Halong Bay - The place of dreams :)

HALONG BAY!!!! The place of dreams :)

I love Halong Bay :) 

What an awesome place, and looks just like the pictures I have been looking at for years to come! Beautifully stunning setting. Shame about all of the tourists though, sadly this has become a bit of a tourist trap. You can understand why people want to come here though as it is so peaceful and calming looking at those enormous pinnacles reaching out of super calm luxurious velvety waters.

Halong Bay literally translates to "descending dragon bay".  It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The bay features thousands of limestone karsts and isles in various shapes and sizes. The Halong Bay has an area of around 1,533km squared!! It's huge, and beautiful :) 

The last two days have made me realize just how happy a person I am by the ocean, or when I see and hear the ocean every single day :) :)  Yay to smiles, good times, Halong Bay and the ocean.

It was such a nice trip. I went along with the English couple I met after a long bus ride arrived for our boat crossing to the centre of Halong Bay.  It didn’t feel as though we actually went out too far to be honest, and only so far as to the point where we could no longer see the shoreline.  The boat was full of really, really young people. So young that a popular question was how old are you? I must have shocked the 19 -23 year olds with my answer haha! Luckily there was a couple of English guys who were quick to join forces with me and another couple of English girls.

Funny how small the universe is - Ben had actually spent september of last year working in Bermuda at the yacht club for a sailing event, so probably met quite a few people I know! Always amazes me just how small the world is. Just like in the middle of the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal when I met a guy who works on Lanta and I have dive friends in common with! Bermuda relationships rule the World :) Anyway, we all stuck together and became evening drinking partners, and during the days we lazed on the sun deck chairs trying to catch some colour. 

We spent the afternoon exploring some caves and taking kayaks out around the water, we found a few little caves to paddle into and then found ourselves inside a huge limescale area with enormous pinnacles all the way around us which was awesome and so peaceful and quiet inside.  We had some fun throwing our voices around and then totally lazing in the kayak and enjoying the peace and quiet.

We also met a couple of young Dutch boys, who had traveled through Vietnam on motorbikes! They had taken all the back roads and explored small villages that most people would be likely to steer clear of due to lack of westernized facilities. They were only 19 years old having just finished school if I remember rightly, and both had such amazing smiles, and wonderful stories of their adventures on the bikes.  When you meet people like this I always catch their enthusiasm for life, and I love that. I would ordinarily in another world have taken a quick look at them and thought to myself well they are so young, no need or point to go and talk to them. I am so glad I have grown and developed from that place, because now I can share the pleasure it was to meet them and hear their story. So brave. I reflected on others who are that age and not brave enough to take on such adventures, and felt very happy for them.

We also met a lovely Irish couple who were such calm and positive energy people. I really enjoyed having them there, and we swapped contact information at the end of the trip as I am really excited to see where their journey takes them.

We stayed on board the Monkey Island Cruise boat for our first night, which was lovely. We cruised around the islands and as the sun started to set we all jumped off the top of the boat into the water and hung out in the water swimming and drinking G&T’s!! Very fun, and totally reminded me of Cup Match weekend in Bermuda, which is fast approaching. That was such a funny weekend of fun spent with my lovely friend Lindsay who came all the way from Chicago to celebrate in bikinis with me :) Good times!!

The crew seemed determined that we would join in on karaoke which was a bit much to be honest, all of us just wanted to chill out on the water and enjoy being on a lovely boat in the middle of the most stunning landscape around South East Asia. Sadly not to be, but we did manage to escape to the roof of the boat in between rain showers and drink our G&T’s in peace eventually. That night we had the most torrential rain storm ever! Not ideal when sleeping on an old boat, as I discovered at about 2am when the rain started pouring heavily through several holes above my bed. I had to spend the night curled up like a baby to avoid the thoroughly soaked through patches on my mattress. I was sharing the room with a lovely girl from Korea called Toko who was making a big brave move to try and find work in Brazil later this year. Toko was also my kayak buddy earlier in the day. Very exciting! I love that about backpacking – meeting people with a journey, an adventure, a story to tell. My kind of people :) 

