My Oscillating Pod

I have never been known for my elegance. Some people are graceful: everything they do is a fluid motion of class and sophistication. Others (like me) can't even perform the simplest task without resembling a great lumbering bovine creature in human clothes. I'd wager that you've never seen anything less elegant then me attempting to get into a bed suspended from the ceiling.

When I arrived at my hostel my first reaction was extreme excitement: the dormitory room consisted of eleven beds with bamboo frames, suspended about a foot and a half above the floor by thick ropes, on each corner net hangings were artfully bundled and tied together with little bows. Adorable. I could not wait to get in.

However, this was my first day on the island and having much to see and do I resisted the urge and went exploring.

When I returned it was past dark. I realised at once that I should have tested the bed out in the daylight, but I hadn't so I had to make the best of it.

Wary of waking my bedroom buddies I gingerly clambered onto the bed. Immediately it began to swing violently beneath me, oh god, I thought I was going to crash into one of my neighbours: back and forth, side to side, I was being buffeted to and fro. Meanwhile, incomprehensibly, everyone else's bed was completely motionless....

I then struggled, with my eternally fumbling fingers, to undo the hangings and clip them together, to thus seal myself within my oscillating pod. This took ages and still I was swaying dangerously, when I eventually lay down I was feeling sea-sick: waves of nausea rushed over me echoing the waves of my hanging bed.

It was only then that I noticed the fan. Great, I initially thought, but the cord was so high up.... I would have to stand.

Getting to my feet like a new-born giraffe, knees shaking with the tension, legs spread like some sort of ill-prepared surfer, I rode the waves, turned the fan on, almost toppled over onto my neighbour, mercifully managed to keep my balance, and return to a seated position with a bump.

Then I was lying back down, still swinging as wildly as a 1970s suburban house party, feeling sicker and sicker. Eventually the motion calmed and I was rocked peacefully asleep, glad that it was at least too dark for anyone to have seen what a scene I created.