Charlotte and I are currently in southern Thailand on the island of Phuket, smack in the middle of the village of Kata where we’re staying at a nice hotel just 300m to the beach. When we lived in Karon Beach, the next village north of Kata in 2001-2002, every Saturday, my local buddy Saran and I would go diving from Kata Beach. Though much else has changed here, the beach is still really pretty. Not diving this trip, but I hope to do some surfing.

This trip’s main objective is to gather experiences for a travel story about sports-focused vacations in general and Hot Yogain particular. And so, as part of the project, we’re taking a hot yoga class every day for about a month at Kata Hot Yoga run by Dutch guru Govert.

I’ve trained a bunch of different sports over the years, from competitive swimming and high diving to Kung Fu and Muay Thai. I’ve jogged, mountain biked, skied, played squash, and even taught Qigong. I’ve also trained in or at least tried the most common (western) yoga variants.

It’s perhaps not so much the poses per se, although they too are difficult to master, especially for me, a 61-year-old dude with chronic stiffness. But in combination with the high heat (≈ 40°C/105°F) and humidity (80-90%), each completed Hot Yoga (Bikram) class feels like quite the achievement. Above all, it serves as proof that I am still in relatively good shape.

I did 10 consecutive days in 2018 (here’s a video from that assignment) and felt fantastic afterward. My then slightly damaged skin (psoriasis) healed nicely, and my joints (arthritis) rejoiced. This year it’s same, same but different. I’m six years older and a bit less agile. But I’ll be dammed if I’m going to let my age get in the way of a challenge and an activity that has clearly been beneficial to my body.

It feels incredibly good to “invest” in one’s health. We train regularly at home, but here it’s a daily activity, and we get the added benefit of being able to indulge in the best that traditional Thai cuisine has to offer, typically served by friendly, smiling people.

Indulgence is a topic that I am often preoccupied with. I’m so much an expert at indulging that I have a hard time appreciate or finding the silver lining in the mundane, the bland, the daily meh.

So part of this trip, a Hot Yoga challenge, is to reevaluate and realign my sensibilities so that indulgence becomes more of an appreciated scarcity than a daily routine.