Sensory Deprivation Day

Jonny and I have just completed three challenges, back to back in Goa (no, we were not back to back, though that does sound fun). As such, as a sort of meta-challenge, I’m going to attempt to write at least a couple up in quick succession whilst my fiancé is enjoying his siesta. That’s not to say I don’t believe these challenges are worth my time; rather, we are particularly excited to share them!

We began at 3:30pm two days ago, when Jonny stopped talking and I stopped seeing for the remainder of the day and night (yes, we are aware that nighttime is usually a time for darkness and silence anyway, but if you know anything of our sleepwalking habits, I’m sure you realise that this was perhaps the hardest challenge of all). Jonny and I then swapped roles in the morning, until 3:30pm the following day. Excusing a couple of slip-ups, outlined below, we are proud to say we completed this difficult challenge with panache, and hope that the various challengers who asked us to spend a day in silence/ without speaking/ blindfolded won’t mind that we hybridised their ideas.

One factor in our decision to complete this challenge is that, finally, we printed our Year of the Challenge T-shirts. At best, during previous challenges, we had found ourselves repeating why we were completing strange tasks; at worst, people thought we were nutters. Now, T-shirts emblazoned with our logo and purpose, we could boldly go about our business. Moreover, it made us look much more official; so much so that we went from feeling like the village idiots to minor celebs in one fail swoop.

The decision for me to go blindfolded first was easy: we still had some traveling to do and the thought of me, even with full sight, biking through Indian traffic carrying all of our luggage plus Jonny, sounded almost as lethal as blindfolded Jonny weaving in and out of the traffic with a similar load. Instead, blindfold in place and helmet on, I sat clinging on to my boy as he sped us through Goa to our hotel. This was far from the scary ride it may seem! In fact, if it wasn’t for the Indian habit of sounding horns at every conceivable moment, the experience may have been soporific (before you think I’m making an unfair generalisation, almost all vehicles are painted with the instruction “Sound Horn” and the result is a cacophony I am yet to understand, but which seems to keep road accidents to an unfathomable low). We arrived in one piece, thoroughly looking forward to our first human interaction.

Jonny and I had previously decided that we would communicate using a basic squeezing system: one squeeze for yes, two for no, three for “speak”. If you think about the logistics of our challenge, this 3rd instruction is just as important as the other two, as the blindfolded person is the only person able to communicate, yet s/he is unable to see where or to whom s/he must speak. As such, our first interaction went something like this:

“Jonny, make sure you take me to reception… OK, is the person I’m about to speak to a woman? *squeeze* Am I there yet? *squeeze squeeze* Ok, well in which case let me know when I’m… *squeeze squeeze squeeze* hello there! I’m Natalie and this is Jonny and we have a reservation at your hotel… (etc)”

Whether it was because of our T-shirts or because we had checked into a particularly good hotel (affordable after Oliver Halpern’s casino challenge, which we shall write up in due course), the staff were particularly amenable to their new, eccentric clientele and played along brilliantly, one lady even producing a massage machine for our room so I could enjoy some other sensory experiences. This machine had me in stitches, as in all honesty it was on the cusp of being both deeply pleasant and deeply unpleasant, and I wasn’t entirely sure Jonny hadn’t secretly brought me to an alternative-therapy spa.

Eager to explore our new surroundings, I took a not-so-quick turn about the room, trying to feel my way to the toilet/bed/wardrobe etc (actually, by this time, Jonny had already plonked me on the toilet as a matter of urgency, after another night of Delhi-belly left me unsure of the boundary between pop-pop and pop-plop). After I could safely navigate myself around, we got changed into our cozzies and headed to the pool. A swimming experience which might otherwise have been taken for granted turned into a veritable adventure as I discovered the odd shape of our pool, its shisha bar, water-fall-feature and discombobulating wheel-on-a-stick (still have no clue what this is). In fact, it was all great fun until I was certain both that Jonny was pulling me around in circles (he was not) and that my swimming was straight (I was going round in tight circles), so we thought it best I left the water.

This sense of turning in circles continued for the rest of the day whenever I moved, which is why, later that evening, after our meal, Jonny joked he had not taken me to a different restaurant but had in fact driven me around in a circle back to the restaurant at our hotel, and I believed him. Our meal out is not to be glossed over, however. Mindful of my lack of sight, Jonny selected a restaurant which played live music, so that I could at least enjoy the sound if not the view.

The singer was wonderful and we got a seat near the front, which would have suited a blind Natty and her mute mate perfectly well, had Jonny not discovered a Text-to-Speech app which allowed him to communicate with me through automated voice, somewhat in honour of the late and great Stephen Hawking. The combination of melodious tenor with robotic questions about the menu left me quite overwhelmed so we thought it best if Jonny decided what we should order without my input. That is, I still had to instruct our waiter to order one portion of everything Jonny pointed at, seeing as my personal dietician was unable to speak.

