Wednesday 18th April 2012 - Krabi, Tonsai Beach

Today I realised how unfulfilled I am. I feel like somewhere along the line I have lost my way and lost sight of my purpose for this trip. I have been trying new things and have been eating great food, meeting amazing people and visiting the most beautiful places but yet I feel unexcited.  At the start of my trip I used to wake up early filled with a hunger for the day ahead, excited for all the new possibilities. Now, one month down the line I sleep a lot and am not excited by anything. Meeting new people seems like an effort that I can not be bothered with, trying new things seems like effort and trying to plan anything can wait for tomorrow.  Sitting in bars drinking is not why I took this trip. Don't misunderstand me for a second, I have loved the trip so far but now I am back to my thinking before the start of my journey - I need inner enlightenment as I feel that I am and have been missing something in my life for a long time. I hid away from my lack of fulfilment in life in my relationship and tried to hide my head in the sand. The breakup of my relationship meant that I didn't have that shield anymore and despite probably being able to hide in other aspects of my life like my job, my friendships or my family, i just realised that doing that will always lead to me being unhappy. I will always seek my happiness in other people or things as I can't find it in myself. I have been trying to do that on my trip so far also - filling my time with everything else but me. It's like a serial cheater - in my opinion they only cheat and sleep with loads of different people because they are lacking something in their life, but no matter how many different people they sleep with they will never be happy because there is something bigger that needs to be addressed. I am glad that something has clicked today as I can now change the path that I am on and make the most of my last two months. I think the only way I can do that is by seeking a higher meaning and appreciation for the smaller things - I have moments where I appreciate the small things but I often let my emotions control everything. My thoughts to curbing this was a Buddhist Meditation Centre as decided before my trip, but I had delayed my journey to go there up until now and felt that now was the right time for me to head there. Maybe after my journey for self acceptance and inner happiness (hopefully achieved by taming my emotions and thoughts and learning more) I can continue my travels with a different take on things.  I decided that I would head over to The Last Bar to use the internet to research flights to Sri Lanka as my intention was to head there in the next couple of days to start my Buddhist meditation retreat. There are three ways to Railay: the walk through the jungle that I had done with Maria during the day yesterday, over the rocks like last night, or by boat. After being quoted 400baht for the boat I decided on the rocks. I was wearing flip flops but knew from previous experience that when they get wet they are slippery so I opted to do the climb bare footed. The rocks were really slippery and sharp - I came out with two injuries; a cut thumb from holding onto a needle sharp rock and a bruised grazed leg. I felt lucky because one guy I saw on the journey going in the opposite direction had opted to leave his sandals on and had slipped and bust open his big toe. After sitting in "the last bar" for maybe four hours researching flights to Sri Lanka and looking for websites on buddhism and meditation I decided that I needed to head to a book shop. I started to feel that just turning up to the buddhist meditation centre and hoping for a miracle was naive. I have no prior knowledge of meditation or Buddhism and feel like I should probably start doing some reading. The dj from last night was in the bar so i asked him where to go for a bookshop. I am on a small island so the only bookshop was one where tourists hand in their used ones so the price was like 100baht (just over £2 for a book. The only one that really stood out to me or was even vaguely along the lines of what i was looking for was a book called "The art to real happiness". It seemed appropriate so I bought it and went back to "the last bar" to try and read it. However, the worst headache started and made it impossible for me to focus for long. What I did read was that the book was about finding happiness through the mind and religion. This is a path I was willing to try given that I was looking to go to a Buddhist meditation centre so I figured this would be my bible for the next couple of days.  Today had been Mihai's birthday so Maria and Mihai had spent the day together but joined me at the last bar in the evening for dinner. My headache was still really bad by the time they came so we ate, watched the same show as yesterday and I decided that I was going to leave. Maria and Mihai had an argument during dinner and there was tension in the air so they decided to leave with me. My headache meant that I was so bloody willing to pay to stay in Railay for the night instead of doing that horrible walk over the rocks but knowing that Maria and Mihai were going to do the walk with me motivated me. The tide was pretty high so we had to go a different route to the night before. It was pretty steep and I had sweat dripping everywhere but we made it eventually.  I took two migraleve and went to bed.