Our second night was spent at Monkey Island. Shortly after arriving we took a hike up the steep trail to see the view from the top of the national park area. Stunning...or at least it would have been even more so had it been a lovely clear sky. Nonetheless it was pretty spectacular.  The hike itself was hilarious...we were advised to not walk up in flip flops, but honestly it was so hot none of us wanted to put sneakers on so up we went in flipflops... As soon as we reached the top, having virtually climbed on our hands and knees as it was so wet and slippy in the mud, we immediately panicked about how an earth we would get down lol!! It was 'interesting'.  We went super, super slowly and literally sat on our bums and slid down at parts. We braved spiders, bugs and other horrid things before finally reaching the ground and changing into bikinis and slowing down our pace to lazing on sunbeds on the beach all afternoon :) Ah happy days.  It's impossible not to smile when the ocean is in front of you :) 

We spent a very relaxed afternoon and evening at the beach on Monkey Island, it was so nice to relax and read on a sun bed. Of course I couldn't sit still for too long so enjoyed a nice long swim at sunset and some yoga, along with handstand practice ;)

During the course of my stay in Halong Bay I decided that trying to fit Sapa Valley into this trip was just too much. I still hadn't fully recovered from the cold, and as much as everyone tells me how wonderful an experience it is I still felt exhausted at the idea of hiking so shortly after Nepal.  So when I got back to Hanoi I cancelled the trip, instead opting to spend another 24 hours in Hanoi fully recovering. Vietnam is teaching me that I need to slow down my pace and enjoy the moment, also that I have the power to make my trip and my day exactly as I please :) Just for me :) Yay!! 

Upon returning to Hanoi I stayed with Hanoi Hostel again. They gave me a room which was different to my original room. I very quickly discovered bed bugs :( I was so sad, they were everywhere. As quickly as I squashed one, I found another, and another and another. Endless fight. There were 3 beds in my room and each bed had bed bugs :( I discovered them in the middle of the night so couldn't change rooms, I ended up sleeping on my yoga mat on the floor inside my sleeping bag liner. They still managed to bite me and I woke up the next morning (after a maximum of 2 hours sleep as I had spent the night googling what to do if they ended up in my backpack also....) with lines of distinct bed bug bites everywhere. Not cool.  I told the hostel and they were extremely apologetic and gave me an almost full refund. I would still stay here again....it was caused by some backpackers who had been hiking and had borrowed the room earlier in the day. They had it seemed brought the bed bugs with them in their backpacks :( I just really hope that the bugs didn't get inside my backpack and don't follow me to Hue...

Ah Vietnam, it's a love affair! I needed this kind of adventure right now, I really did. So many beautiful places that I want to explore. I have never been so excited to explore a new country before. Vietnam has such a nice feeling, such good energy. Now I move further south towards Hue, and slowly slowly to Hoi An and the beaches in the south. Trying also to decide if I can find time to squeeze in a few days in Cambodia to see Angkor Wat and some other temples again. Ah smiles. I love my life. Anything is possible in the next few weeks!! 

Watch this space :) 

Incredible INDIA - Part Three

Magical Rishikesh - Week 5 :)

Almost at the final Rishikesh installment which is so super sad for me. I want to pull the hand brake up and slow down every day, second hour, minute and second and cherish everything about this magical place.

I am so content here, so safe and happy. It has become exactly like my Bermuda bubble was for me. My bedroom is finally all set up as if I were to stay there forever, I have a book case, decorations on the wall, a fully functioning wardrobe and most of all I have my Rishikesh routine! I, like lots of my girlfriends here, are more than a little scared about how we will feel when we leave and hit the 'real world' again. How will we keep the magic alive that we have learnt in Rishikesh? Will we be able to overcome life's challenges? Will we be able to make time for meditation, for our yoga practice, pranayama in the same way we did here? Will we be strong enough to make Roshan's wise words "yoga is everything" become our everyday reality without him or our other teachers, or even each other around to encourage us. Rishikesh has changed us all...

It has, once again, been a crazy madly intense week. Some of it has been life changing, some of it magical, some of it heart breaking, and always always offering lessons in life as a direct result of each experience or emotion felt along the way.

