Episode #195 - I was poisoned!!!

Welcome to the Mastering Midlife Podcast, where we talk about all the crazy fun things that happen when you are a midlife mama. I'm your host, Heather London. Let's dig in.

hola guapas okay let's do a little update here because my whole trip is based on in the winter time i hate the cold i hate the dreariness and i love the sunshine and i am an ocean kinda girl i am a beach girl now i it's not because i love to lay on the beach i just love being in the ocean and my feet in the sand like i just feel so connected to mother nature and that's why it's so important for me

So when I started this whole Southeast Asia trip, I'm like, I'm going to go to Bali. That was my end goal. And then as I'm looking at the map, I'm like, hey. i might only go to southeast asia one time so let's pick all the way all the countries along the way and stop and do a couple days here a couple days there just so i could get a feel for

what each country is about, what the culture is about. Now, I know that a couple of days is not enough time to really get to know and absorb and understand the culture, but, but, but, but I do have to say. Just a little taste test kind of gives you an idea of what it's all about. So having said that, my first couple of weeks was a whirlwind. I was in and out. My days were packed. I was doing things like...

doing all the tourist things. If you ever travel, you definitely want to get an app called Get Your Guide because it has all the popular activities and you can just book it on your phone. It's so easy. It's got all the ratings. It's got all the, like there's a hundred different.

companies that offer this and you can see their ratings and when you're traveling like that more like as a vacationing tourist it's good to like just cut to the chase and get all of these you know things on your list done And so I was traveling like that. And that's not normally the way I travel. I like to immerse myself in the culture and really get to know what...

this group of people is all about and see if I can make some connections and be a part of the community and just really, you know, be a part of it and understand it. And that's why the first i don't know like couple of weeks was intense because i was just on to the next country on to the next country but i decided after talking to a lot of people and doing a lot of research that Bali this time of year is in its rainy season and a lot of people that have been to Bali recently like

You learn a lot when you're a traveler and you talk to other travelers because they've just been there. They've just had the experience and it's like up to date in the know kind of information.

And I've learned so much from, you know, chatting with all these people that I realized, okay, I don't want to be in Bali right now because it's rainy season and I could be in Vancouver, you know what I'm saying? But there's... other places that are better than bali because bali is crowded and dirty and it's not what it used to be so i'm going to put that on the back burner for now and just see how i feel still an option but maybe not till the end of my trip

Having said that, I just came from Siem Reap in Cambodia, had a... blast absolutely the people are amazing and it was the first time i actually saw sunshine so meaning like there wasn't a lot of smog and it was a fabulous experience fabulous experience

And now I am in, I stopped for a day in Phuket. And now I found this tiny little island that I'm hoping to stay for, you know, a while and start to... become a part of the community and really experience the culture now this is my vibe i'm talking like yesterday okay here's what happened i showed up at my hotel and it was just

like i've done a lot of research but i'm like okay i'll just be close to where the speed boat drops you off and then i can just walk to my hotel and get a feel for what the island's all about and check out everything and see where i want to be and so i'm at the the the top of the island like i'm at the north end of the island and and the hotel it's like a

owned by a husband and wife young husband they're so nice and their place is spotless like they love keeping it clean and you walk down the street and there's nothing except for their hotel which is like full of gorgeous plants and colored tiles and it's just so gorgeous. And it's literally a 30 second walk to the beach.

And there's probably like eight rooms and they live on the main floor and they're always there. This is their business. They're there to help you and they're super kind and super helpful. And I love, love, love their place. And I love them. It's amazing. When I walk to the beach.

i'm like nobody's on the beach what the heck and so i walk down onto the beach and it's like kind of like you know when you're stepping on um shells that aren't broken down it's kind of like oh ah and there's garbage and i'm like what the heck is happening and nobody's on the beach and it's not a gorgeous white sandy beach i was really like where am i what have i done like how could all of these

reviews be so off didn't make sense and when I went out my first time on the beach I'm like let me into the ocean that's when I realized I remembered how much I love the ocean and I love the beach is when I'd been doing all this traveling and not near the ocean. As soon as I reached the ocean, I'm like, ah, I could just exhale. I feel like it was a mermaid.

in or a starfish in a previous life like i just find the ocean so healing and having your feet connected to the earth is just so healing and so grounding it was it just like oh you just exhale and let it all go it's like i'm home just that feeling of being where you belong that's what it felt like when i stepped onto the beach for the first time even though it was a little bit gross and so i the tide was out and so i was walking in the little

puddles like as the tide is out you know like the the little pools of water and all of a sudden i'm like oh oh what the heck is happening here and i was getting like little stings by teeny teeny jellyfish like sometimes this happens there's just like a wave depends on the tide and the season and all this stuff but

i read later that this can happen right and they're just little like little stinging nettles but i'm walking in this beach right i don't want to be and i'm disgruntled and all of a sudden i get start like getting zapped by all these you can't even see them like there were some jellyfish

washed up on the shore that were ginormous, like the size of your head, bigger than your head. But there was these little guys that were stinging me. I'm like, oh, what the heck is going on? Okay, well, no wonder nobody's in this water.

