A bit of Frog Spotting

I have never seen so much rain in my entire life.  

There is a tropical storm passing through Koh Samui …. the palm trees are swaying wildly in the wind like Fragol Rock, regular forks of lightening light up the sky, the yoga centre is part flooded and all the electric has been off for about 10 hours.  

I sit here on bed with two T-lights and half batt. power on Larry the laptop.  

I have been here 4 days now.

WE woke up to thundering rain and a continuous strange new range of resonant Barry White like repetitive hum of cow like sounds, throughout the village ….. at first I thought it was water buffalo singing about abundant water but it seemed far to constant and rhythmic.  So I asked the lovely Thai lady at the desk and found out it's actually hundreds and thousands of happy frogs…. all chatting to each other, having a sing and a party…..  it is so loud I wish I could put the sound on here…. each frog sounds like a low pitched cow.  Its so bonkers.  I wonder what they are saying?

Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe"  

or 

"You're The First, The Last, My Everything!"

or

"Ohhhhh Mildred, this weather is fabulous isn't it pet?  

Aren't you glad we came to Thailand for our 'Ols. Just Brilliant.  Couldn't ask for better weather."

A Squashed Frog ... 

Not by me I must add... a tragic sight for us all but a good chance to illustrate scale.

And as you walk bare footed around…. no point wearing any shoes as everything just gets wet and everywhere is flooded… you might see a tiny weeny black things flying in different directions out of your path.  

On closer inspection you realise its not a dancing bug or beetle but these tiny weeny frogs … about the size of a garden pea … they are ridiculously cute.  Surely it cant be them making this huge noise? 

Seriously now.

Yesterday I went and rode an elephant for the first time, with a fellow yogi friend.  I had a spitting camel ride in Israel once years ago but this was one of those things 'one' does in Thailand in the hope that it helps Ellys to be looked after and treated well.  Our elephants name was 'No Om' and she, as you would imagine was pretty special with her pink and grey speckled nose and ears.  

I never realised their skin could be variegated.  

She really was beautiful and bloomin loved bananas!

I had to hide two in R's bag for the end..... she could smell them.

We bought two bunches of bananas at huge expense to feed her as we trekked around this village in the rain…. her skin was beautiful, hard, creased and warm and I placed my feet on her neck as we rode around trying to send messages of love and massage her neck  with my toes.  She kept searching behind her head for our bananas and we had to place them in her nozzle very few minutes.  Every now and then she would breath a fast hot and very moist breath out of her nose into my face which was very amusing.

The whole affair was a bit of a con really and in order to kill time the driver, a wiry athletic Thai lad,  kept stopping and taking photos of us.  He took 35 with my camera and about the same with Rs.  My battery ran out but i took some lovely photos later from the top but need to get them off Rs camera.  (Will post later.)

The circuit was rather uninteresting except when he took us past the little bamboo huts with a beautiful vista of palm trees and a waterfall in the distance but generally it was the least effort employed for a substantial amount of baht …. I don't think I would have called into a 1 hour jungle trek but more a photo laden jaunt .  BUT it was still worth every minute... just to put my feet on her skin and feel the tufty hairs on her head. 

Funny if you think about the tiny weeny froglets on the one hand and on the other the huge mammoth beautiful beasts of the elephants.  I bet a few of those froglets get squashed by those big feet everyday!  

"My God Run for it Mildred!"

On my way back to the room tonight with my torch and my new yogic friend R, a lovely trannie from the North East of the UK, who is really funny.  We spotted a turtle on one side of the pond and a bright green frog spreadeagled, floating on the water in what looked like Shavasena, the lying down chill out pose at the end of yoga practice.  I thought it looked extremely dead but after another glance at Mr Turtle we looked back and the yogic frog was gone.  Its a mad animal kingdom ... I love it!

QUICK!  RUN FOR IT!!!!!!!

The rain has brought them all out to party.  Woop! Woop!

I still have not eaten anything but vegetables and juice. 

Mainly vegetable juice!

The veggie dishes are plain but tasty.  I have to say that the pickled cabbage and cauliflower is getting a little laborious, in more ways than one.  Our biggest feed is at lunch and I was delighted today when I saw we had some noodles (OH MY GODDDD!) and wait for it .... vegetables.  But generally we get steamed vegetables, like kale, carrots, pumpkin, corn and broccoli.  Its very simple food but right now I am now thinking about Hot Chocolate and crisps.

With it being such WET monsoonal weather and there being no electric…. having no booze, no power, no sugar, no tea, no meat, no crisps …… you could say it is a truly yogic experience ... a lesson in detachment.  I have never done this before in my life- getting up at 6am everyday for meditation.  We practise yoga for three hours a day… and you sweat!  You really sweat and its really challenging yoga that demands strength and flexibility.  My practice is coming back to me and I am slowly feeling stronger.  My legs get the shakes quite a lot in some of the Warrior poses but I know that they will be getting stronger too and I have realised how tight my feet muscles are and inflexible especially in my hips and my legs.  

Anyway … before I bore you to death….. I will go to sleep … its 8pm, battery is low and there's bugga all else to do.  

Sadly our boat trip has been cancelled tomorrow so guess what…… I am going to start the cushion cover tapestry cover I bought at Nancy's in NZ.  I have never done one before in my life so should be fun, and my new funny friend wants to add some stitches.  He / she quite fancies getting into embroidery and it will be the first time in my life that I get someone doing tapestry.  Brilliant....

HAND STITCHING!!!!!

COULD THIS BE THE ANSWER?  

Most definitely not.  

Talk about a step in the wrong direction. :)

Hope you all good my friends.

Louey the Frog Spotter not Squatter x