Week 5 started off on such a positive and then such an immediate low for me. I woke up early on Monday morning to wish my friends in Bermuda "Good Luck" for the Boston Marathon that day. The time difference meant that I had plenty of time to catch them all before the race. Later that day I checked facebook for news, and all I could see was the horror of the status updates amongst friends trying to frantically locate all of the Bermuda group in Boston. A friend, Suzie, had written on my wall "I hope that your friends are ok Caroline..." and my cousin, Chelsey, had sent me a note to similar effect to check that I had heard from all of my friends in Boston. A quick google later brought me to immediate tears when I realised that several bombs had gone off metres from the finish line of Boston Marathon.

Not only that, but at the time when over 50% of runners would have been coming through the finish line so not only the majority of runners affected but also a high majority of supporters. Panic set in, and I worked my way through peoples facebook pages and pieced together that fortunately everyone that I knew was together, and well. One girl only for the sheer fact that she stopped mid race for the toilet... Awful, devastating news.  So grateful for the luck shown to my friends for their good health. So upset for all of those innocent people showing support in the crowd. Devastated for those athletes who in good faith spent anywhere between 3-6 months of their lives training hard, devoting their heart and soul to their race, who lost limbs or even worse their lives or loved ones lives.

This news affected me far more than I had thought it would and for many weeks afterwards. The whole aim of my marathon training season in 2012 had been to quality for this amazing marathon. Boston Marathon is the one we all aspire to be good enough, fast enough, strong enough to compete for a place. Sadly, injury saw me fall 9 minutes short of qualifying for a place otherwise without a doubt I would have been there too. The chances of all of my friends being completely 100% ok is a miracle to me. What were the odds of that? So grateful.

I found the quote above on facebook which made me snap out of my depression, and turn my negative thinking about how cruel life could be into a positive. Damn right the bastards picked the wrong group of people to mess with. Marathoners are trained for ENDURANCE. We are tough. We won't be knocked down that easily.

The next morning I came across another old favorite quote of mine. Purpose. Again damn right, and it hit home immediately. I had woken up feeling a bit flat and lethargic. I took myself for a run to energise myself and loved every second of it. It was hard and fast, hilly and tough in 35 degree Rishikesh heat. But I reminded myself how lucky I was to be out there with my health and well being after the tragedy that affected so many in Boston yesterday. Live life people, enjoy every second it has to offer ♥ No more mourning, just appreciating every second we have on this planet.

The next day found me teaching my first flow yoga class in Rishikesh. My examination class!! The part I had strangely been both super excited about completing and terrified of at the same time. As part of my YTT 300 examination I have to teach a 90 minute class to a large group of the YTT 200 students.  I had never taught such a large class before (35 plus), nor in such a long and spacious room. Life was sending me a lesson to prove I could cope! It was so much fun, and there was so much positive energy in the room :) I just loved it SO much. I got such lovely feedback at the end of the class, and hugs and questions and made what felt like a zillion new friends amongst the YTT yogi family.  It truly made me realise just how much I miss teaching. I had expected to be nervous and it just felt like coming home instead. Good times!! We even had a visit from a monkey during the class which loosened some tension.  Love the Life I Live :) I am so lucky. Made me miss my Bermuda class of regular students too, you would have been proud of me - wish you could have joined in and been part of my class! I hope that one day I can come back and teach you all that I have learnt here in India. I just have the exam paper, and the 90 minute workshop to present to my fellow YTT 300 hour yogis next week left, and then I have completed the course!!!!!!!

During the planning of our classes, we all wanted to find the perfect quote to share. The piece that summed up how we felt about all that we had learnt and all that we wanted to become, and share with our students. With a little helping hand, I came across the following quote which I just love. I got such wonderful feedback from the YTT 200 students after hearing it that I wanted to share it in my blog for you.

Desiderata (Latin: "desired things" in a 1927 pose poem by American writer Max Ehrmann.

"Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons that yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many tears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy".

