Thailand

5 top ways to get hurt traveling

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People like reading lists, they say. The problem is they (the lists) tend to get a bit same-y after a while (people do, too, arguably), so the trick as a writer is to come up with something new and exciting. Here is one you likely never saw before: 5 top ways to get hurt traveling!

Traveling gives me a great deal of joy, it is true, but it’s fair to say that ain’t always the case. So in ascending order of pain and hurt and general discomfort, here are the five worst experiences connected with my travels over the years:

5. Went kayaking off the wild east coast of Sardinia, wearing lots of sunblock but no good sunglasses. Fierce sun, wind and reflections on the water combined with intense heat to create a witches’ brew of salt and chemicals that got into my eyes, rendering me effectively blind, as I was utterly unable to keep my baby blues open – something of a problem when one has to navigate dangerously bad mountain roads to get back to base. In the end I drove at a snail’s pace, stopping over and over to pry my peepers open enough to rinse them with water. It took a night in absolute darkness before I could see normally again.

4. Went diving in the Andaman Sea on a live-aboard boat. That’s a small ship that is out in tropical heat for a week, with everyone living in close quarters. Long story short, I caught something that developed into high fever right as we were disembarking; flying home from Thailand via London with 39+ degrees’ temperature in cattle class was literally a nightmare – I was hallucinating, and so weak they had to get me a wheelchair to go from one plane to the next. Once home I slept more or less straight for 48 hours before finally recovering.

3. First time paragliding in Spain. One of the first attempts to get airborne properly, running down a gentle hill, I managed to rip a muscle in my groin just as I was lifted into the air. The pain was excruciating, but the forward movement and physics kicked in and I continued upwards, which meant I had to fly and land for the very first time while trying not to black out from the agony. To this day I don’t know how I managed. It took months of grueling exercise to regain something like normal function in my leg.

2. Another diving excursion, this time to the Seychelles. Made the rookie mistake of having local food that was probably washed in local water. Within a few hours our stomachs were rumbling, and before long we were two people writhing in gut-wrenching pain, before embarking on a night of horrors, as our bodies went into overdrive trying to purge themselves of the foreign germs; trust me, there is no feeling quite like switching back and forth between projectile vomiting and having your intestines go full fecal Jackson Pollock on the one shared toilet, whilst your friend is knocking on the door to be let in to have their turn, NOW.

1. A romantic trip to Granada and Alhambra might not seem like an obvious winner of this list, but my companion on this sojourn was someone I was very much in love with, and she had agreed to go only as a way to end our relationship on a high note, as she felt we weren’t right for each other. So while it was a lovely experience, and the sights of Alhambra a wonder to behold, it was still with very mixed feelings I went on it. And at the end she did what she had said she would, and ended things between us. She broke my heart, and it took years to mend.

So there you are. A Top 5 List like no other. Honorable mentions go to Barcelona and Amsterdam, where I broke my PBs for marathons – painful experiences in and of themselves, but disqualified because they also gave me a lot of masochistic joy. Hope you enjoyed. If you think you have my travel horror stories beaten, let me know in the comments!

Halfway, 2016

imageRemember New Year’s Eve? And the resolutions you made way back then? It’s hard to believe, but the year is more than halfway over already, so it’s high time to have a look at how you’re fairing in regard to these promises – most likely they have fallen by the wayside already, long forgotten – but since I made a commitment to myself (and you) to report back occasionally on how I’m fairing, I will do so, even though – or perhaps precisely because – the results are less than fantastic.

I set out to improve intellectually and physically, and to go on adventures and challenge myself. To ensure that I did so I set myself clear, measurable targets, so how am I doing in relation to those?

In a word: poorly. At least on the intellectual side of things. I haven’t read more than very few books, my attempts at taking piano lessons were foiled by too much travelling, my efforts learning French came to a halt after two months (during which I did learn rather more words and phrases than I had thought possible, but still).

Improving my general fitness level is an area where I have been a lot more successful. Even though I have cycled nothing like as much as I thought I would do, and swum less, I have managed to work out a lot (as evidenced by a nice lady doctor asking spontaneously if I was an athlete of some sort only yesterday(!)). I’ve logged 160 workouts in the first six months of the year, or slightly below one workout per day nine days out of ten. I’ve run two marathons, both well below four hours, and I’m hopeful I will manage Ultravasan and its 90 kilometres come August. Who knows? I might even be reduced to swimming and biking afterwards instead of running, as a result…

On the other hand, my diet hasn’t been anywhere near as strict as I had planned – perhaps precisely because I had no concrete target in mind there. If anything I have been too indulgent, especially in allowing myself too much alcohol, so that’s something to improve upon in the second half of the year, as well.

