Word: samui
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Dates: during 2001-2001
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...among the first establishments of its kind in Vang Viang?a casually vibed hangout where foreigners can smoke ganja, drink beer and listen to early '90s house music. It's the sort of place you might expect to find on Khao San Road in Bangkok or in Ko Samui?and its appearance along with a few Internet caf?s means Vang Viang is in the initial throes of a tourism boom. Indeed, the first video bar has opened down the street. Martin Dillon hasn't even named his joint yet. But as the twentysomething Englishman sits on a brown sofa, smoking...
...week (excluding bamboo bungalow rooms that range from $6 to $45 a night), the Spa at Samui's eastern Lamai beach offers nothing less than the elixir of youth. With promises of "a longer and happier life," derivative traders, TV producers, flight attendants and other visitors swallow herbal nutrition tablets, quaff detoxifiers and regularly flush their insides. The talk over laxative tea runs from the latest stock fluctuations to?I'm not joking?the day's excreta. The guest book includes testaments to changed lives and?I wish I were joking?photos of half-meter-long expunged intestinal parasites...
Those with an appetite for more (or maybe less) can also try the quieter Healing Child (also called the Health Oasis) at Ban Bo on the north side of Samui. Here the managers are pushing back the frontiers of science. "The feeling of hunger is emotionally rather than physically based," they claim, adding that anyone feeling woozy during a fast is merely suffering "an illusion of the mind." Hunger moves in cycles, they say. Pangs return after 4 hours, then 9, 18, 36, three days, one week, two weeks, three weeks and finally six weeks. For some, the treatments...
...Samui's least-developed beach, Ao Thong, the Samui Dharma Healing Center offers a personalized, no-frills holistic fast. For $300 a week, American owner Hillary Hitt and husband Greg give one-on-one and group counseling sessions as well as classes on nutrition, meditation and yoga to a maximum of 18 participants. "Cleansing is a journey, a deep spiritual experience. You need a teacher and you need support," says Hitt. A lot of it, in fact. In the first few days of fasting, guests can expect "nausea, dizziness, headaches, exhaustion, heaviness, bloating and moods of anger, depression, fear, sadness...
...Suan Mokkh runs monthly 10-day meditation courses led by resident monks and visiting teachers. The $28 fee covers food and lodging. Meditators sit for a series of 30-minute sessions, listen to talks, chant and relax in nearby hot springs. Find more details at suanmokkh.org. An hour from Samui by boat is Koh Phangan, home of legendary Full Moon parties and the austere Wat Kow Tahm meditation center. Rosemary and Steve Weissman's retreats, which last for anywhere from 10 days to three months ($83 for 10 days), are not for the daydreamer. Talking, reading, writing and even sign...