While everyone was teaching their exam classes we were lucky enough to have Narandra teaching us! Brother of Jeet - brother that taught Jeet everything he knows. I was excited...and with very good reason as every evening was so, so awesome! We went from fast, traditional hatha, sun salutations to experimenting with forearm stands, scorpion, handstands, compass, side crow modifications, serious backbends to gentle floor work....so much fun! I got into fallen angel for the first time properly too :) Kick ass teacher giving us awesome tips along the way to get the best out of our practice each and every night. THIS was what I had hoped for all the way through the YTT 300 program, and am delighted to have at least received some of this training in my final two weeks. I would love to come back and train one on one with Narandra. The things I would learn in just one month of dedicated practice ♥

On April 21st, a group of my Bermuda running friends got to the start line of the London Marathon. I was nervous for them, and kept my phone with me the whole day checking every second that I could that nothing bad happened and wishing them all the luck and love in the World on what would be a mentally and physically tough day for them. They all did amazingly and the World was a happy place again :) So proud of their strength xx

A motto so many of my friends can relate to and live by every day of their lives.  I like to think that I surround myself with people who get out there and live, they take every opportunity they can and throw themselves full speed into whatever they are doing. We ARE adventurers ;) Certainly my friends don't let a day go by when they are not out there running, cycling, swimming or a bit of all three, along with traveling the globe, raising their families, planning how to make their daydreams come true and enjoying life <3 

The pace of YTT picked up full speed during this week as everyone suddenly realised that we had to teach, present our workshops, assist in other peoples classes, finish designing our exam sequences, and completing our exam papers.  It led to intense study sessions, in super cool cafes, cramming over books, internet pages and classroom notes to complete everything in time. Was always good fun though - especially the day in Health Cafe when the owner played The Beatles in the background for us, and we were able to have a little sing song along with the music to break up the monotony of studies!!

As time went on, we realised it was almost time to say our goodbyes so a lot of time was spent trying to fit in the studies, experiencing everything that we could in our final weeks in Rishikesh, and enjoying each others company! We were exhausted physically and emotionally but we would not waste a second of our time here!! Week 5 meant that Amanda, Danielle and I could also change our nose rings soon. This was exciting as we all had bent bits of silver in a circle like shape through our noses lol. We took a trip to Rishikesh market to buy some nose bling, and work out the situation with saris for our graduation next week! On our way to the market, we came across possibly the biggest cow we had seen during our entire stay on the Ram Jhula bridge - hilarious! Obviously in true India fashion, everything else in the world had to move around the cow as once it sat down it owned that piece of land until it decided to move! A hard task as this was so huge, and had chosen the middle of the bridge as its chosen spot!

We spent ages and ages at the market looking at the selections of gold and silver jewellery for our noses! There were SO many Indian women in each of the stores buying jewellery, we couldn't believe it and had to wait ages to get even remotely close to the glass counters. THIS is where all the women of Rishikesh have been hiding lol - all we ever see is men everywhere as the norm.  The women found us incredibly curious creatures when we were looking, but we didn't care we were too focused on the potential nose bling! Gold is so cheap in India it is just amazing, and you can understand why so many women are decorated so heavily in their jewels. 

On our final free day together, we organised a girls day and had a huge breakfast at Ganesh, a Rishikesh greasy spoon equivalent with the most amazing paratha ever! We had coconut and banana paratha, amongst a tonne of other delicious foods. The owner was so happy to see us and insisted on photos with us, and playing with the pics to see which were the best ones haha! Afterwards we took ourselves to The Beatles Ashram for our final trip together, and for a super cool photo shoot! After having to break in over the wall, as it was locked up, and eventually avoiding the Indian boys who decided to follow us initially, we found ourselves heading to the Music Hall where The Beatles wrote most of their White album. Then to the roof of the building where they slept during their stay in the Ashram. The view up there is just spectacular, you can see for miles on a clear day. We took turns to take yoga photos before we all melted in the increasingly hot, hot, hot Rishikesh weather.  On top of this roof is where the 365 Day Handstand Challenge series of photos began (read next blog for details!!). The first of 365 days of handstands is shown below - me on top of the Rishikesh World with the biggest smile on my face :)

Can't believe that I am 5 weeks into my 6 week YTT 300 hour course....such an amazing time, so many happy memories and have learnt so many amazing yoga and life skills that I will carry with me for the rest of my life!

Feeling grateful ♥

Calming Koh Samet

Koh Samet, Thailand - 6th stop on this amazing adventure :)

I had never heard of this little place before, but my lovely friends Matt and Dani highly recommended it having got married there 2 years ago. I was a little nervous going somewhere new, instead of returning to the safety of Koh Lanta however as the lovely Lindsay told me I am on a travel adventure so why go for comfortable? And she is, of course, absolutely right. As soon as I got off the boat and arrived I knew it was the right decision.