So far, so-so impressive. Travels, adventures and challenges, then? Well, I did go for a refresher dive at Nemo33 in January, then went skiing in Sweden in February, and to Thailand to dive in March. April I got a new job part time, which wasn’t planned but must count as a new adventure, and May saw me hike Mallorca with my brother, which was quite the challenge – not because of him, I hasten to add! Then in June I explored Luxembourg, and this month I’ve taken the kids kayaking in the Ardennes, and gone to Edinburgh for a quick visit, so overall my track record isn’t too bad, even though I feel it lacks in challenges.

So what to make of all this? Reinforced efforts in terms of reading, playing the piano and learning French; more diverse workout schedule; better food and drink habits; more adventurous adventures and challenging challenges (and trippy trips? No.).

Lined up next: London with the kids, then two weeks without them (good time to improve diet and spend time playing piano/reading/studying, putting good habits in place) before going to Sweden and making final preparations for Ultravasan. After that I’ve got nothing planned apart from a few days in Lugano, as a post-race (re)treat, and then school starts and the rat race recommences. If experience shows anything, it’s that it’s time to start planning autumn now. Maybe that Ironman? Or a climbing course? Or something else entirely…?

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Paradise lost?

imageLast week I went to Thailand to go diving, somthing I have long wanted to do. So I signed up to go on a live aboard boat – an old Chinese junk, and a movie star, no less!* – and off we went into the choppy, tepid waters of the Andaman Sea. We were a motley crew of sixteen divers from all over the world – the U.S., the UK, the Philippines, Argentina, India, Finland, France and Sweden – but we got on splendidly, and this would have been just another travelogue – you know, blah blah Richelieu Rock blah blah leopard shark – had it not been for one last news feed via radio before we entered waters where no communications were possible.

There was talk of explosions in Brussels. No details, just a headline. It was agonising, not knowing, not having any way of finding out what had happened. As it turned out, of course, the explosions were the worst terrorist attacks Belgium have ever experienced. Over thirty dead and three hundred injured, and – even more devastating – the perpetrators men born and bred in Belgium who hate their fellow humans so much, have so little regard for the sanctity of life – their own as well as that of others – as to feel that this atrocity was the right thing to do with their existence.

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Fishy pearl of wisdom #1: Know thine anemones, as well as thine enemies. Don’t destroy the former to conquer the latter.

Society must have failed these men on numerous occasions for that kind of rage and hatred to grow in their minds. Where do these values come from, and who instilled them in the suicide bombers? Where have we gone wrong as a collective when members of our society lash out to destroy it? When people born and raised in western civilisations pledge their lives to a death cult with medical ideas of justice? These are questions I hope are being asked in ernest, but I doubt it.

In fact, I think mankind is doomed. We lack the collective will to protect what is dear to us and do the right thing. Global warming and pollution is killing off species at a rate last seen when the dinosaurs went extinct. We know this, yet doing anything much to stop it seems beyond us. We continue to use more resources than the world produces, year after year, as if we had an Earth 2.0 in reserve somewhere, which – I’m sorry to tell you – we don’t.

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Fishy pearl of wisdom #2: Judge actions, not looks. Most – however scary-looking – just want to be left alone to lead their lives as best they can.

Diving in Thailand is a case in point: the corals are dying due to bleaching, something which occurs when the water gets too warm (as global warming continues, this becomes inevitable), but also due to overexposure to humans. However, instead of protecting the reefs, Thai authorities let anyone who pays in, leaving the sites lousy with divers – and lousy divers! – bumping into corals that have formed for decades and breaking them, and what’s worse: the national marine parks aren’t even protected from commercial fishermen, as guards are bribed to look the other way. Short-sighted greed scores another victory.

Another example: if the entire world became vegetarian, it would help reduce greenhouse emissions by 60-70%, and would save millions of lives annually, not to mention giving fish stocks a chance to recover from constant over-fishing. But will that happen? No. We can’t even instill in our own citizens a sense of it being wrong to kill your fellow men and women – what hope can there be for a species that cannot even master that?

