A Scottish monastery retreat

So medieval is the scene, you expect to be greeted at the old oak door with a goblet of chilled mead. Instead, Brother Gabriel ushers you into the ancient cloisters and whispers the rules of your stay: silence at all times, meals with the monks at lunch and dinner, optional Latin services throughout the day. Laptops are banned, mobiles a no-no.

Living quarters are spartan - single bed, sink, four walls, door - and the manual labour is shared. Gabriel makes an unapologetic face, but he needn't have bothered. Punch-drunk from fighting an unwinnable battle with endless e-mails and relentless deadlines, I'm ready for the coldest of turkey.

Which is probably just as well. When the bells ring for dinner, it is like walking onto the set of Cadfael, minus the television-standard catering. The scalped monks sit at long wooden tables, with kaleidoscope light coming through stained-glass windows, and stare wordlessly at their neatly folded napkins.

Bells are rung, a Latin Grace is sung by the abbot. I wonder excitedly what Middle Ages delight might be served - roasted swan, perhaps, or haunches of venison? That a metal tray is brought in, bearing inch-deep soggy pizza, is something of an anticlimax.

On my bedroom window, I had spotted two stickers. "In this place, I shall give peace," read one. "A life without Whitesnake is not a life for me!" proclaimed the other. Perhaps the brothers' tastes have moved on. There are no obvious fans of hair, let alone hair metal. As for squealing solos on electric axes, there isn't so much as a lute in sight.

The silence creates a curious atmosphere. It's both convenient - farewell, awkward small talk! - and somewhat problematic. A request for the salt becomes an elaborate charade, a clearing of the throat an ear-splitting intrusion. So hard are you concentrating on not speaking, your body plays perverse games.

Sneezes come from nowhere, pockets of trapped wind well up as if by cruel magic. When the monk on my left proffers a jug of plum juice, I instinctively want to thank him. Instead, I clap hand over mouth just in time and settle for a conspiratorial wink. From the expression on his face, one man's conspiratorial may be another man's salacious. The plum juice remains untouched for the rest of the meal.

Partly by way of recompense, partly because there is absolutely nothing else to do, I follow the monks into the dark abbey for Compline, the final prayers of the day. So spookily restful is it - Gregorian chants echoing off the bare stone walls, incense snaking slowly upwards, candles crackling and waving - that retiring to bed afterwards, as they do, seems perfectly natural, even though it's not yet 8.30pm.

By 4am, I am wide awake. There is nothing to read except a biography of St Benedict, so I pop downstairs to join Gabriel and the chaps for Vigils and Lauds.

Though the monastery clock has yet to reach 5am, the pews are full and the a cappella incantations are performed with vim and vigour. Despite this, the sense of relaxation I had felt the previous night is absent. Perhaps it's the early hour, perhaps the way the same line of melody is repeated over and over for an hour and a half, but decidedly uncharitable thoughts start to pop into my head.

What had felt before like a timeless evocation of deep spiritual significance now seems as tedious and everlasting as the qualifying rounds for the World Snooker Championships. Why does everything have to start and finish so early? What would be so wrong with just one flatscreen TV? Why, in a life free of vice, do the brothers all commit the cardinal sin of wearing socks with sandals?

I am being churlish in the extreme. There is no charge for a retreat at Pluscarden, no minimum or maximum stay, no requirement to do anything religious. While the prospect of a slap-up spa break suddenly seems awfully attractive, I head into the fields with the chief gardener, Brother Cyprian, and lose myself in a few hours of potato-picking.

One by one, the centuries have been rewound. Rooks caw and flap on the crumbling boun­dary wall. Red rowan berries sag on dark green bushes, like baubles on a Christmas tree. The monastery bells clang furiously on the hour. I try not to think about the football scores I am missing, or the amount of work waiting for me at home. "The silent man is the wise man," St Benedict wrote, and if this silent man also feels as if he's doing a student summer job, the serenity is casting a slow spell.

At dinner that evening (boiled egg, slice of bread, stewed plums), I find myself doing everything at half pace and minimal volume.

I chew with contemplative composure, accept the plum juice with an inclination of the head and only spoil things slightly by bashing my egg open with a lusty blow from my spoon, rather than silently decapitating it with a knife.

Am I changing? Tucked up in bed at an hour when most normal people are getting ready to go out, I compile a mental pie chart of the thoughts that have filled the vacuum left by con­versation and laptop labour.

