Today marked day 11 of the silent retreat - in other words: the day when we were released into the world again. Silence was lifted after the last meditation session at 5 am. The noise in the dining hall with everybody talking all at once was quite overwhelming, and many people, including me, went wandering the retreat grounds once more.
Then it was time to walk to the highway to have breakfast at the main monastery. The highway was overwhelming, too. So many cars! And so fast! And loud! I was happy to have survived the crossing. The German monk had been right to encourage us to take the transition back to the world slowly and to be kind to ourselves.
Breakfast then felt like a huge travel planning session. Everybody read their guidebooks and discussed where to go next and how to get there. I was lucky enough to find another girl who also wanted to go to the island Koh Tao and so we decided to stick together. To get to Koh Tao, we took a bus to Surat Thani, the next big city. The bus was the next overwhelming sense impression - just look at the colors and imagine the sounds:
In Surat Thani, it turned out that the next ferry to Koh Tao would be a night ferry. Since we didn't really want to spend another uncomfortable night after the concrete beds in Suan Mokkh, we decided to go to Koh Samui instead and catch another ferry from there. In the evening, after looking for accommodation and dealing with the noisy port town Nathon, we were rewarded with a quiet stretch of beach and a beautiful sunset:
I can't even begin to describe how incredibly soft and comfortable the bed felt that night! No more waking up from back pain... ah, that must be heaven!
