Working in Marina Yoga and Reiki centre in Krabi, Thailand, you are constantly exposed to a high degree of spirituality, which might be inspiring but sometimes also demanding. Time runs quickly here with two yoga classes every day, reiki healing sessions, going to beaches, temples and for forest walks with the ten dogs Marina has taken in to look after so that they would not go stray in the streets.
I love the community we have created here, Celine, Nick and Karl all of whom I have mentioned in my previous article. What I don’t like is the early wake up before 7 a.m. so that we can make breakfast ready for all the guests and us by 8 a.m. and tidy up a little. At 9:30 a.m. there is the morning class, at 6 p.m. the evening class. The time in between is usually our spare, unless there are some therapies or shopping needed.
Now, sadly enough, this – probably just like any country – is a place where corruption occurs in a great extent at varied levels and if you work here without a work permit (even if just in an exchange for a bed and food) you might get kicked out easily. Karl, one of our staff members, an excellent yoga teacher, has been around here for 5 months and now has to leave due to the VISA issue that cannot get sorted unless you bribe someone important… we are getting a newcomer today and we all pray that the person would fit in the team just as much as Karl did.
I have a great fancy for Celine, a modest, honest and sincere woman whose yin nature and shyness inspire me greatly. And then, there is Nick: the amazing yoga practitioner with whom I do acro yoga here too, the banjulele player, the chef whose morning pancakes are a bliss, the massage therapist, a great swimmer and singer, a person with an open heart and mind and strength that shocks you, especially when he carries things you cannot even lift up as if they weighed ten kilos barely. I often get the feeling that this guy is just good at anything he touches and tries. Funny enough though, what I have learned on my way through life is the fact that usually the most capable and skilful people think of themselves somewhere deep inside as “not good enough”, “not deserving”. I don’t know why I get this feeling with Nick too, the feeling that he simply cannot believe the fact that he is quite amazing…
It makes me think: why is it so? Why do many people who are incompetent, “basic”, think that they are a stun, while there are those fit at all levels yet unaware of it… A lot of questions come to my mind here in the centre and they do not equal the number of answers I receive…
Krabi is a relaxing province of Thailand that has the most stunning scenery imaginable, beautiful white beaches that stretch on for miles, jungles, forests, limestones cliffs and over 200 islands just around the coast. There are lagoons and caves and Buddhist temples but even though Thailand is the second country with the largest Buddhist proportion (after Cambodia), Krabi is rather a Muslim area with a great number of mosques.
People here are generally nice, but of course, as a Western person, you are mostly a walking treasure chest for them, even though I personally cannot complain, people have been kind with haggling and when I go shopping for veggies to the local markets, I usually get some fruit for free though I can only say “thank you” in Thai, which is by the way a tonal, thus very difficult language.
The monsoon time is finishing now, so there are not too many rains, but we still get showers and sometimes they catch you when you are on your scooter, which is no fun, since you get all the rain in your face and the local plastic raincoats get soaked through after a few minutes. I am using my Czech-made plastic raincoat (I have used it here for the first time in the four years since I bought it) and it proved itself well-made, surviving the rain blasts during several of my rides.
Yes, it is actually a new thing that I am now riding a scooter. I tried with a bike here, but the area gets hilly sometimes and it is hot and humid and it is just too much work on the bike (especially since their quality here is rather miserable), so I decided to get over my fear of driving and got on a scooter and I must say I love it and enjoy it very much. It is rather easy, really, just like on a bike, but less work I should say…
The truth is that I learn on the way: for the first few rides when I wanted to see who is behind me I would turn around on the scooter, until I realized during like my third ride that there are two rear-view mirrors on the scooter! Well, what I did not learn in the driving school, life would teach me.
Speaking of technologies – my toilet got clogged. I realized too late that toilet paper cannot be thrown into the loo here but into a bin due to the tiny pipe-lines… imagine a loo packed with a great amount of dirt up to the edge. And think of this: a Thai handyman came around to deal with it and guess what the first thing he did was… Surely, he tried flushing the loo again! Nice… dirt everywhere on the floor and who had to clean it all up? In the end though, my loo is working just fine, so, I am grateful I don’t have to walk out of my room too far at nights to the big bathrooms. Cause there are cobras in the area here.
The first thing they explained to me straight upon my arrival was how to act when you encounter one: stay still, breath slowly and do not look at the snake. Especially the part about breathing is easy to do, right?
I just hope I will not see any around…