Whirlpools, Yoga and the Balance of Life

By Lindsey Porter

Sucked into a whirlpool…

Discovering pre-Inca tribal remains…

Breaking an ankle 5000 metres up the side of a volcano…

These are just a few of the unexpected circumstances Lindsey Porter found herself in as she travelled to some of the world's most incredible locations.

For the first time, these tales have been brought together in a collection that shares the unforeseen and often humorous outcomes, whilst revealing an insight into places that are a little off the tourist trail.

They also track her amazing life-journey from being a Senior Project Manager working in Financial Services to travelling to India to train as a Yoga Teacher. Now a tutor for Yoga Scotland, she has written for the Huffington Post, YOGA, OM Yoga magazines and co-founded voicesofyoga - yoga podcasts listened to in over 70 countries.

Come and join Lindsey on her journeys and find out why the best travel tales are often unexpected. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Book Reality Experience
• Release date: Dec 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9780648447160

Book preview

Magical Mushroom Times

1992

Age 20

Thailand

My 20s, unusually, meant regular, cost free holidays to the hot, exotic and exciting country of Thailand. It was a dream come true. Especially for a skint University student. Whilst I was studying Economics at the University of Leeds my mum and dad had left home before me and were living as expats in Bangkok. Dad was leading the financial element of an oil and exploration project. Classed as a dependant (being a student), it was part of dad’s contract to fly me out to visit them, expenses paid, at academic holiday times. I was young and it was a time for living, experiencing new things and if I’m honest, taking a lot for granted.

It wasn’t that I had grown up spoilt. My upbringing until I reached 18 and left for University had been in an end of row ex-council house with one bathroom in Hatfield, in the county of Hertfordshire, just north of London. It was a big change adjusting to living in a luxury Penthouse Suite that covered the entire floor of an apartment block (called Hawaii Towers) and included a live-in maid with her own quarters plus a chauffeur driven car. At first I felt undeservedly privileged and then it quickly became the norm.

When Emma, a good friend from Hatfield that I had known from the age of fifteen, said she’d come out with me on my next planned trip, I excitedly suggested we visit the up and coming party island of Koh Samui; Thailand’s second largest island situated off the east coast in the Gulf of Thailand. I had heard amazing things about this paradise island but had yet to venture there. Koh Samui has since become a hugely popular and well developed tourist destination for all things spa and partying.

Emma had been a lifeline to me at the age of fifteen. Meeting her allowed me to break out of my dorky studious ugly girl image and blossom into a more exciting and adventurous young woman. Emma was a school year above me and went to the Bishop’s Hatfield Girls’ School whereas I went to the ‘rougher’ mixed, non-denominational school, Onslow St Audrey’s. I immediately looked up to her and enjoyed her open, honest and inquisitive outlook on life. She was fun to be around and took me for who I was. Although quite different personalities we laughed a lot as we worked together on the tills at the Notcutts Garden Centre in St Albans, and we both enjoyed chatting and flirting with the boys who also worked there. A deep friendship took root and one that remains strong some thirty years later even though we are now living at the opposite ends of the UK. I remember we particularly had fun with the tannoy system. It was based at the main till and resonated around the garden centre, inside and out through large speakers. If you ever passed through that garden centre on a weekend when we were working, you would likely have heard the sound of a couple of girls collapsing into giggles. I often wonder what the shoppers must have thought as they heard our voices blaring out through the speakers while they shopped for pansies and garden soil improver.

Back to Koh Samui, where these paradise-like islands were being increasingly discovered by the backpacker set. In 1992 it was beautiful, unspoilt and yet to be developed. Proper roads did not exist, only dusty dirt tracks. With only our backpacks, including a hairdryer that Emma has insisted on bringing from home, and our keen sense of adventure we set off from Bangkok. After a crazy journey to Koh Samui which consisted of an overnight train which stopped in the middle of the night without any announcement of our station stop; sitting in the back of an open truck; a sick-inducing sea crossing on a shabby old boat and then standing in (which was more like clinging on to) the back of a jeep type truck. Eventually we rocked up to the most gorgeous row of wooden beach huts on the most delicious looking beach we’d ever seen. Oh and also with some of the best looking male specimens around – young men of differing nationalities, mostly Israeli, various other Mediterraneans and Antipodeans, all looking very toned, tanned and cool.

Life on Koh Samui was great. The only things to worry about were the occasional huge cockroaches that came to visit our hut and the rabid-looking mad dogs that lounged about, looking forlorn but totally crazy at the same time. (Thailand being a Buddhist country condemns the harming of anything which includes animals in ill health or those posing a danger to the public.) I can’t remember if Emma ever managed to use her hairdryer as electricity in the huts was always a bit hit and miss, but I do remember waking up one morning feeling very thirsty. Looking around I found the six-pack of litre bottles of water we had lugged back in the heat from the shop the previous day was being deployed by Emma to wash her clothes in the sink. I was aghast at the use of our precious water for this purpose but Emma was more concerned about not washing her tops in the orangey yellow water that was coming out of the tap. She had decided only bottled water would do the job!

One day Emma and I were on the lookout for a new adventure, so when we heard there was a ‘magic mushroom pizza café’ a bit further along the beach we decided it had to be tried and tasted.