The bus from Bangkok took forever, and when we got guided to our boat they hurried us onto it and then sat us there for an hour melting in the sun while just about any kind of produce got loaded up around us. Very much a local boat lol. Welcome to Thailand...where on any kind of public transport you are packed in amongst produce, magazines, newspapers, uncles, cousins etc.

I decided on Jeps Bungalow after working through the numerous recommendations by Dani. Truth be told it was the photos of their beach bar which sold it for me - the bar is on the sand and has these super cool star lights in the trees so you kind of feel like you are in a fairytale. Or you do if your name is Caroline and your life is made up of one story after another. 

I had booked an AC room and had been told I had to change resort for one night which was fine by me, as they didn't have any fan rooms (which I had wanted) when I called. When I got there the lady told me they had no AC rooms and only a fan room which I could have the whole duration of my stay so they showed me it and I took it. It was super old and dusty and not like the other bungalows at all.  Anyways, I got settled in, hung up my super cool and new bright orange hammock, and unpacked. The windows were all bashed up and mosquito protection was zero so I asked for some parcel tape/duct tape (whatever it is called) and went to work taping up my windows. I did a pretty good job even if I do say so myself. It didn't stop me getting the most eaten I have ever been in Asia, but imagine if I hadn't taped them up...

I loved my little bungalow and spent my evenings chilling in the beach bar, then retiring to my sanctuary balcony and chilling in my hammock after a good yoga session. I managed to get into some awesome yoga poses while on that balcony, I was getting so relaxed my body just cruised into poses that normally took me forever to even get close to doing. It was just what I needed as I tried to 'enjoy' my time alone on the perfect island.  I had been with people the whole way through my adventure so far, so this was my first time totally alone without people I knew. Just me, and my mind, and my thoughts. Interesting times. Sometimes I loved it, sometimes I hated it. My friends told me it was just what I needed - self reflect time - after a year of chaos in Bermuda and massive life changes of leaving my home in the sun in Bermuda, and leaving behind a career and trying to work out what I wanted in life. So I tried to suck it up whenever the demons came out to play. By the end of the week, I was more  calm than I can remember being in a long time. Hence my yoga poses coming to fruition :) I managed randomly to get into Compass on first attempt, then Flying Pigeon (which just scared me to look at photos of) on one side, and then two days later completely randomly I got into King Dancer Pose which is just about the coolest poses ever. I had previously thought I would dislocate my shoulders getting into this pose and for some reason it just clicked, and it worked and was comfortable. Love it <3

Life was good. My friend Karen put it so accurately when she wrote on my wall, you can be surrounded by 100 new people every day and still feel as lonely as can be when travelling because you are not surrounded by your close friends. When I first got to the island I looked at the beaches and thought well this is pretty but it isn't Bermuda pretty, and wondered sadly if I would always compare everything and everywhere to my lovely Bermuda. By the middle of the week the haze had lifted and I sacked off running and yoga one evening to just sit and watch what was in front of me and appreciate everything about that exact moment. That was my calmest evening of the whole trip :)

My evenings were fairly chilled. One evening an english guy joined me and told me all about his girlfriend who lived in KL and how he travelled while she taught - sounded like a good deal he had going on. He was meeting her afterwards to travel together. He told me about a cool place to run to and get a nice Mojito in happy hour, and watch the sunset. I never did make it to that beach to watch the sunset. Koh Samet made me very lazy and I loved hanging out near Jeps, as did everyone else who seemed to gather there each evening. I also met a cool guy on my second to last night from New Zealand at the start of his adventure. A few beers later and we decided to head to Naga Bungalows for buckets - I had forgotten how lethal those things were. One blue melon flavoured bucket later, and then a bright red strawberry daqueri bucket later, we thought 'how cool let's try laughing gas'. We bought a balloon filled with laughing gas and laughed our heads off, no idea if real or we were just having so much fun we laughed anyway. Was a cool evening.

