Full Moon madness
Trip Start
Oct 14, 2007
1
22
92
Trip End
Jul 25, 2008
Where I stayed
Haad Tian Bungalows
Ko Phangan, Thailand
Friday, January 4, 2008
It was an absolutely beautiful roasting day when we arrived and squeezed into a mini van for the drive to our hotel. After paying for the luxury resort in Koh Samui and the fact that our next place was a fifth of the price (!), we were unsure of what to expect. After driving for an hour up very winding roads with the Thai version of Michael Schumacher driving, we got to a dirt track where the road stopped and we were told to get out and pointed in the direction of a downward slope to the Haad Tian bungalows. The fact that the taxi would go no further made us worry all the more about the state of the place we had booked into. Well, looks can be deceiving because it was actually very nice and very quiet. When shown to our wooden hut that would be our home for the next week, we were a little concerned as the hut was a basic wooden shack with a toilet that doesn't flush and a little fan to share between 4 people. It could not have been more opposite to our previous accommodation! Not the best when you know you will be very hungover for New Year, but as soon as we stepped back outside and looked out over the sea, we realised we were actually getting a good deal here.
The next few days were a haze of drinking, sunbathing, and swimming pool frizbee! I wasn't going to write this bit at first but Nick assured me it was a funny story...On our first night, we all had a bit too many cocktails, beers and drinking games. When we finally retired to our wooden hut for the first night sleep, we all fell into a drunken slumber. Nick and I were awoken in the night to the sound of running water. Nick sat up and caught one of our room mates, Rory, relieving himself in the room and didn't actually make it to the bathroom. He just happened to relieve himself on and over my backpack. Luckily the bag wasn't open or all my clothes would have been given Rory's own personal rinse! My toiletries and bottom of my bag bore the brunt of the attack and we spent the next half hour cleaning the room and rinsing my backpack with shower gel and antiseptic wash. The hangover had started to creep in and a very horrified Rory left the hut after that and didn't come back until the morning, still very apologetic and sheepish! I still feel like the bag is tainted in some way!
In a complete change of subject...what we were really looking forward to was the infamous Full Moon Party. When looking around the island, there were signs for parties on various different dates; eagle party, half moon party, shiva moon party, basically this was somewhere to party and you could do it every night if you wished. As both Nick and I suffer horrendous hangovers, we thought we would save the big night for New Year. Although there was no full moon on New Years eve, its just another excuse to party in the same way. The normal Full Moon parties attract on average 10,000 revelers to the island but as it was New Years Eve we were told there was apparently close to 30,000 people all crammed onto the beach at Haad Rin.
We started off with a few pre-party Samson (Thai whiskey) and redbull buckets and headed down to the beach making friends in the taxi on the way. Walking down towards the beach, there was people everywhere. It was absolutely mental. There was different music areas, fluorescent paints being smeared everywhere, makeshift bars selling BIG buckets full of alcohol and everyone using the sea as a toilet. Being a girl there is only so long you can hold it but when you are surrounded by people all knowing you are going into the sea to pee, you suddenly develop an iron clad bladder. Especially when dirty boys try to take photos of the girls walking into the sea to do their business - it's just shameful! I experienced this first hand and decided saving my dignity was more urgent than my need to pee.
At midnight, fireworks were set off in every direction up and down the beach. Some by amateurs that were stupidly setting them off near the crowd (don't worry Mum I was nowhere near!) and a more professional display which we have a nice little video of. It really felt like New Year now (except no one sang Old Langs Eye which was a big shame).
We managed to stick together all night, which was very surprising. But then we didn't stay too long maybe till 3:00am because a couple of people got a little worse for wear, naming no names (Rory and Nick!). The girls were the survivors and guided the boys back to their beds laughing at how they would feel in the morning. All in all, a good night and a memorable New Year.
As if being hungover wasn't enough to deal with on New Years day, we had some new arrivals to our room. First came the enormous cockroaches which Nick discovered and had to dispose of by himself (very brave) while me and Nicki were nowhere to be seen! Next came the spiders. The first was on the side of one of the bug nets over a bed which I happened to discover and screamed my heart out!!! It was big and hairy and very horrid looking, I'm sure it would have bitten my head off - it was that dangerous looking. Being the gentlemen, Nick said he would get rid of it and then refused to touch it! This just shows how big and horrible it was. It was left to me (one of the most scaredest people in the world when it comes to spiders) to dispose of it, obviously in a humane way. I was so brave as Nick just stood there like a girl! I got one of the drink buckets from the night before, trapped it, got it outside in the middle of a torrential storm and proceeded to pummel it to death with my flip flop - I had to make sure it wouldn't come back...but as luck would have it, the next morning Nick thought he saw a crab in the bathroom. He then realised, as it darted up the wall, that it was probably the Daddy of the spider I had beaten to death. It was huge! That's karma for you.
Since that day I killed the spider, it has not stopped raining. Maybe God is trying to tell me something...or maybe we just have bad luck with the weather! Thinking of moving on, we realised that our visa runs out in a couple of days so we need to get a move on. Today we head for Krabi, which will take the majority of the day but then we leave Thailand for good and into Malaysia. We have booked a flight to Kuala Lumpur that leaves Krabi tomorrow. Unfortunately we cannot load any photos on as the computers we are using don't allow you to plug in cameras or external equipment but as soon as we can we will add them on.
Island hopping has been very enjoyable and we haven't done much but eat, drink and lay about - the real stuff travelling is about! We head back to city life and get nearer and nearer to our time in Australia. I can't wait! Next stop KL!