And then I got out of the water and went back to my hotel really disgruntled. Like, what have I done? What have I done? And then the next day I rented a scooter from the fabulous people here at the hotel. It was so funny because. I, I rode a scooter when I was in Nicaragua a couple of years ago, but I just, I'm not a scooter kind of person. And so the guy's like showing me, like he shows it to me, like here, here's how you turn it on. And here's how you turn it off. And here's how you.

started and i'm like oh what does this do what does that do like because i have no idea and he's just laughing because obviously i don't know what i'm doing like oh here's how you open the seat you can put stuff in there or you know like there's he didn't show me all of the things because there's not a lot of things and it's pretty basic but I remember him

saying as he handed over the key he just kind of held it for a second and then he looked me directly in the eye he's super nice guy very kind he looked me directly in the eye before he let go of the key and he said go slow and be careful like he doesn't like English he doesn't have a lot of English but that was like perfectly clear he was just I think thinking like oh my god I'm never gonna see this woman again she's gonna like drive off a bridge somewhere it was so funny I'm like okay got it

go slow and be careful the beautiful thing about where i am though is that there's literally one road i can't get lost like i just can't And everybody here drives really slowly. There's not a ton of cars. They're mostly mopeds, like little scooters and tuk-tuks. and not a ton of cars and everybody drives slow it's not like in the other places where you're honking just be like hey hey i'm passing i'm not stopping like honking is a language like in in vietnam it's like

they're always honking because they're talking to each other. It's not like road rage honk like it is back home. So it's really easy. The only thing is you drive on the other side of the road. So it's like, yeah, whatever, until you're trying to make like a right hand turn.

because that way you're like it's the opposite of what you do and you're you're like what the hell is going on but people are really good you literally like just drive around people there's nobody that's unhappy so i'm like how hard can this be

And I took my little scooter, packed my bag for the day, and I started to go down the beach. And I had mapped out the night before on Google Maps all the beaches. And I thought, I'm going to stop at all of them because this can't be right. Like, this can't be right. Literally five minutes down the road, I'm in a little scootin' bootin' mooter, was like the first stop.

and i parked my little scooter and it was i did get a little lost because there's no names of streets it's just like luckily the scooter has like a mount for your phone so you can use your directions as you're driving And it's like, oh, turn here. I'm like, is there even a street there? You can't even tell, but you know it's to the beach because you see like a lot of people going down that street, which isn't a street. And so, oh, awesome.

There it is. I know that that is the beach. And so if I drive by a couple, like, of course I drive by it and have to turn around and come back, whatever. You just drive down this little road and boom, I walk out onto the absolute. most beautiful gorgeous beach i've ever seen and i was like okay this is what it's all about this is what it's all about

I was so happy to see that beach because I really thought that I was in the wrong spot and I had made a horrible mistake, which isn't a big deal because I can just go to another island. It's not a problem.

I had done a lot of research and I'm like, what is up with this beach? And the first beach was just beautiful, soft, like yellow, gorgeous sand. And the water was like, clear blue and just it was so amazing there were people in the beach and restaurants and bars and just like ah this is what it's all about and so I walked up and down the beach just to get a vibe for it

and then i got on my scooter and i went to the next beach and it was even better this beach was like like five times as long and again not a ton of people but the water was clear and the beach was clean and it was just so many restaurants so much to do oh and then i went to the next beach and it was funny because i had to pay an entrance fee to get into it with my scooter and i went down the beach and it was like

a really small beach that's where people go just to only be on the beach and i'm like oh i didn't i don't think i meant to go here because i like i like the long beaches because like i said i don't sit on the beach in suntan i walk I walk the beach. What I do every morning is as soon as I get up, I go to the beach and I walk.

