alright, so i've been in thailand for about 5 days now. i traveled from luang prabang to vientienne overnight and then caught a bus to bangkok. i had about a week in thailand before i was supposed to catch a flight to india. didn't have any plans, didn't know what i was going to do. but then you always meet some kids. in the tuk tuk on the way to the bus station i met 4 kids heading to the full moon party on koh phangan the 8th of jan. perfect. i don't know if you've heard of them; but these parties are supposed to be massive. they have an nye party that is supposed to draw around 60 thousand people. i think the regular ones bring in about 30 thousand.
the kids are sebastian from belgium, anthony from france, jenny and lucy from england. we got to bangkok at 6 in the morning and looked around for a place to buy bus tickets and a boat ride to koh phangan, this huge island in the gulf of thailand. we found out that you couldn't catch a bus or train until the evening so we rented a room for the day and spent the rest of the day buying shit in bangkok and wandering around a tourist street there. it was pretty crazy. oh yeah, and walking around at 6 in the morning i did see a few lady boys.
the bus ride was uneventful but did drop us off at the port a little early and we had to wait from like 4 in the morning to 8 or 9 for the boat to pick us up. after getting to koh phangan we had to take a tuk tuk to haadrin, which is the city on koh phangan where the party is. it was the sixth, two nights before the full moon party. they say the nights before it are better because on the actual night the place is so packed it's kinda unreal. we settled some bungalows and then went to the beach. the beaches are super gorgeous and have lots of people, from all over the world. at the parties the next three nights, i would meet people from ibiza, iran, russia, spain, new zealand, england, australia, america, obviously thai's, france, israel, and many other places.
that first night was the pool party at coral. billed as the original pool party in haadrin (everything here is the original something). we got there way early but drank buckets anyway. i don't know where i first started noticing buckets but they are everywhere in SEA. basically plastic beach buckets full of some kind of booze and mixers and always red bull. i've pretty much avoided the buckets until this night. the pool party was okay but kind of a sauage fest so i took off for a bit head to another bar. there i met this dude that told me about this jungle rave that you had to take a boat taxi to, i learned later that this place was called eden. hahahah. very fitting. this place was nuts. a couple bars, dance floors, lounge tables, dj's and everything else you can imagine would be in a place like this. here i met the couple from ibiza that i would hangout with all night. they were pretty cool, but i kept getting confused if they were french or spanish and where ibiza was. they were looking from their friend from iran, he would show up hours later and i believe that i offended him by commenting that our countries were about to go to war. i didn't mean anything by it but he snapped back at me. i apologized and dropped it. all i was trying to say is that it was crazy and not a good thing but... anyway, back to the party, we danced all night me with the couple from ibiza and then meeting other people as well. we met this one palestinian who was dancing his ass off, it was infectious, the dude was a pretty bigger guy but he was straight fire on the dance floor. by the time i caught the boat taxi the sun was coming up. when i got back to the bungalow, i had to sleep in the hammock outside because my roommate had thrown sugar and shit all over the place in our room, including on my bed, and millions of ants had congregated there.
the next day we spent most of the day at the beach. my roommate stayed in the bungalow, watching movies as he was too hungover. i was pissed about the way he'd trashed our room but wasn't going to say anything. i've surely never been too drunk. anyway, the thai's were setting up platforms and stages and multi-colored neon ornaments all over the beach. that night we hung out with the kiwi's at the kangaroo bar, where they sell mushroom shakes and joints. i don't think i mentioned that they did this in vang vieng in lao too. i'm not sure how legal it is; but i guess they do it anyway. we had a fairly uneventful night as we were all tired from the night before and knew the next night would be big.
after breakfast the next morning we stopped by some shops to load up on neon gear for the night. there must be like a hundred shops here, all selling neon clothes, jewelry, and body paint. i got a tank top and we all pitched in on some body paint. after that we hungout at the beach for days, reading, swimming, checking out the sites. about 5 or so we ran into the kiwi's from the night before and made plans for dinner, they were going to a restaurant for sunday roast. went back to the bungalow to shower and get ready. we met up for dinner, no roast for me, only the veggie pad thai. i haven't seen any drunken noodles either, maybe they aren't in this part of the country but that's all i would eat at thai places in sf, pad see kew. it's weird. anyway, then we got some drinks and headed back to our guest house to drink cheaper there for a while and cover our bodies in neon paint. then we headed down to the beach for the party. we set up a meeting place if anyone got lost. i got lost right away of course. this thai dude was driving by on a motorbike and i jumped on the back, giving everyone down the street high fives along the way. in any case i made it to the beach and there was a shit ton of people, i mean, a lot. so i headed to the meeting place, swimming through people. people dancing on stages, dancing on the beach, people everywhere.
i got to the meeting place, got a beer and waited. i don't know how long i waited but i never saw anyone from our group. eventually, these two scottish girls sat next to me and i chatted with them for a bit. after a while i just figured that i wouldn't see anyone from our group so i went dancing with the scottish girls. we danced all night, they were drinking buckets but i had stopped drinking by now as i was pretty primed. at one point it seemed the girls went from okay to absolutely wasted in like 60 seconds. one second okay, the next not. so, i had to get them back to their guesthouse or whatever. it took us days to walk back up to the streets and one of them kept sitting down. so we finally get a tuk tuk and head back to their place. i figured it was in haadrin as that's where most people where staying for the full moon party. i couldn't have been more wrong. they were like a half hour drive to the other side of the island. so we get over there and go to sleep. the next day, i woke up way too late, missing the boat ride and bus i had scheduled to go back to bangkok. then i had to pay 1,400 baht to get back to my side of the island, 30 baht to a dollar. i got back and the poor kids had been looking for me for days, they had even gone to the police station to tell them they had a missing person. i felt pretty bad. i had to reschedule my bus ride paying more for it. oh well, it was a good night.
so here i am the morning after the full moon party, pretty amazed by what a massive party it is and that they do this every month, waiting for the boat to head to bangkok. the next time i write it will be from india.
later, nick
p.s. i forgot to mention that this is the first place where i've met with anti-american setiment. apparently new zealanders are down on us right now. and more.
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