Full moon was definitely the most crazy night of my life to date.
First though a little description of Koh Phag Nan to appease my parents so this isnt completely about drinking. There are three islands off the eastern coast of thailand that are the spots most tourist flock to if they want to do that coast (the other coast is the koh phi phi, phuket coast). There is Koh Samui, which is the largest and slightly more upmarket, Koh Phag Nan, which is medium sized and is considered the backpacker "party"island, and Koh Tao, the smallest, which has some of the best diving in Thailand. The boats to the islands first land at Koh Samui, then Koh Phagnan, and then finaly Koh Tao, resulting in Koh Tao being the least touristy and Koh Samui the most. Sidenote: all of Thailand is one giant tourist clusterfuck, so don't expect to get away ANYWHERE here, this is why I was not such a fan of Thailand.
Despite its reputation for drunken backpackers, theft, and full moon parties, Koh Phagnan is still ridiculously beautiful. The island is pretty large, taking about 45 minutes to get from north to south, but this is party due to the roads. The north of the island is supposed to have the nicest beaches (I never went), and the south near Haad Rhin, where the full moon party is held, is supposed to be overclowded and kind of shitty. We stayed on the west of the island, but if you are just going for the full moon, its much better to stay near Haad Rhin because the line car ride home at 8 am is a bitch, and most likely all of your money will have been stolen at some point so you wont be able to pay for it.The south of the island, as you approach Haad Rhin area, has the most amazingly steep hills that you have to cross before you can get to the beach, and that whole area is the least developed and most beautiful. If you were not too picky about being on the beach it would be cool to stay up in this area with amazing views of Haad Rhin and the harbor.
Above is a tiny pic of Koh Phagnan. The isthmus in the bottom Left hand corner is Haad Hhin, home of the full mood parties, and you can see from the topography that there is a huge mountain seperating it from the rest of the island. We stayed up on the middle right hand side, which was nice, but nothing special; at least it was really cheap.
Pics of where we stayed which was ok but not that great, and as you can see the weather was kinda shit.
OK now on to the Big Partyyy:
Our crew started out being two Swedish guys, the Swedish girls I was already hanging out with, and Aussie dude, and two Chileans.
On the islands you get around in line cars: trucks which have extra seats inserted into the truck bed with an iron roof over the whole thing where they usually store bags, and in our case...extra people. The 40 minute ride into town was pandamonium - we had all had consumed a few buckets and beers at that point and were feeling pretty jovial. Buckets: drinks come in actual beach buckets in all different colors and are usually about 5 dollars for a vodka and redbull bucket with about 7 or 8 shots. Back to story: We sang songs the whole way, hung off the back of the car and and the bravest of us (Sanna, me, Aussie and one of the Swedish guys) went up on the roof so we could see the island better as we were wizzing along at 50 mph.
When we got up on the roof we did not know of the existence of the hills, and - when we hit these I was doubting the sanity of our decision to ride there since it was like a roller coaster with no seat belts while trying to dodge overhanging tree branches at the same time.... but it was still awesomely fun, probably one of my favorite few moments from the night. Unfortunately when we climbed down someone had kicked one of my rainbows out of the back of the truck by mistake during the ride, so even before getting to the party I had managed to lose my shoes and had to buy another pair for 100 bhat.
The party is on a huge stretch of beach, prob a good 3/4 of a k long and pretty wide when the tide is out. Lining the shore are Vietnamese selling buckets, jello shots, black light paint, drugs etc, and numerous DJ booths pumping hard core techno. Even now, a week later, I think Wheeeres youuuurrr heeeead at, wheres your head at, wheres your head at, and apple bottom jeans, boots with the furrrrrrr are both permanently seared into my subconscious. Scattered all along the beach mixed in with the crowds are fire twirlers and other acrobatics so the whole place with is flashing lights, whizzing circles of fire, and reverberating music would be any acid junkies dream.
I think I spent a good 3/4 of the night swimming, and because of this lost the new pair of shoes I had bought along with my shorts and shirt - don't worry I was wearing a swimsuit so I wasn't running around naked. My favorite part of the night was swimming out at about 8 am while the sun was coming up and watching the party from the water: the whole beach was still packed and in the daylight the little bit of beach that was left looked like a mile long snake of moving people.
One of my friends wasn't so lucky and while he was passed out someone stole his pants OFF OF HIM, so he had to walk home with no money in his boxers.
The damage was catastrophic to the beach. The high tide line was one unbroken mess of bottles, buckets, clothes and shoes; no wonder there is so much shit floating in the water in thailand.
Left the party at 9 am and it was still going strong, I think they turn the music off at 10 or 11. It was one of the most fun nights of my life but something I do not need to repeat any time in the neat future... I think I did in one night normal liver and mental damage for a year.
Now things start getting REALLY epic:
I go home, can't sleep, and decided to go for a walk on the beach. I feel like crap and the whole time I am repeating the mantra: I will never drink again, over and over again in my head, you know the drill. I hear some drumming and singing from up in an empty lot about 50 m away so I kind of poke my head up to see what is going on. Turns out it is about 8 thai guys all sitting in a circle playing drums on old buckets and singing. They invite me to come joint them. Not one to pass up an opportunity to chill with locals I go. They make me take shots with them which is an almost impossible task at first, seeing as I can hardly even take shots anymore evern when im on form. I try to leave after about an hour.. they won't let me leave till we finish the whole bottle. ouch. It was really fun though and they made me sing songs for them too, so I sang American Pie and San Francisco - flowers in your hair.
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