We evolved to be scavengers, hunter-gatherers with a built-in evolutionary advantage for natural horders, since resources were – by definition – scant. But then humans stopped being hunter-gatherers and started dividing up the land into yours and mine, and that same advantage became greed – the urge to own more, ever more – and since agriculture meant resources were plentiful in this new word order we grew to dominate the entire planet.

Well, we’ve come full circle, with resources being scant again due to overpopulation, and we have to go against our instincts to resolve that problem. To add insult to injury, with modern society now having removed us completely from our link to nature, there’s not even a sense of it being wrong to deplete resources. But: appreciating nature’s beauty, however fleeting, can instill in us a sense of urgency, a sense of what we’ve lost and stand yet to lose, on this paradisiacal planet we call home. It’s as close to a religious experience as I have ever had, and with good reason.

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Fishy pearl of wisdom #3: Be cool, little dude. And if faced with suicide bombers, BYOB – bring your own blast protection

We felt it, all of us aboard that ship, irregardless of nationality, religion, gender, age. And that gives me a little hope. That reverence for nature is perhaps the only thing standing between us as a race and extinction. So I leave the Andaman Sea behind, hoping that humans will do the right thing – it’s no longer a case of preserving nature for future generations, but preserving it so there will be future generations. I know I will try my best, whenever I can. I may have been cast out of Eden, but I won’t be hiding behind a fig leaf.

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*James Bond’s nemesis operated off of this ship in The Man With The Golden Gun.

 

Photo credits (apart from Little Dude): L. Woodruff

Reality check

Most people’s resolutions for the New Year flounder by February. Actually, most resolutions probably find themselves stillborn on January 1st, but even for those people who do honestly try to effectuate change in their lives, habits die hard, and so I figure it is high time I conducted a health check on my ambitions for 2016 and see what happened to them.

If you recall (and even if you don’t, never fear – all is revealed just one click from here), I set out to improve myself in terms of physique and skills and experiences and whatnot. My idea was to have specific targets for each of these areas, the better to be able to track my progress. So how have I fared thus far?

In terms of improving mentally and intellectually, I have been playing more piano than before, and I have been taking lessons, even though these were temporarily disrupted by my teacher moving to Vienna. I’m not sure I can claim to have played 30 minutes per day, though. I listened to the theme from The Piano and didn’t take to it, so am looking for alternative pieces to learn – Claire de Lune is the current front runner, but suggestions are welcome.

On the other hand I have been diligently studying French, and have accumulated a total of 506 words and phrases thus far, which is a lot more than I would have thought. Have I learnt them all? Not yet, but using CardsOnGo on my iPhone has proven to be a really good method, as I can pick it up whenever I have a moment of downtime and go through my lists. To be recommended.

I’ve only read two non-fiction books thus far this year. I experimented with audiobooks, but found the medium not much to my liking – possibly due to having to wear headsets all day at work – so have gone back to analogue books now, and am ploughing through Bill Bryson’s latest even now (I’m writing this in between chapters).

Staying healthy and getting fitter made up the second chapter in my to do-list. I can’t say I have been wholly successful in staying away from alcohol, as it seems intrinsically linked with going out – something I’ve been doing more of this year, too – but I have stayed away from carbs and sugar for the most part, at least.

Working out is an area that’s been, well, working out well for me so far this year. Even with a week of no physical activity whatsoever due to a persistent cold, I have managed to notch up 69 workouts over 70 days, which is a LOT. It’s been mainly running and strength training, as I had the marathon in Barcelona looming last weekend, but I’m hopeful that biking and swimming will enter more prominently into the equation as the weather improves.

Finally, my ambition was to go on adventures and/or experience something new every month. January saw me go diving down to 30 metres in Nemo33, but in February I didn’t find anything new to do. I did take the children skiing in Sweden, which turned out to be more adventurous than we would have wanted, as one of their cousins fell and broke her leg, but it wasn’t a new experience as such*. All the more reason to look forward to Thailand next weekend!

In conclusion then, I don’t think I’ve been doing too bad so far. Some things haven’t materialised quite as I imagined them, but I’m on track, at least. After all, a map can never fully predict a path, merely point out its direction and features more or less accurately. I will be back with more updates later on.

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*Having said that, I doubt even Scott (of ill-fated polar expedition fame) had to coax and cajole his companions into pushing on as much as I and my brother-in-law did when stuck on a wind-whipped slope far from the cottage as the sun started to set on day one. Then again, if his fellow explorers had been ages seven to ten and he had promised them unlimited access to iThings once home, I dare say they would have overcome any obstacle.