I flew! Without a plane. Or wings

I’m not what you would call an adventurous person.  I thrive on routine, I like to know what’s happening next, I need to know where things are and how they work, I am one of those people that goes to a restaurant and orders the same thing every time because I know I like it.

This behaviour has earned me the moniker of fun-phobic in my family.  A term coined by my sister and husband when we were holidaying in the Gold Coast one year and I refused to go into Infinity World (if I’m not sounding fun enough allow me to add claustrophobia to my list of characteristics).

I don’t understand the point of roller coasters, I like firm ground beneath me and I’m perfectly happy in the safety of my bed surfing the internet. Fun huh?

But recently I went to Mauritius on a media trip and in my efforts to make the most of my trip and not to appear a complete anti-social leper I joined in on every activity. I gobbled my fear and I walked UNDER the ocean (well I stumbled and was white with fear and I counted the seconds till it was over but I still did it), I rode a bike on the roads as if I were Lance Armstrong (without the drugs) and I even parasailed.  In short I dropped my fun phobic mantle and I donned a Super Woman cape. Just for a few days.

And now I am in Phuket and my husband has been talking about the number one tourist destination as if he is in fact the Trip Advisor app.  According to Mr Pencil, who studies Trip Advisor in his spare time and quotes it at any given opportunity, the Flying Hanuman is the one place that we HAD to visit while we were here. According to the pamphlets it is “an adventure like no other on Phuket. It shows that the island’s beauty goes far beyond the sea, sun and sand that it is famous for”.  According to me it is an absolutely mind boggling set of zip lines that thread through the trees like a spider web on crack.

And so we set off for the rain forests of Phuket to fly through the trees. The very, very, very high trees. And I had to act like I was still in Mauritius and I was no longer fun phobic.  Eek.

I have been told on occasion that I am good with words but I actually don’t have the words to describe the height of the trees in which these zip lines were set so again I will refer to the brochure – 40 metres!  Yes I was expected to jump off a platform 40 metres off the ground and “sail” to the next platform 100 metres away. Oh about 16 times.  Don’t forget I am the same person that loves to lie in my bed and surf the net.
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My sister, her husband and her son seemed to think that this was an every day experience. Not that they weren’t awed by the spectacle of the rain forest and exhilarated by the experience of soaring across the forest – because they were but they just jumped off the platforms and flew. My son, well he has no fear. None at all. He did a couple of the lines upside down and was all hands in the air and beaming with delight. I screamed a lot.  Not so much the excited screams of my son and my sister who were positively whooping with joy but the screams of a very frightened person who was thinking back to the safety of her fun phobic days.  My stomach may or may not be still in the forests.  But I have to tell you (from the safety of my bed where I am writing this post) that it was amazing. Exhilarating even.

And then there was my husband. Mr Pencil is scared of heights. Or rather he is petrified of heights in that very irrational way that some people are scared of clowns or my niece is scared of mandarins (interesting family?). He had decided to try the course because he loves Trip Advisor very deeply and also because he thought Little Pencil would absolutely love it and he is a very good father.

Fear is a very strong emotion. It can almost root you to a platform 40 metres above the ground and it can cause you to completely stop talking to the people around you. At least that’s what it did for Mr Pencil today. He became slightly catatonic – going through the motions VERY SLOWLY  (well as slowly as you can soar through the air) and refusing to engage in any conversation at all.  Grunts were produced at some points and at one stage he managed to shout that no one should try talk to him.  But he did it. He overcame his fear for the sake of Trip Advisor and Little Pencil. No that’s not true – he didn’t overcome his fear at all but he did manage to complete the course.*

And just like that – for one hour today I became the second most adventurous person in my little family of three. And it was awesome

Here’s Little Pencil just cruising

*there is no way out of it – if you can’t do it you have to live the rest of your days out in the trees because there is no other way to get back down.