailor! Actually that wasn't too bad. She now attaches me to the machine, a simple device holding 4 x 6-litre water tanks, a water temperature gauge (37 degrees -- body temperature), and several chrome taps.

She explains that the first tank is pure reverse-osmosis water, the middle two organic coffee and apple cider vinegar, and the last is water with pro-biotics. The idea is to remove toxins from my body, especially stuff that's been accumulating there and putrifying for the past few decades. Several kilograms worth, apparently of impacted and stagnated 'stuff'.

Petch tucks me in gently with a hot water bottle on the stomach, and a blanket over the rest of me. And releases the tap ...

I imagined it was going to be like getting the local fire brigade to back up thier truck and let rip. But it's not pressured; it's gravity fed, so the water slowly but surely fills my gut. A weird feeling. It's sort of like when you've eaten too much, but it's not coming from your stomach, it's from your intestine.

'Just let go when you are not comfortable,' says Petch with her reassuring manner. She hands me a wireless bell-buzzer. 'I'll be back in a couple of minutes, call me if you need me.'

The next 45 minutes is not pretty. All those expensive private school manners are lost to the, er, wind. As my tracts swell, I expel. 'Breath from your stomach, i-i-i-i-n, o-u-u-u-t,' she coaches. 'Relax,' she says. Relax??? Madam, I am lying here with a tube up my arse, stripped of everything including my dignity, while a cocktail of warm beverages is snaking its way through my vital organs, and you want me to relax?' Gee, with friends like this, who needs enemas?

I am semi-soporific, taking in the walls which -- in keeping with the resort's tasteful and wistful Moroccan theme -- are a washed-out green and pink. And then I notice the music that's been tinkling away in the background all this time. It's one tune on repeat: a Richard Clayderman (or some such pianist) version of Starry starry night ... that song about Vincent Van Gogh. The line that comes to my head is 'how you suffered for your sanity'. Make that sanitary. The song on repetition becomes like Chinese water torture: drip ... drip ... drip ...

I hope you, dear readers, are appreciating me putting my body on the line here for you. (There again, toilet humour seems to be the natural level of my writing.)

I feel just a little nauseous. Petch smiles. 'The first time is not so comfortable.' No shit, Sherlock! 'Next time, it's OK.' She then commences a stomach massage to work the water into far-flung crevices of my system, especially the ascending colon where apparently all the bad bacteria lurks. 'That's the most toxic part of the most toxic part of the body,' I'd been told at the pre-briefing. 'Seventy percent of the lymphatic system resides there.'

Then she tells me we're about to administer the coffee. 'Make mine with milk and one sugar,' I feebly joke. The floodgates open. I thought I was empty already, but no. Plenty more where that came from. Shit happens, as the expression goes. God knows where all that stuff was stored: possibly the transendental colon. 'Relax,' says Midwife Petch again, smiling what I perceive to be a cold assasin's smile. Aaarghhh ... 'Breath from the stomach, relax,' she says soothingly. Relax??? I am in fear of turning inside out and being strangled by my own sphincter here, Petch!

If I was worrying about dying when it started, I was now more concerned that now I wasn't going to die. Jing jing!

Then, like a boat drifting onto the beach, suddenly the pressure eases, the water is cooler, and Petch declares the session over. On balance, I'd rather be scuba diving, zorb balling, or having root canal dental work without anaesthetics. I do honestly feel cleaner and lighter (well, I'd just lost several kilograms in the space of a few minutes) and pleased to know that I am less toxic.

But whatever I feel about it, I wonder about poor Petch. Does she ever say to her boss: 'I don't need this shit!'?


Footnote: true to Petch's word, the second and third sessions were much more comfortable. Why I even managed to read a magazine and enjoy the hour's experience for the quiet time it was. And unbelievably switched perceptions of Petch from cold-hearted assassin, downgraded to dungeon dominatrix, and finally I came to see her for the kind, caring, compassionate health care professional that she is.

(See my blogs over the next few days for the rest of the Absolute Sanctuary experience.)