Eatin' like a truck driver, Sweet Sanctuary and No Sex Please I'm British!

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For my second month of yoga on Koh Phangan I'm moving to a place called Benjamin's Hut. Friends, Nick and Anke, are joining me. They are in the nice, air conditioned rooms at the front, i'm in the cheap seats or “the stables” as Nick calls them at the back. Its motto is “Simple Place, Simple Life.” I like their style.

However due to my brilliant planning skills I have a night in between I have to find a somewhere cheap to stay, so I opt for a bungalow on Happy Beach.

I'm glad its only one night, i'm kept awake by the prostitute bar “The Honey Pot” that swings well into the early hours and then woken again by a chorus of stray cockerels in the morning. But oh... the beach is heavenly, white sand, clear waters and quiet too. The jelly fish are back, translucent with blue tinged tentacles. A Russian picks one up to show to me – laughing at my little scream as it sits like a scoopful of jelly in his hand. Opposite, there is a place to buy bbq chicken and sticky rice and a can of diet coke for about 70b (two pounds) so i'm very very happy.

Yaniv, an Israeli guy comes over while I'm sitting in my hammock eating an enormous bar of Lindt milk chocolate and almonds. So much for the detox. He's a dark skinned, Israeli masseur with green eyes who is also doing the yoga at Agama. I haven't thought about him “like that'" nevertheless he obviously has been thinking “in that way.” He stops to chat, then asks if he can get into my hammock and eventually one things leads to another... I think, why not explore something so we spend a couple of chaste evenings kissing and watching films – he is a fan of Woody Allen (like me.)

On the night of the closing ceremony for Level 1, Nick has asked if i've really taken a vow of celibacy as i've been joking that i'm not going to have sex for six months. So I decide to do it properly and make a yogic vow. They always say the universe likes to test you once you've made a commitment and sure enough its the very next day that Yaniv walks into my life. I hastily readjust it to something small and manageable in the first instance eerrr a month!

I explain all the reasons around it and how I want to get to know someone properly first, but it doesn't stop him trying all the time which eventually pisses me off.

“I don't mind you know, about it, I don't mind” he says.

“Well it has only been a week and a half,” I retort.

“What would you like? A medal?”

After a few days he heads up north to do a course and Fleur and I decide to cut loose at The Sanctuary – A health spa complex on a secluded little island a short boat ride away from Hadrin. This place has paradise written all over it, a brilliantly pristine beach with huge aquamarine rolling waves, great healthy food from beachside restaurants, treatments and they do yoga classes too. Its Fleurs 31^st birthday so we have a celebratory dinner overlooking the sea and then head to Eden which is a chilled out club night over looking the beach.

We are joined by a couple of Americans – Brandon and his friend Matt – an Architect - they are both from near Santa Barbara way.

Once we've established star sign, rising sign and water sign (I've never met so many men that give a shit about astrology... ) he says

“Oh that explains a lot” with a glint in his eye.

He's good looking in a wholesome hippysh Californian way , with long hair tied into a pony tail, tan, great teeth (when do Americans not have great teeth ) and more than that he's really fun to talk to.

We stay up dancing until it starts to get light with nothing but White Russians to fuel me, and then we grab a few hours sleep and go down to meet the boys for breakfast the next day. Brandon has been lured into doing a Tantric sex worshop. This one will contain nudity and genital fondling. Oh. Goodness!

Fleur doesn't approve of me seeing Yaniv. I think partly because I didn't fancy him before anything happened. Which would be right I suppose.

“Dominique, what are you doing girl!” her blue eyes widen....

“Don't waste time....or time will waste you!” she adds.

God that is a sobering thought.

“Yeees its true, every day we are getting closer to death - don't waste time with someone you are not really interested in, go write your book!”

Well on that cheery note! But she is right. I thank the lord I have one sane person here I've become friends with. What would we do without our girly friends when we need them.

I decide to wait and see what its like when he is back.

When I return from The Sanctuary on sunday i'm feeling sick and take to my bed. I haven't heard from Yaniv but then he just turns up at 8pm to say hello. Or so I think.Then I discover he's given his house away until thursday and needs somewhere to stay and I begin to feel very claustrophobic. On wednesday his friend turns up and also has no where to stay and with this month's Full Moon Party about to kick off in the evening the island is rammed and accommodation is full. So I have to share a bed with Yaniv and his friend sleeps on the hammock.

“I just feel like he demands too much of your attention” Fleur has said.

She's right. He bloody does.

The next night Yaniv, myself and his friend go out for a meal. I'm still feeling ill with a cold. He takes us to an All You Can Eat Bbq similar to the ones I went to in Cambodia. His friend and I are delighted.

“Why didn't you take us here before!” we exclaim.

I know the drill, I load up and so does his friend. The slivers of meat are tiny and the plates are side plates so you don't get much on one, and as the old wive's saying goes: "feed a cold, starve a fever..."

Yaniv has put a selection of fruit and veg on his plate and some egg. He's not a vegetarian but tries to eat yogically with less attachment to food these days. And he obviously wants us to do the same.

“Don't eat too much” he warns both of us. “Listen to me, I came here before and really over did it”

“Just enjoy your egg” says his friend which makes me laugh.

I go and come back with another full plate. At this point Yaniv has finished and has shrunk down in his chair and is glowering.

“My god...” he says to me...

“What's wrong with you you are eating like a truck driver!”

“What is wrong with you!” says his friend, “you are being worse than a Jewish mother!”

We laugh it off and his friend and I make and effort to joke and chat, but Yaniv is sitting brooding in a dark mood. Oh by the way, yes I do eat like a truck driver. As one friend points out later “what else are you supposed to do at an all you can eat buffet!?” but the contrast between that and my delicate frame has always been a source of amusement for guys before now.

We go, and I say i'm ill and want to go home. .

He drives me back in silence- I ask if he's ok but he doesn't really say anything. Then he stops outside the 7 11 to chat to some random girl about nothing.

By the time we get to my house I'm fucking furious.

The next morning he comes over and apologises for being an arse. He just wanted his girlfriend to be "delicate..."

He tells Fleur that i'm overreacting and it was one little thing. I saw his passive aggressiveness (going into a bad mood rather than communicate what was wrong) and wanting me to be something that i'm not as an emotionally manipulative behaviour that would permeate through everything. Either way, I don't need to deal with that a week into seeing someone (or ever actually come to think of it) so I tell him i'll be leaving the island soon and that (clearly as he doesn't seem to fully like me exactly the way i am) we are just not compatible.

Its also taught me what you can discover about someone's personality in the space of a few weeks and I praise the yogic heavens for my new No Sex Please I'm British stance.

The search continues for a man that appreciates a woman with a large appetite...Oh but hey... he's given me a "men behaving like jerks" anecdote that i'll be dining off for months. Pun fully intended.

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Photos

Fleur
Somehow managing to make a head torch look good...

The beach at Hadrin
So much prettier without the Full Moon Party

Meeting the monk
With Fleur, Nick and Brandon.