Day 1 - Sunday

The big day is here. We arise early and head for the Spa to pay for our programmes and have our first detox drink. It is a gooey mixture made from some husks, bentonite clay, a dribble of pineapple juice and water, followed by another glass of water. It's not that bad, but certainly not a banana milkshake! We discover that the day is actually very busy. While you don't actually eat anything (nothing you can chew) you take some sort of medication every 90 minutes - either the detox drink or six vitamin/detox tablets. And then you also need to find time to have 2 bowls of broth, 2 coconut juices and one carrot juice. Plus many glasses of water. So, you don't stop pouring things down your throat!

At 4pm the big moment arrives. We get instructions on how to give ourselves a colonic cleanse and then we have to undergo our first one. This is what everyone has been dreading - and we are all a little shy about discussing this sensitive topic. That will change. A pretty Indian-looking woman (our health advisor) explains how to do it . Basically you lie down on a plastic board (with a hole in it at the crucial spot). Above you hangs a bucket filled with a coffee mixture. You insert a thin plastic tube into your bum and the coffee mixture then pours into your bowel due to gravity. When you feel full, you expel the mixture and the contents of your stomach. This is performed unaided in a private colema room.

I can't get the whole board, tube and gravity bit to work and end up pouring the whole damn solution down the toilet! Helen succeeds admirably. We manage to make it to nightfall without really thinking about food too much. Luckily, the restaurant in our hotel is always empty, so we don't have the smell of food wafting past. And we are just too scared to let our minds head towards food.

We book massages at the Spa, but when we see a man lying naked in an open-sided sala, we enquire and discover that all massages are done in public. Ohhhh, no, this is not for us. I can't imagine lying there stark naked in full view of the starving passers-by. So we cancel. That night we head to Chaweng Beach, the busiest resort on the island, to find a massage parlour. We stumble on a lovely place where they offer all sorts of treatments. Helen has her feet done and I have a body oil massage.

I have a brief moment when a young man hassles me on the pavement, trying to get me into an Indian restaurant. If only - oh, god what I would do for a lovely curry!!!!! And some chicken samoosas, and some naan bread, and some ...... Oh, stop thinking about it!!!

By 9.30 we are exhausted and can barely make it back to our rooms. I fall into bed, without even turning on the TV. We have made it - ONE DAY WITHOUT ANY FOOD!!!! A unique experience fo both of us. Yay, well done. Aren't we great???