all the way down one end and down the other end because i'm getting the morning sunlight in my eyes because that is critical for your circadian rhythm for optimal health and then i jump in the water and go swimming because it's so cleansing and i'm moving my body and then i'll just hang out in the shade until i dry off and i get i try not to wear any sunscreen i always wear a hat but i try not to wear any sunscreen because in the morning this is this is

how it goes is like when your shadow is longer than you are then the uv rays are not dangerous so early in the morning I don't put sunscreen on because you need vitamin D. You need the healing rays of the sun. And when you put sunscreen on, you don't get any of that. And that's part of the problem. first thing in the morning i don't put any sunscreen on them once i try to get like 20 minutes of sunshine without any sunscreen

And then I go for a swim and then I just kind of sit on the beach in the shade and dry off of it. And then I carried on my trip and I went down and I had met coming over on the speedboat coming over. I had met a woman from Mexico and she spoke English. Most people here.

are nobody is speaking english they're speaking um a lot of germans a lot of dutch like just from everywhere except north america this woman that i sat to also by herself a solo traveler was from mexico and she spoke english really good english and spanish anyway um we were connecting and talking and um

Oh, she's a different person. Anyway, she's doing cool thing. I'll do this podcast because I was thinking about this about how I meet people when I travel and all the cool people that I meet. So I'll save her story for the next one. But the other day I had walked down to this.

little restaurant where it's just very secluded and i had met this other woman from germany who was just leaving the next day and she's like oh you have to go to this restaurant here and then i the when i first arrived i had met a couple from um

Australia and he was from England and they're like oh you got to go to this restaurant here so when I was scooting down I had put those on my list and one of them was just like a restaurant with a view and I pulled up and then I walked out to the restaurant and it was just the most gorgeous view.

i'd ever seen and from up high you could see the color of the water the clarity of the water just people in there snorkeling just but not a lot of people but they were snorkeling or just kayaking it was so Gorgeous. It was so gorgeous. And it made me so happy because I knew that I had found the right spot. Anyway, that was kind of the end of my day.

didn't make it all the way to the end of the island because i wanted to go back to the big beach and spend the day there so i went back on my little scooter scooter and took me a couple tries to find the the place to go down again but it was so easy just to drive out and park your scooter and then find a spot on the beach and then find a restaurant to go to but

where i've been eating is uh there's this kind of it's kind of like a street fair so it's it's outdoors and every night it's all lit up and all the food vendors go there like with all their it would be like the equivalent of a food truck it's like food and they're all there and there you could get anything you want you can have a little bit of this or a little bit of that and i ate there the first night it was so good had pad thai of course and then this night i was eyeing up like

noodles and i thought to myself okay now that i'm in this place i need to um because i was i was full carnivore trying to eliminate inflammation in my body i thought i gotta see if i can do more meat and see if i can get back to that carnivore thing here and i'm like ah it's gonna be tough because that's not really the

what the culture eats that's not it's so it would be really really hard to do but i thought i'll i'll make an effort so i had a noodle dish and then there was all these stalls with kebabs and i'm like okay i'll try a kebab and it was like For one chicken kebab, it was 40 baht. I'm like, okay, that's, oh no, it was like 10 baht. And that's like 40 cents, 40 cents. So I thought.

i'll get two just to see what they're like and so i got my little nudity dish and i got my kebabs and i sat down and it's funny because people come and sit with me because you just share um tables because there's it's like public eating right so people grab their food and sit down and so you have great conversations with people and it was funny because i i took a bite of the chicken thing and i was like oh this is

like weird it doesn't really taste like chicken and the guy's like what is it cat or dog and i'm like oh no it's not i don't even know what it is but it's kind of like it's kind of like something that's been put into like the form of chicken and it almost like spam you know like that kind of texture i'm like but there's no this isn't like chicken that you would think on a kebab like chicken

i'm like yeah this is really weird and they weren't big so i ate them and i shouldn't have as soon as i said not my jam i probably shouldn't have eaten them but i did And needless to say that night I ended up with food poisoning. So, oh my God, it was so horrible, but all I think.

I don't think you're really living unless you get food poisoning from some tropical paradise street food. You know what I'm saying? Like that is living. And I would not have said that yesterday because I spent that night, the whole day, like just.

it was a write-off like blankets over my head I didn't know if it was day or night didn't matter I'm like I hear this little knock on my door I don't know what time it is I'm not answering the door it turns out that it was the lady the owner because they're like we haven't seen her all day like she hasn't come out at all I hope she's okay and of course I didn't answer the door because I was just muscling through it pretty much

and then the next day I'm like okay I'm alive she's like oh we were so worried about you but the funny thing was is like I just needed to let it pass literally like my body is like okay there's something bad in here let's let it go so I don't take anything. I just didn't eat, laid in bed, you know, bed, bathroom, bed, bathroom, bed, bathroom. And then...