The food was excellent (we ate shark and it was totally scrummy!) but not being able to find your mouth with a fork, let alone your food was pretty amusing. I was worried about my table manners but, according to Jonny, my mother would have been proud, which is about as good as I can ever hope for. Still, there were more than a few moments when my fork reached my lips devoid of any food, or when I accidentally speared half the steak all at once.

Overall, it was a tasty, novel experience and we left in good humour, enjoying a quick dance to the singer’s rendition of “My Way”. Knowing Jonny, we were probably the only pair on our feet, but at least I could imagine a dance floor.

Back at the hotel, Jonny took me on a tour about the grounds, paying particular attention to statues (I thought a magnificent elephant was a two-tailed snail) and playing a game of table-football.

We got into bed exhausted from an adventurous day. I’d like to say we slept the whole night through, but I tore my sleeping mask off to tend to a warty dog, which in turn led Jonny to break his vow of silence with an almighty “F**K”. Obviously our sleep-walking/talking habits could have failed us this challenge, had we decided to be strict. We hope, dear readers, you can forgive us.

[NB: Three hours into writing this, it is clear I have failed aforesaid “meta-challenge”. Jonny is going to take you through his day blindfolded, to speed things up a bit]

Having led my fiancée around yesterday, I was quite looking forward to having my own personal carer for the day, complete with robotic voice. As she had not seen the resort’s layout, Natalie actually expected me to guide us to breakfast, but I lost my bearings 2 metres after we stepped out the room. We developed a system of hand movements to warn about change in terrain and elevation and soon we arrived at breakfast. I didn’t quite have Natalie’s panache for cutting my food blindfolded, as can be witnessed here:

My lovely carer thought it would be amusing to bring me a selection of unusual breakfast options, which I had to identify: ‘idly, fried balls and tasty sludge’. Idly is our least favourite Indian breakfast option, basically it is like a bland starchy sponge, whose only purpose is to soak up flavours from other dishes, yet - in our experience - remains completely unobsorbant. In fairness, this was followed up by a selection of edible, even tasty treats and overall I enjoyed a good breakfast. During our meal the manager of the hotel came over and said he had heard about our blog from the other staff and wanted to set us a challenge. His initial suggestion was an idly eating competition… After we politely declined, he came up with a much better idea, which we will be discussing in our next blog entry.

Natalie then took me for a walk…

…and used Stephen to tell me how I should look …

…whilst she set me up in different Hollywood-esque situations.

She decided it would be useful for me to learn Braille and led me over to some engraved writing for me to decipher. It turns out I’m not very good at this, especially considering the word I was supposed to be spelling…

After some further amusement at my expense, I asked to be led to the beach and shortly I felt sand between my toes. I asked Natalie if I could run freely into the sea. I could almost hear her thinking before *squeeze squeeze*. I found out later that she had tricked my by leading me into a sandy volley ball court, where I would have face-planted into the net.

(We took this photo later that evening, when the grounds and volleyball court were lit up beautifully).

A few minutes and several terrain shifts later, we reached the actual beach were I was allowed to run freely into the sea… or so I thought. Off I scampered, enjoying full confidence that my love would not let me run into any kind of danger. Natalie ran after me and managed to stop me a moment before I ploughed into the life guards tower. Let me remind you that I had a head-start and she wasn’t allowed to call out, so I guess I was in luck.

We had a good splash in the waves and I also discovered that, left free to float, I was convinced I was spinning in circles when I was actually still. Clearly, either we both have severe balance issues, or this is a normal outcome of losing your sight for a day.

The day went by really fast, I was expecting to be bored, but my excellent carer kept me thoroughly amused. We thought it would be good to end on a mini challenge: me trying to navigate back to the room from an unknown part of the resort. Natalie allowed me to ask strangers up to 3 questions, and she promised to stay in sight (whatever that means) and only warn me if I was in danger.

My plan was to find the swimming pool, from where I was confident I could remember the way back to the room. Finding the pool proved challenging. I worked out my position by feeling the afternoon sun on my face and started along a path. The first obstacle I came upon was a cat who, when I stopped petting, would lie down in front of my feet and demand more attention.

Unfortunately, I had started the journey (perhaps rather cruelly), by a circular path and ended up doing a loop. I then thought I had found a way through a hedge, but couldn’t quite get through. It turned out I was almost at the pool and was creeping around right next to a lady sunbather who fortunately hadn’t noticed the weird blindfolded man seemingly groping towards her from the bushes (Natalie, regretfully, took no photo of this particular encounter, as she was too interested in tearing me away before I was caught looking like a pervert… but this photo was taken shortly afterwards).

Once I reached the pool, I stripped down to my undies and paddled most of the way back to the room. It took about 40 minutes in total. It was a real treat to remove the blindfold and be able to converse with Natalie again to discuss our respective experiences. I would recommend trying this one some time with a partner: it’s a great exercise in trust!