Two yoga classes a day, three million stairs AND a camera I refused to let out of my sight!

Let me paint you an accurate picture of my week at a yoga retreat in Thailand, because the version with the pretty photos does not tell the whole story.

I am not a yoga person. I am, by most reasonable definitions, unfit. And yet there I was, twice a day, every day, folding myself into downward dog like my body hadn't spent the last however many years actively avoiding this exact position.

Here's my dirty secret. I had a camera with me, and I used it as a completely legitimate, socially acceptable excuse to not fully participate. Everyone else was holding a pose. I was "getting the shot." Nobody questions the person with the camera. I basically invented a loophole and I'm not sorry about it.

The stairs nearly killed me, not the yoga

The resort was built up a cliff, and I mean that literally. Every trip to the cafe, every trip to reception, involved a genuinely absurd number of stairs. And I wasn't doing it empty handed. My professional camera and zoom lens came with me everywhere, bushwalk included, because that's just how it works when the gear is your job. Three or four times a day I hauled myself and a decent chunk of kit up that cliff just to eat, by the time I got to the top I was fairly convinced they'd designed it that way specifically to make sure I'd earned every meal. There were golf buggy shuttles for guests who wanted them, mostly used by the older crowd doing a separate retreat alongside ours. I decided, in a burst of main-character energy, that I would use the stairs as my step count for the day instead. Character building. Also just a lot of stairs, with a camera bag on, purely to access food.

The bushwalk defeated me and it was entirely my own fault

We were told the waterfall was about a kilometre away. Reader, it was not a kilometre. Forty solid minutes later, mostly uphill, mostly over boulders, one hand permanently occupied holding my professional camera away from every rock trying to introduce itself to it. A completely normal bushwalk would have been a challenge on its own. A bushwalk over boulders with one hand out of commission, purely to stop ten grand worth of gear getting dinged, was a different sport entirely. If someone tells you "it's just a kay," ask them to define their terms.

We finally got there and everyone else stripped off and frolicked under the waterfall like they were in a shampoo advertisement. I sat on a rock, cradling my camera, and dunked my feet in the water because that was the extent of cooling down I was prepared to risk. Let's just say no to that one next time, Lyn.

Also worth mentioning, that camera is not light. I carried it slung over one shoulder rather than in the backpack, because a backpack in that heat just becomes a second heater strapped to your back. So while everyone else walked in free and unencumbered, I had one shoulder slowly dying under a chunk of professional gear that nobody else on that walk was carrying. My own personal, extremely specific kind of cardio.

The heat itself didn't bother me much otherwise. You expect it, you sweat, you get on with it. What actually finished me off was the combination of that walk and my own wardrobe choices. I wore a knit top instead of cotton, which in hindsight is the sartorial equivalent of wearing a doona into a sauna. My face went a colour I don't have a name for and stayed there. I could not physically cool down. Lesson learned: know your fabrics before you commit to a jungle.

Everyone else had a yoga wardrobe. I had Kmart.

I want to be clear, these women were dressed. Full Lululemon, matching sets, the kind of yoga wardrobe that costs more than my flights. I do not own yoga wear. I do not intend to purchase yoga wear. I turned up in Kmart activewear because that's what was already in my drawer, and I stand by it. Was I hot, overstimulated and a little out of my depth surrounded by people who looked like they'd trained for this. Yes. Did I own the correct outfit for any of it. Also no.

I never once went swimming

Everyone else spent their downtime in the pool or the ocean. I spent mine on dry land, minding several thousand dollars of camera gear while the girls swam. My camera does not get checked in on flights, it does not leave my sight, and it certainly does not go anywhere near water while I'm not holding it. So while everyone else cooled off, I stood on the sand looking like a very committed lifeguard for equipment nobody was trying to steal.