Encouragingly, I am worrying about work far less. Awkwardly, I am thinking about sex a lot more. About 15% of my thoughts have concerned hunger, 10% keeping the noise down and 5% what time the next church service is, but there is nothing like the company of 20 monks for four days to make a chap appreciate his lady friend.

St Benedict, I now know from my reading, was once sorely tempted when a jealous local priest, hellbent on humiliating his rival, sneaked a troupe of dancing girls into his monastery. For the first time, I truly feel empathy with the old boy.

I sigh and set my alarm for an hour that is both holy and ungodly. When the bleeps sound the next morning, I have two thoughts: they're the first electronic sound I've heard in days, and I need a change of scene. It is the work of a guilty moment to slip through a gap in the wall, a walk of two dewy hours to the nearest village shop.

I'm not in there long - just long enough to buy a newspaper and curse at the football results - and the only words I speak are "Morning" and "Thanks", but that lunchtime I come to two unexpected realisations. The first is that I live the life I do for a reason. I like talking to people and I like knowing what's going on in the world.

The balance might be a little out of kilter at home, but at Pluscarden, it's swung too far the other way. The second is even more surprising. For months, that lady friend has been pushing to move our relationship to the next level. Until now, I've always resisted. But here, surrounded by men who have cut themselves off in the past, the future seems a far more attractive place.

Stimulation and procreation. It's not quite what St Benedict intended, but it's a revelation just the same. That I have 48 more hours of silence to get through is suddenly almost unbearable. For Cyprian and Gabriel, it's more like 48 years. Oh, brother.

Retreats at Pluscarden Abbey (www.pluscardenabbey.org) can be booked by writing to The Guestmaster, Pluscarden Abbey, Elgin, Morayshire, Scotland IV30 8UA. There is no charge for a stay, but donations are welcomed.

Tom Fordyce's book We Could Be Heroes is out now (Pan Macmillan £11.99)

SIX MORE TOTAL RETREATS

The massaging nuns

For the past 40 years, the Sisters of the Cistercian Order have offered retreats involving water treatments, massages and exercise classes at Marienkron Abbey (00 43 2173 802 0544, www.marienkron.at), in Mönchhof, Austria. Every morning, guests can take part in keep-fit classes with nuns - trying to get into the right habits, so to speak. Full-board prices start at £56pp per night.

Top of the world

360 Degrees Leti (020 7384 2332, cazloyd.com) is a tiny mountain retreat high in the Uttaranchal area of the Indian Himalayas, with spectacular views around the world's highest mountain range. Cut off completely from other tourists, visitors live a life of isolated luxury, without mobile reception or laptops, but replete with dawn meditation, yoga and organic local produce. Prices start at £320 per night.

Ends of the earth

Easter Island is, officially, the most remote inhabited spot on earth, but there's no need to pack a spear or loincloth. The Posada de Mike Rapu (00 1 866 750 6699, www.explora.com) is the only five-star on the island, and provides a retreat that is both utterly isolated and splendidly luxurious. Seven nights, full-board, start at £2,983pp, excluding flights.

The brewing brothers

For the beer-loving chap, what better escape than a week at the Trappist monastery of Notre-Dame de Scourmont (www.scourmont.be), where your working hours are spent silently brewing some of the tastiest beer in Belgium? Free visits can be arranged by writing to Père Hôtelier, Abbaye de Scourmont, B-6464 Forges, Belgium.

Jungle luxury

Deep in Peru's Amazonian rainforest, the Inkaterra Reserva Amazonica boutique hotel (00 1 800 442 5042, inkaterra.com) has just opened a new suite that is both secluded and opulent - a two-person treehouse, 100ft above the ground, accessible only by canopy gangway. Just you, the views and a private audience with the spectacular local wildlife - oh, and 24-hour butler service. Prices start at £182pp per night.

Middle-of-nowhere luxury

There are few places more remote than Likoma Island - a tiny sand-fringed island in the middle of Lake Malawi, 45 miles by water from the nearest town. Guests at Kaya Mawa Lodge (020 7384 2332, kayamawa.com, cazloyd.com) stay barefoot in stone-built rooms that rise out of the lake, festooned with bougainvillea and accessed by rickety bridges strung out from the mainland. Prices start at £220pp per night.