Posted by admin on Jul 3, 2010 in
Thailand After a full day of diving, drinking, watching the F1 and the world cup until the wee hours, the plan was to have a bit of a sleep in… thats what the plan was anyway. It was soooo hot this morning that it was almost impossible to rest…. so we caved! We went up to reception and got upgraded to an air conditioned room. It was only for a night anyway and the guys gave us a REALLY good rate.
So, equipped with an airconditioned room and a bottle of water, I crashed out in a big way and did a whole lot of nothing! We decided to cut our planned time in Koh Phangan short by a day as it was really hard to organise a dive here in low season. The only place close to go if you wanted to dive all year round was Koh Tao, a place we had planned to avoid due to how developed and busy it is, but all that changed pretty quickly. We had intended to try and get to Koh Tao this afternoon, but the guy at the dive shop hadn’t ordered in my paperwork and I would have to wait until tonight to pick it up…. strike 2 scuba man! Anyhow, we were booked on the ferry for the next morning and went off to do the usual of massages, swims, food and cocktails.
It was kind of sad to be leaving this island as we had settled in really quickly and knew a lot of the faces around town already. If money and time permitted it, we could have quite easily have locked our passports away and stayed here for a very long time. We got dinner at one of our favorite local places run by a lady and her daughter (when she finished school), played with the dogs in the neighbourhood and made our way home.
On the topic of dogs, one thing that I found hilarious on this island was the nightly howling choir that started off for no real apparent reason on the beach. This happend every night without fail and there is no way that I can say how many dogs, or over what distance they were all spread out, but it was huge and like nothing I had heard before. You would see piles of dogs sprinting down to the beach to join in and those who couldnt be bothered just joined in from where they lay… it didn’t carry on for too long though so was more entertainment than annoyance. It was also interesting to note that a number of the dogs appeared to have been ambushed at the last full moon party and spray painted… poor things! With our last recital for the night over, it was time to pack and get some sleep.
Written by Nath_and_erica
Tags: cocktails, Dinner, Full Moon Party, ko phangan, Koh Phangan, koh tao
Posted by admin on Jul 2, 2010 in
Thailand We stayed in Ko Phangan for 4 days and it was great. We stayed in Haad Rin where the infamous Full Moon Party is held but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.
As a traveler there are times when no matter how prepared you are you get sucked into something that is a waste.
This time it was renting motorbikes to go see some waterfalls. I have no experience riding a motor cycle nor do either of my friends. So when it was 200 baht a day we thought 7 bucks we would be stupid not to. Right? Wrong. I got on my bike and almost ran a pedestrian over. Not a good start. After getting more comfrotable Rick and I decided to spin the tires. I was fine; Rick on the other hand road off the road and crashed into a ditch. Ok a little blood on the shin is no big deal. So we see the sign for the waterfall; only 4k. Nice. Nope wrong again. We got about 500 meters on the dirt road and it was washed out. When i say washed out i mean there are drop offs of 2 -3 feet in the middle of the road. So we are trying the carfully drive on the road then BAM. Michele road into a wall.
We met a couple from Chicago and decided to walk the 2 k left. I swear we were walking straight up in the air at points. (Again i have pictures but my memory card has a worm) We walked for nearly 2 hours up and down the steepest hills you could imagine in 95 degree heat. We finally arrived at the waterfall. Mind you, at this point we were exhausted and have high hopes of jumping into water. Nope, no water on the water fall. There was a trickle of water down about 4 foot high rock. We got extrelmely lucky and paid 100 baht each for a ride back to our motorbikes. We got ripped off but i don’t think i could have physically made it back so we were all willing to pay. After a relaxing drive back on the motorbikes Rick and Michele had to see what the damages would cost them. Rick ended up paying just over 300USD and Michele paid just under 300USD. I, thankfully, did not crash. Ohh ya, they are both ok and had just minor scrapes and bruises.
Full Moon Party did not disappoint. It was low season so there were only about 10,000 people. Michele, an art teacher, painted Rick and myself. She painted the US Men’s National Team jerseys. I went as Clint Depsey and Rick as Landon Donovan. The US team lost to Ghana and had to listen to every drunk Brit in Thailand yell at us. But they got theres losing to Germany the next day. Back to Full Moon Party. There were fire jump ropes, stages to dance on, black lights, pounding music, and buckets of Coke, Red Bull, and alcohol (100-200 Baht) all on the beach. It was crazy! This was one of the best parties I have ever been to. When i left when the sun was rising people were passed out all over the beach. I mean easily 1000 people were sleeping.