I spent a lot of this trip chilling on the beach and people watching, and realising that I really do struggle to sit still for long periods of time! I swam, I walked, I ran, I did yoga, I floated at the surface of the ocean and sunbathed, I read and I slept. It was just perfect :) My idea of chilling anyway, perhaps too active for most people!! My lunches every day were freshly cooked corn on the cob, and sliced mangos and coconuts, bought from the man or woman who walked the full length of the beaches with these heavy grills and coolers and cooked/chopped everything up for you there and then! There were so many Bangkok visitors, people who come for the weekend and take over the entire island for a few days. So much fun to watch them! There was also a guy who did thai chi on the beach each day, a very sick and painfully thin looking anorexic lady who would walk the length of the beach repeatedly each day, couples galore taking lovey dovey photos on the beach and in the water! My favourite thing to watch though was the english sheepdog which Dani tells me has been here for years. It is the most random and awesome sight ever on a Thai beach! Just a gorgeously beautiful dog, I want one for sure! He followed his owner everywhere and would run full speed into the water and just throw himself into the waves to chase his tennis ball.

There were some young kids who came along the beach each evening to perform fire shows, which were usually pretty cool. They were only about 11 years old and confident beyond belief, one of which had tattoos all up his back and an attitude which showed he would be a smooth operator when he was older lol!

I also adopted this cute little cat who I named Sayang 2 - I had a cat called Sayang in Thailand in 2007 :) She followed me everywhere and would turn up on my balcony in the mornings, or after the beach meowing like a crazy kid for attention. Turns out she also loves Pringles, so we shared many a box in the hammock. She was so heavily pregnant it was untrue. I would just sit with her lying next to me and me rubbing her belly, watching and feeling the kittens twitch underneath. She woke me up in the mornings meowing at the door, and would always be waiting on the balcony in the evenings for me when I returned from the beach - who said cats aren't loyal??! LOL. She was such an awesome cat and made me miss George and Ellen like crazy. I hope her and her kittens are safe and someone takes over from me looking after them :)

It is on this island that I realise you attract a lot of attention when you travel alone. Everyone knew who I was. Everyone knew when I ate my dinner, where I sunbathed, when I did yoga, when I ran. They saw everything. Unfortunately this led to some bad luck on my last evening. I was hungover from the buckets night out, and packed my backpack up before dinner (as I was leaving the island the next morning, early) and headed down to eat. I took a few photos of the lights on the beach etc. I walked back up to my bungalow and realised the light was off outside, I turned it on and realised that the padlock on my door had been forced off, as had one of the windows. I went into the room (stupidly with hindsight) and found the contents of my backpack spread across the room. I mean literally, no pocket was left unturned. My medical and make up bags and jewellery bags were tipped upside down, my laundry. Everything.

Scared, I ran downstairs for help. The staff were awesome and came up with me to take photos, and call the police. The police came and took finger prints, then the staff moved me to a brand new AC luxury bungalow next to reception, and where security sits and the camera focused on it. I went to the police station on the back of a staff members bike at full speed, minus a helmet, and by the time I got there, the police were finger printing a guy I recognised from the restaurant who had smiled at me at lunchtime. He couldn't make eye contact this time, and shortly afterwards was put into a cell in the middle of the room where he watched me the whole time. Only in Thailand would you complete paperwork next to the guy who robbed you! I didn't sleep well that night worrying he would be released and come back, and having to go through my bag to work out exactly what had been stolen, and was thankful to leave the island early the next morning. Such a sad end to my wonderfully chilled time in Koh Samet.  The staff and the police handled things wonderfully so no complaints, just a very sad experience.

Anyway, an experience if nothing else, and a travel adventure can't all be smooth sailing. Lessons learned. I was grateful to not be there when it happened, and realise all material things are inconsequential in the grand scheme of it.  I won't let this affect the rest of my adventure. So I still look back to the time I had in Koh Samet with fond memories, and as an awesomely chilled and relaxing time for me. I had some awesome evenings doing some funky new yoga poses, drinking buckets, valuable me time and hanging out with Sayang :)

"Lembeh-licious"

"Lembeh-licious"

Ok so I confess a lovely girl called Ash created the name of this blog, unknowingly. After an awesome week together diving, Ash posted her diving photos onto facebook with the title "Lembeh-licious" and it has stuck in my mind ever since. It is perfect :) 

Lembeh. I have to restrain from simply writing I <3 Lembeh, which I was tempted to do so many times as there are not enough words to say how much I enjoyed this trip. This island is my idea of heaven. As soon as I stepped off the boat and landed at Two Fish Dives, I already felt as though I had found home! It was a beautiful love affair lol.  I was supposed to leave after 9 days, and ended up staying 21...it just got better and better each day and fear of missing out kept me delaying my departure.  I changed my flight twice and finally left  when I ran out of days to do so, and Dani and Matt were also leaving for holidays!