After consuming a surprisingly tasty mushroom pizza for lunch which, in hindsight, I’m thankful we decided to share between us, we ambled back along the beach towards our hut and everything seemed much the same as before. I thought, ‘well ok I’ve tried it now, no big deal’. After a short while walking along the shallow aquamarine waters of the shoreline, we passed some people we had become friendly with and they asked us how things were going… and then I started giggling with a feeling of ‘I’m going to laugh my face off’. I couldn’t talk or explain what was so funny, only carry on walking. We continued our ambling and giggling to our own private jokes and the new reality we were now experiencing.

We arrived back at our hut and things got pretty weird and memories blurry. I do specifically remember being absolutely certain I had figured out the meaning of life and meticulously wrote it down on a piece of paper. A piece of paper that, when I found it the next day, had unreadable scrawl all over it and not in my usual handwriting. I had also been convinced every crack and spot I saw in our hut had been a large black insect, either a cockroach or huge spider. Emma remembers me sitting swaying from side to side for many hours with my long plaited hair. Several local ladies had spent hours on the beach one day putting beads in at the end of each braid. I don’t recall much of what Emma was doing whilst I was happily swaying my head back and forth, but I woke up early the following morning on the beautiful, peaceful and serene sands that was Chaweng beach with the sun rising. I was in the company of several mangy, flea-infested dogs. They seemed very content to be cuddled up into my warm body. I quickly untangled myself from them before I started radiating my rising sense of fear. Convinced I was seconds away from being scratched or bitten by them I swiftly headed back to our hut.

On the way I passed a few sunbathers up early and heading to the beach and was asked how I had enjoyed my mushrooms. When I asked how they knew, they smiled and said they could hear me laughing for most of the day from our hut.

In case you’re wondering we stuck with ‘ordinary’ pizza after that!

Life lessons learned:

Be young and crazy (at least) once!

A Leech of an Adventure

1997

Age 24

Nepal

It often seems to be the ‘right of the young’ to be gung-ho and plunge into things, like an adventure halfway around the world, without very much precision or organisation around the important details. That’s how my epic two-week experience in Nepal seemed to unfold. Like Enid Blyton’s Famous Five’s tales of adventure that I read growing up, the five of us (but no dogs in this case); Carlos, Linda, Ajit (Aj), Anita and myself set off with enthusiasm, seeking adventure. Two guys and three girls, all working in London, some of us at the same bank on a Graduate Management Trainee Scheme. We came together as a group of work colleagues, friends and friends of friends. When Linda came on board to join our unfolding expedition, she grabbed the whole ‘trek-to-Nepal’ idea by the horns and I believe was the first to head out and buy the Lonely Planet travellers’ bible on Nepal – always a good first step. I think from that point on I felt everything was sorted and would simply fall into place. I remember the first time I thumbed through my own copy of Lonely Planet with any intent; it was on the flight to Kathmandu. Despite the lack of team planning, it miraculously came together in an ad hoc kind of way (‘the right of the young’ approach working well) and it became one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life at that time.

It also included one of the more memorable flying experiences. We had purchased our plane tickets from various dubious ‘bucket’ travel shops around London. Dubious to the extent I remember Carlos returning to his one day with a question about travel insurance to find the ‘office’ had vanished into thin air. The flights held fast but via an interesting route. Boarding the Aeroflot plane at Heathrow I thought the poor reputation of the Russian national carrier was bestowed unfairly. We had a smooth flight in a modern plane into Moscow. The rest becomes a little fuzzy in my memory probably for good reason.

I understand from the others many vodkas and gin and tonics were consumed in the Moscow transit lounge. Ah! The joys of youth… If it had been now you’d most probably would see me rolling out my yoga mat and sipping water! We then flew via a dizzying number of Middle Eastern countries, taking off and landing every few hours. My tension began to rise with every touch down as I kept thinking the odds of us crashing were increasing each time. The rest of the passengers must have shared this sense of rising panic as on every landing there erupted an enthusiastic round of applause (the first time I had ever seen this happen on a flight).

It didn’t take long to notice that on our flights after Moscow there were a distinct lack of cabin crew and the usual electrical gadgetry visible in the cabin – replaced instead with a lot of peeling-off stickers. There was no sense of flight routine; no ‘fasten seat belt’ check or any instruction about lifebelts or oxygen masks (the latter I felt I already needed). Passengers were freely wandering around the cramped cabin, cramped because bags were piled up anywhere and everywhere. Many had come prepared with their own refreshments and were drinking directly from large bottles of vodka. I believe these people were the frequent flyer contingent and we should have probably followed their lead in finding the most comfortable way to endure the flight.

Grateful for being alive, we descended through some spectacularly massive cloud formations into the mystical, timeless city of Kathmandu. As a bonus our luggage arrived too!

What a treat of a place to be in as our passing through/stopping over place in Nepal. We decamped from the airport into what I recall as being a tuk-tuk type vehicle, but I’m not sure how that could have been possible what with five of us and five big back packs. Surely we didn’t all fit into one? What is clearer was Aj, insisted on using his Hindi to negotiate the price and sort out where we were heading to, to find a place for the night. However, his valiant insistent linguistic efforts kept being met with the tuk-tuk driver responding in English. It became rather comical to watch both persisting in using their international language skills.

We eventually