This morning I woke up and I'm like, okay, everything is like, like my system is now clear. I was just drinking hot water. Couldn't eat anything.

And the first thing I did was like, I'm going to go jump in the ocean because that always makes me feel better. And I went out to this beach and I'm like, I couldn't even do it because it was so icky. So I... at the hotel here they have like little mountain mountain bikes i'm like jump on the mountain bike a five minute mountain bike i'm at the gorgeous beach

I go on to the beach. I jump into the ocean. I swim around for five minutes and then I lay in the shade and I feel like a million bucks. I'm like, I am.

all good again that's how powerful and healing the ocean is i just needed some sunshine and some fresh ocean on my face healing my body and boom bob's your uncle it's funny too because i had were these sandals the first day and instantly you get a blister and it took a while to heal like it wasn't healing as i was traveling to all these places but as soon as i went into the ocean it just healed up right away so

I am here to say, don't worry about me. I survived the dark night of the soul. And now it's like it never even happened. It was just such a great... feeling to jump in the ocean like just like as soon as i went in the ocean it felt like life is good everything is going to be okay and and then i just walk around ride my bike like

just discover the little town so you go from like oh my gosh i don't know if i'm gonna make it it's like life is so amazing just with all it takes is like one swim in the ocean one walk on the beach And then life is good again. So I just wanted to share that story with you because I feel like there's no such thing as like an international travel adventure without some sort of, you know, food something going on.

And the lady at the desk was like, yeah, those things aren't very trustworthy. You just eat at a restaurant and you'll be fine. But you know what? Having said that, like I, it's so crazy because just the. when i think about those chicken kebabs that makes me want to hurl but they do have a baked potato stand which is what my stomach is craving right now is just a baked potato because

It just needs a little bit of comfort food, like just straight up baked potato and butter and salt and that's it. And then I did a whole bunch of research on... foods that i can eat to lower inflammations because i can't do carnivore when i'm here it's just not feasible so i'll do a low inflammation diet which is super super basic with just clean foods and i can let you know what that is i've got

my protocol all written down so i'm going to work on that having said that i'm going to leave you with this because when i first arrived here i'm like i have to try the local food so the pad thai insane they just cook it in front of you on a fire i was just like so good but i won't be eating that anymore and then the other thing that i had because hey when you're in thailand you gotta you've got to experience the local food

I had what's called the Thai dessert, which is mango and sticky rice. Oh my God. Oh my God. If you know, you know. And I... i got it from a cart at the night thing again this was before i got sick so and it was this little old woman like she looked like she was a hundred years old and she had this little santa claus that was going up and down on the chain and

it was super like she has this all made up and she just like scoops it up what size do you want i got a small one and it was literally sticky rice with a fresh mango she peels it in front of you and then she puts a little secret sauce on it like out of this big cauldron she just opens up puts a scoop on it and then sprinkles some like toasted coconut or something on it and then she just puts in the chopsticks and the spoon and then like there you go and

it was the most delicious thing I've ever had like I would live off of that if I could now I won't have it again because the sauce has a little bit of sugar in it but but but but it was amazing and i kept telling everybody like you got to try this anybody that asked i'm like you got to go to this lady here because when i was explaining it to the people that i'm staying with she's like oh that lady there she's been selling this like doing this for 20 years like

she has the best dessert and I'm like oh my god like she has perfected it it was just like so delicious and so heavenly but that was my getting to the island and then trying all the foods so that now i can like stick to their basic whole clean foods thai style which is what we do we adapt and we move on anyway

i just wanted to share don't worry about me i bounce back i'm back to 100 and i'm almost ready to go hunt down my potato for dinner tonight so that until tomorrow when i'm back to a thousand percent and i'll go on my protocol but i i already have the stall picked out yeah i'm going back to the food thing i know i know i know but it's a potato like come on it's a basic potato so i don't think that it can go wrong because the stall that i've picked out always has a big lineup

So I know that it's going to be really good. All the ones with the lineups, that's like, you must go there. And I think about the one where the chicken was. I'm like, I think I have to walk past it to get to this potato stall.

damn it okay anyway as always thank you for listening you never know what when things could turn around in a heartbeat like one jump in the ocean and life went from hell to like heaven just like that so always always always look for the positive keep your chin up you'll always get

You'll always find what you're looking for. That's kind of like my take on from down and out to like up and at them. Always, always. No, thank you for listening. Always, always, always love yourself first and have an amazing day.