Lembeh is a small island off Manado, in Indonesia with THE most amazing macro diving I have ever done. I arrived with hopes of seeing a blue ringed octopus - on two afternoon dives I actually got to dive with not one, but two blue ringed octopus.  Add to that the pygmy seahorses, flamboyant cuttlefish, sea moths, frogfish galore - shaggy, painted, giant, hairy...ranging in size from pinky finger nail size to 5/6 inches long. Who knew there were 4 different types of pygmy seahorses too? Not me. Guess who has seen all of them now? Yep - yours truly :) Lembeh stole my cherry on a whole array of critters underwater which I didn't even know existed - zebra crabs, tiger shrimp, coleman shrimp, tozeuma shrimp, donald duck shrimp, candy crabs, boxer crabs.  I saw the biggest robust ghost pipefish ever.  Seriously in one day it was entirely possible to see pygmy seahorses, seahorses, frogfish, flamboyant cuttlefish, several of the shrimp/crabs above, blue ringed octopus, mimic octopus, long armed octopus and wunderpus octopus. SO lucky. Every day I came out of the water smiling.

Diving makes me so deliriously happy. I am so calm and content underwater in my peaceful little bubble. It was noted often that I hardly breath underwater and frequently finish an 80 minute dive with 100 bar left in my tank.  My mind is perfectly still underwater, no demons, no worries, just me, myself and I...oh and a zillion amazing things to see in Lembeh.

We had some awesome dives, so many different stories underwater :) Best was the frogfish Jason and I were taking photos of which was orange and 4cm long with a sandperch next to it. All of a sudden there was a big sand storm in front of us, some thrashing around and then when it cleared all we saw was half the sandperch (twice size of frogfish) hanging out of the frogfish's mouth!! INSANELY funny!! We finished our last dive on a hairy frogfish - and anyone who disputes it I am willing to fight lol! We searched high and low for the hairy frogfish, thinking several times over we had seen one only to be told it was a shaggy instead! Many a 'look at the lure, look at the lure' joke was had in the bar and flooding our masks underwater laughing!! I swear to god on the last dive of 21 days the final thing I saw underwater was a hairy frogfish - happy days :):)

I have loved diving with Doan, he's 18 years old and I could literally adopt him, he cracks me up underwater writing me messages or singing or breaking into a yoga pose or sword fight. It has been a lot of fun. All the guides and boat boys are awesome fun and have such amazingly good eyes for the macro. When I told Doan I am coming back again, he said sincerely please bring a macro lens with you next time ok...most things he shows me are just too small for my little camera to even focus on! As for Rein, well I just want to adopt him as well - he is kick ass awesome with a smile ALWAYS on his face :) Love that!! <3

Everything about Two Fish Divers is eco-friendly, so there are bins everywhere for different types of products. The Divemaster course has eco options, and Sarah who was doing her DMT had chosen the resort based specifically on this. She was such a cool chick, shame she had to spend second half of her DMT in Bunaken - really pleased that she finished her course well and had an awesome experience, even if she did manage to escape the snorkel test celebration :) Would have liked to stick around to see that.  As part of her course she organised an underwater beach clean up in a local village. It was disgusting how much plastic and rubbish was under the water, just horrible. Every customer came along as well as all the guides and we each filled an entire bag with junk :( There is a lot of educating to do in Lembeh around throwing rubbish into the water. 

The resort itself is like a sanctuary it is so peaceful and calm. I am picturing yoga and teaching here being dreamlike and perfect :) The cottages are just beautiful, and every little detail is thought of for you. You are looked after so well. The food was to die for and loads of fresh vegetables and fruit as well. Everyone who works there was awesome.

