Koh Pha Ngan

I may choose to title this entry 'what happens at full moon party stays at full moon party' and leave it at that.  This is to protect the voices of the guilty, one of which I am not.  Because there are stories.  Stories that add up to some of my most ridiculous travel stories.  But these stories are also incriminating.  So if you're interested, you're just going to have to ask me.

I will say this.  

Full moon party is both under and overrated.  I mean upwards of 10,000 people getting drunk on the beach under the influence of thai whiskey and thai red bull whilst painted in various shades of fluorescent paint isn't something to balk at.  Unless you're classy.  And I did see more impromptu drug deals than you could shake a stick at.  And the snogging. The drunken, table dancing, hip gyrating to the bump, bump excessively high bass music snogging.  But that's kind of what you expect when you find yourself on an island the night of a party that many westerners have travelled around the world to get to.

note the bodies on the picnic table behind us

Minus Nick and Jon, I couldn't tell you who any of these people are

Thai people? They're amused by this. And smart. Very, very smart.  Stands lined the streets leading to the beach selling impossibly cheap alcohol in plastic pails.  The toast sandwich centre managed to import roughly 9 toastie machines, British white bread (something I don't necessarily appreciate or enjoy until I couldn't' find it for five weeks) and european cheese (cheddar, mozzarella, the basics).  At something like 30 pence per sandwich, the place was filled--both day and night--with revellers and the semi-comatose.  

The bucket trade

You may notice that i've said very little about the island of Koh Pha Ngan itself.  I think it would be beautiful. I think it could be beautiful. I think it was once beautiful.  And then a bunch of wankers came to dance and vomit and pass out in small pools of their own excrement on the beaches.  This is just on Haad Rin Beach itself.  We never made it farther than that.  Mostly because of aforementioned incidents above.  

Haad Rin Beach by day

I think I'm being unfair though.  The island's still beautiful. And the day after the full moon party, it was quiet and peaceful, almost eerily so.  Which is when I found some lovely touches--morning yoga classes, open air restaurants, bars turned into well-cushioned cinemas with floor seating to rest your weary hangover.  

I was also given some sound advice by a friend that the rest of the island's little towns were tucked away and gemlike.  However, as they were only linked by fishing taxi boat and my illustrious travel buddies (Nick, our work friend, joined us here) were passed out in various states of whiskey coma, I meandered the local area alone.  This is also how I got sold into a scuba diving package with Crystal Dive Resort on the island of Koh Tao.  All I'll say about this now is don't believe everything you read in Lonely Planet.  But that's a story for another entry.  

Koh Pha Ngan? Considering we had three days there, two in states of hangover, I'll leave it at this.  I'd go back. But to a gemmy alcove during the odd new moon, half moon or perhaps even a waxing crescent.