My Week at the Ashram: Day 1

For me, any trip begins with the turbulent night before a flight especially if I need to be up early.  Tortuous ceiling gazing where minutes feel like hours; Incoherent mind chatter broken only by thoughts of danger and disaster.  Will the taxi arrive on time?  And when it does, will the driver take me to a quiet country lane to rob, rape and murder me?  Even if I survive the taxi ride, chances are the plane will crash on take off.  My funeral plays out to music by The Pixies and I'm especially troubled by my daughter's pain and confusion.  Jesus Christ!  I need to lighten up.  What is wrong with me? 

The alarm goes off.  It hardly needs to.  I've been awake all night.  My bags are by the door, my clothes laid out in "rainman" fashion, so much so, I am dressed in one flowing movement which is just as well since my eyes aren't working properly.  I then go say my last goodbyes to The Silverback and The Lish because of course, I'm probably going to be murdered on the way to the train station.  I take a mental picture of my lisherlish's angelic sleeping face.  I'll need something to focus on when I'm being slowly tortured to death.

Enough already. I'm out the door.  The cab is waiting for me. It takes10 minutes to get to Paddington within half an hour I'm at the airport.  10 minutes later I'm through security.  And now I have to kill TWO WHOLE HOURS.  Christ - I missed out on 8 hours sleep for this?  I'm so preoccupied at how smoothly this is all going I kind of forget that I'm actually on my way to Nassau, The Bahamas Dog!!!!  I'm off to Paradise Suckas!!!!  And before I know it I'm on the plane.  I get to my seat and I see a man with hair like this.....

...and the mothafucka is sitting next to me.   

So I'm about to take off for a 9 hours flight.  Stuck with the German Phil Spector farting away next to me and I realise I haven't given a second thought to The Silverback or The Lish in over 2 hours. How quickly we forget.  I also realise I haven't brought any snacks with me.  Well done.  Still, I figure since I am on my way to an ashram where indulgence is not de rigeur - fasting for the next 9 hours will be good practice. 

Four hours later I'm ravenous - ready to eat the arsehole out of a donkey.  I'm so hungry I can't even concentrate on the films.  I can't read and I'm in no mood to write.  And I most definitely don't want to speak to the Herr Spector sitting next to me.   I mean - look at him.

So I drink.  It's the only thing that British Airways doesn't charge for.  What a great idea.  I'm off to an ashram where coffee, tea, dairy, meat, fish, garlic, onion (yeah, I don't get those last two either) and ...what's the last thing?...oh yeah, ALCOHOL is strictly forbidden.  But I clearly don't appreciate this fully at the time.

We land in The Bahamas.  At. Long. Last.    I'm deliriously tired; ferociously hungry and absolutely mangled by alchohol.  And it's baking.  But it's all too easy.  My bag is one of the first off the conveyer belt.  I ask someone for change to call the ashram and I'm shown to a table where there is a freephone.  I must be dreaming.  I have in fact overslept and the plane has left without me.  I'm still in West Hampstead - must be.  But no.  It appears I am actually in Nassau airport making a free call. 

This bodes well.

I'm left alone to make my own way to a taxi rank.  No one bothers me.  No one tries to sell me rum.  The cab is clearly licensed and one fabulous ride later that takes me right across the middle of this beautiful island I arrive at the "new dock on Elizabeth and Bay".  I memorised that in advance to look like I knew where I was going.  I'm a white honkey with an Anthropologie bag worth hundreds of pounds slung over my shoulder. I smell of insect repellent and I'm convinced that simply by confidently stating the destination I'll will surely slip by unnoticed, just like a local.

But it's all perfect.  I get to the dock where someone who looks decidedly yogi-like is already there waiting for me.  I mean this is just incredible.  I'm swept into a boat and this is where I end up.

Little did I know but this would be the beginning of the very best solo holiday since my round -the-world trip in 2002.  And this little hut below would be my home for the next 6 days.

And this my back yard:

London and all the stresses that slowly chip away at me day in day out felt very far away indeed. 

And while I didn't know it then, this would mark the start of a life changing experience.