Tags: Full Moon Party, Haad Rin, ko phangan, waterfall
Posted by admin on Jul 1, 2010 in
Thailand Oh dear, where do I even begin… It’s hopeless to try and convey this day (or night mainly) through writing but I’ll do my best, hopefully the nightshift induced state of delirium I’m in right now will help. So we woke up and spent the bulk of the morning lazying about the beach while Jeff went on an Internet errand. By midday we boarded a Pha-Ngan bound ferry with no reservation at an inn there; the plan was to stay up all night (the fiesta lasts well into the next day) and catch a sunrise ferry back to Samui and promptly crash. This would turn out to be something of an error in planning, pulling an all-nighter at an outdoor rave sober wasn’t a great recipe for fun. It was all part of the experience though and tis important to look at every situation on a trip like this in a positive light no matter how grueling it seems at the time, because ya know, it’s not every day y one gets to visit Thailand (or Vietnam, or Cambodia, or Indonesia, or Nepal…)
We made good time in arriving on Ko Pha-Ngan, with a decent chunk of daylight hours remaining and plenty of time for exploring its allegedly nicer, more “authentic” beaches (ha!). A s a precaution I brought only my passport and Jeff brought only his passport and cash. The risk of being robbed a t the Full Moon Party was excessively high so we didn’t want to carry anything important that we didn’t need. Unfortunately there was a little miscommunication between us two resulting in Jeff thinking I was bringing some cash of my own a long, thus bringing less of his own. Even if I’d wanted to, I had no cash remaining to bring. When we arrived on Ko Pha-Ngan we discovered to our horror that there was only enough cash for the two ferry tickets back and *exactly* $5 of food money for each of us. It would not be impossible to survive on this, but meant we’d be living off of rationed pad Thai and banana cakes from 7/11 for the next twelve hours and that our drink budget would be virtually nonexistent. So be it.
The island itself was much more like Ko Phi Phi than Samui, with its only settlement being a tightly backed traffic free web of cobblestone alleyways, pancake stands and surprisingly little stench. The “sunrise beach” was, as promised, sparkling clean with crystal clear water though the water had a strange stinging effect. My first impression was one of charm; what an adorable little innocent beach town this was. Little did we know what heathen abomination it would transform in to once the sun went down and the full moon rose. We lazied about Sunrise Beach for a while, where the locals were busy setting up shop for the craziness to come. Makeshift alcohol stalls with names like “So F#cking Bucket”, “One More F#cking Bucket”, “Lucy F#ck You Long Time”, etc painted on their fronts. Apparently the locals thought that by inserting the f-word randomly into their signs, they’d make the whiteys laugh and buy from their stalls. Unfortunately they are correct. As for what a “bucket” is, they are nifty drink combo packages consisting of a can of soda, a medicine bottle of “Red Bull” (definitely something different in there), and depending on the price a bottle or full handle of Jack Daniels or Sketchy Thai Whiskey. And of course, the lil plastic bucket you’re meant to mix all these into and drink from. They’re sort of a fixture at these Thai beach shindigs.
We left Sunrise Beach briefly to go watch the sunset on Sunset Beach. The ensuing psychedelic majesty was hands down the most jaw-dropping, perfect sunset I can remember seeing. A resident kitten befriended us as we watched it and began purring up against our arms. We showed it love and in return it betrayed us and lightly bit my wrist (though not deep enough to bleed), prompting what must’ve been a funny-for-Jeff panic attack on my part as I demanded we rush to 7/11 and use the rest of our money on a bottle of rubbing alcohol, to sterilize the theoretical Rabies I’d just “contracted.” Two minutes later I calmed down and realized there was nothing to worry about. Stupid cat. With the sun now thoroughly set and dinner overwith, it was time to return to the other beach and see what chaos had began unfolding. By now the settlement was booming with crowds of late-teen and college aged Westerners, and the Thais deploying every stall on the island to rake in the imminent dough.
We stepped out onto the beach and… all holy hell was about 30% unleashed. Scattered crowds of shirtless dancing 20-somethings, fire dancers juggling flaming nunchuks, GoGo-girls making stealthy rounds, even the beginnings of a laser-light show. In the background boomed the recent Coldplay song “Viva la Vida”, its beats matching up to the bobbings of moonlit longtail boats along the shore. If there was a song that accurately conveyed the epicness I felt thinking back about the trip as a whole, it was this one. Soon, a commotion… a local firedancing teen had lit the fuse to a rocket in his hand, stuffed it into an empty water bottle, stood up on a chair like a warrior leading his men on a charge, and launched a makeshift firework into the sky.
Spotlights swinging around, silverly moonlight on the water, increasingly deafening techno beats, ravers high out of their minds… Holy Hell was at 90% and it added up to a shocking catharsis of debauchery and mayhem that would remove any faith the viewer had in humanity’s future. This wasn’t a dance of dozens, or a hundred, or even hundreds but rather thousands. Thousands of Australians, Europeans, Americans, and Thais, all of whom plastered out of their minds were crammed onto this formerly modest beach dancing away in ways that only illicit substances of the most severe order could inspire. My humble little beer could do nothing to numb my senses and help this all make sense. After it all became too much, I retreated to a quiet corner of sand to (successfully) pass out. Jeff stayed awake and spent the rest of the night watching fire dancers nearly kill their audiences with errant fire.
Tags: Full Moon Party, ko pha ngan, Spa