In between dives we got into the habit of doing boat yoga. I don't really remember how that happened actually. But it quickly took a significant part of our surface intervals, and I would look at Rein and point to the boat roof and off we ran to take our spot and throw ourselves into poses. I say we, I mean Rein - quite possibly the bendiest 18 year old in Lembeh. It took me practice to perfect the headstand, and the 8 angle pose, and the crow, and the side crow. Rein would watch me work my way into a pose, I would turn around and he would be in the pose already! His second attempt at headstand started in crow, then became headstand and then pushed up into handstand and to standing.  He copied this from Jason who also watched me struggle (in a wetsuit) into headstand on a reversing boat, and then jumped up casual as can be and did crow, to headstand to handstand to standing - just like that. Didn't frustrate Dani and I much...lol

In the evenings before dinner, Dani and I became focussed with our yoga, and perfecting some of the cooler crazy kick ass yoga poses. Again, I forget how it came about but we specifically focused on getting into the splits and getting our legs behind our heads. Dani focused on the 8 angle pose too, and practiced like crazy to perfect it. After a zillion sun salutations and hip opener exercises and sweaty yoga classes, our hips opened enough for us to both jump into the splits on the roof of the boat one day :) Yay! The leg behind the head took a little longer but we got there too.  What started as gentle yoga classes to stretch, quickly became what can we do next and how fast lol! 

We even did an underwater yoga class, bringing along Rein to join in and help us take some pictures. So much fun though we did kick up a storm down there, and I did flood my mask laughing a fair few times. We did warrior 3, tree, handstands, headstands, warrior 2, triangle, lotus pose and several others. Matt and Dani were awesome in helping me set up a facebook page, identity and a logo for teaching yoga as I travel through Asia. It's super cool so if you haven't already liked it then click on Serenity Yoga on my facebook page. It's where I will keep all of our boat yoga and scuba yoga photos!

During my 21 days in Lembeh we had such a cool group of people come to visit Matt and Dani. A Scuba Junkie reunion, which was so much fun - Ash & Dave, Debs & Neil, and Jason all arrived for a week or so and we all dived like crazy. Brilliant diving days, fun on the boat, fun underwater, fun in the bar in the evenings. One memorable night stands out for me - the drinking games night.  I was shockingly bad at each of the three games we played and ended up drinking a lot of gin that night. We played a neighbours game where I completely forgot to say "G'day there..." and insisted on saying "Hi there" - my defense being I am English though...didn't work and I was first out of the game which is pretty impressive as you get so many life lines along the way. We tried some kind of Captain drinking game, again fail. Then we tried a memory game which was hilarious!

Neil, Debs and I went to the jungle one day to see the tarziers.  We walked for hours and got eaten alive but the reward was meeting face to face the cutest and weirdest looking creatures, which at about 5 inches tall are the smallest monkeys in the World. Their eyes are enormous and their bony little hands remind you of ET. Debs and I wanted to take one home with us :) 

Indonesia cracks me up with all the love songs blasting out of the radios, the boys crooning to Celine Dion while they clean the garden areas and singing to themselves underwater! When we were in Manado in the van, my ability to fall asleep as soon as a car starts moving served me well so I didn't see too much of the lethal driving that goes on with trucks pulling out in front of each other and whole families (without helmets) on scooters.

I was particularly clumsy on this trip (in true Caroline fashion as you all know well ;) and got myself quite a reputation to the point where people would think to themselves what might Caroline do today. Several times I had camera issues which ranged from me getting to 30m underwater and trying to take a photo to realise I had not put the battery in, almost flooding the camera at Nudi Retreat, diving with a housing filled with toilet paper to test housing several times over to the boat boys amusement, and fogging up the housing almost every other day as I didn't change the silica packs often enough. One morning on the way to our afternoon dive, the boat boys stopped the boat and said someones jacket fell off the boat. Jason, my upside down all the time dive buddy, looked at me, I said it wasn't me, my jacket is there. Then they said it's green...and everyone looked at me and I had to hide my head in hands and admit I had left my green towel on the roof of the boat and it had indeed vanished like a green manta into the ocean. The shame lol!! The best was on the last day when I was trying so hard not to do something silly, everyone was handing in their towels while I frantically looked for mine - Neil just shook his head and said it's round your neck Caroline. Neil eventually ran out of words after 10 days and just chuckled to himself instead.  I like to think I provided the entertainment.... :/

I have had the most amazing time, and can't wait to come back in May/June to dive and teach yoga :) Matt and Dani you are the best hosts in the World. Miss you guys already! 

I <3 Lembeh xx