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
