Thailand - Koh Phagnan/Full Moon Party

The rush through Singapore and Malaysia had been for one reason: Full Moon Party. There was a beachfront bungalow in my name booked for 5 days surrounding the festivities and I couldn’t wait to get there. From Kuala Lumpur, I flew up to the middle of Thailand and took a ferry over to Koh Samui to meet up with Alex. We had met all the way back at the beginning of February in Buenos Aires and he’d been in Australia and SE Asia since then. Two months later it was like we’d never parted. We were immediately up to the same old antics.

After a little bit of catching up, the two of us and some friends he’d made on the way, went out for a few drinks. On an island like Koh Samui, those few drinks turned into a melee of booze and God knows what else. The night became a giant fog that didn’t clear up until the next afternoon when we were on the ferry to Koh Phagnan. We spent the afternoon exploring parts of the island and doing the three things that would consume just about all of our time there: lying on the beach, lying in a hammock, drinking.

Later in the day I met some people along the beach who we would spend much more time with. Louisa, Tom, and Jen were all friends from England and great people. We met because they offered me some freshly cracked coconut (Tom had climbed a tree and spent nearly a half hour trying to split this open). I hung out with them for a few hours, sharing stories over a case of beer. Louisa even told me a remarkable story about her grandparents that sounded like something out of a movie. If I get my way, one day it will. I wrote it all down.

They all went off to watch a Muay Thai fight, so Alex and I went to the beach to get our drink on. The actual Full Moon Party wasn’t for another two nights, but the evenings leading up to it get wilder as more people arrive on the island. The big thing about the party (and much of Thailand anymore) is the way they serve alcohol. In many places it’s a bottle of beer or a shot of liquor or a glass of wine. Here it’s a sand pail filled with four things: ice, a 375ml bottle of liquor, two cans of soda, red bull. One of these things will put you in a haze, two will knock you off your feet, three will make you hate life in the morning and four, well….DONT. DRINK. FOUR.

But, pushing limitations is what I’m good at. So what did I do? I drank four.

Idiot.

All I wanted to do the next day was lie in my hammock. And all morning, that’s what I did. Still to this day, all I want to do is go back and lie in that hammock. The lapping of the ocean waves at my doorstep, the crescendoing sound of cicadas and the warmth of the sun created a place so tranquil that I will be hard pressed to find anything else like it.

Alex had different plans, however. He wanted to get wickedly tan. Who was I to blame him? What’s the point in migrating to warmth for months on end, only to return home as pale as snow? So we did what all good travellers do: we got insanely tan.

This took us much of the next month to complete, but more on that later.

That night brought us out to the beach again, however as we were pre-gaming at Alex’s hostel, I started getting nauseous. I’m not sure if it was the food I ate or remnants of the previous nights blitzkrieg to my body, but I called it early. It meant Alex and Jen were left up to their own devices. Which was fine. I got to prep myself for the onslaught of the following evenings massacre, and those two could handle themselves.

Having gone to bed early, I woke up just as early. 4am early. I was able to watch the moonset into the ocean. If you’ve never seen one of these, it’s worth doing once in your life. It’s like a sunset in the middle of the night. After watching something like that, I was unable to get back to sleep. So I did what seemed most natural. I lay in my hammock until Jen and Alex got up about 7 hours later. Again I enjoyed simply tuning out and getting lost in the sounds around me.

That afternoon we were back on the beach for a few hours of more tanning. By this point I’d gotten so dark I’d given up wearing sunblock. Towards the end of the afternoon we went back and enjoyed the sunset from my bungalow. We did this nearly every night as not only did my porch look directly out to the sun dropping into the water but they were some of the most spectacular sunsets I’d ever seen.

The Full Moon Party is one of the craziest things I’ve ever been a part of. Much like Carnaval, there were hordes of people dressed up in bells and whistles all there to get completely shit faced. Well, except for the couple that brought their toddler.

Seriously – I don’t get hippies.

The thing to do here is cover yourself in glow in the dark paint. Everyone starts drinking and starts painting anything and everything on each other. As the only American in the group, I got covered in stars and stripes…of the neon variety. Everyone else gets all sorts of swirls, moustaches and vulgarity…or anything that might signify your nationality.

On the beach it’s absolute mayhem. Drunk, dancing, glo-paint covered bodies meander up and down the beach traversing from bar to bar. Each bar has something unique. Some have fire-twirlers, some have giant slides, and all of them sell buckets. And if you’re really feeling up for it you can walk all the way to the end of the beach and up to the cliff side bars to enjoy your fill of mushroom shakes.

And if you’re one of the many people to find someone special for the night, you don’t go back to anybodys hotel room; you just strip naked and run into the ocean.

The next day was my 100^th day on the road. Everything that happened at that party couldn’t have been a better way to celebrate such a milestone.

But, that also meant the next two days were recovery days for me and Alex. Along with Louisa, Tom and Jen, we spent the next two days doing the exact same thing we’d done the previous two days – minus the drinking. There were countless more hours lying in the sun, plenty of time lying in the hammock, and a couple more picturesque sunsets. While our next destination was just as picturesque – and had an even better beach – there was something about combining the perfect party atmosphere with the perfect location that made Koh Phagnan special.