Koh Phangan - Thailand

This was the day that I was to discover that everything you're told in Thailand may not necessarily be the truth. Some of it may be a version of the truth. Some of it, will be a lie.

We were told that we would be picked up around 8:30 am outside the hotel and taken in a comfortable air-conditioned minibus to Surat Thani port, where we would catch a 2 hour ferry to Koh Phangan. We were indeed met almost on-time, and the minibus was nice and cool. This is where the truth ended. The journey lasted about 10 minutes, as we were taken to a car park and huddled off the minibus like cattle and squeezed onto a bigger bus (like, 44 seats) with other travelers. This bus was hot, smelly and not strictly human-exclusive. By that, I mean there was probably 3 mosquitos for every 2 passengers! I was lucky enough to get a seat near the front. The bus had around 44 seats, yet we crammed about 49 passengers on it, stowing the excess luggage in the aisle of the bus. This meant that people had to sit ON the luggage, or stand at the front for the journey that lasted about 3-4 hours.

After listening to some music, and raising my mosquito-kill count to around 5, I managed a little nap. When we got to Surat Thani, we were then, again like cattle, herded off the big bus and told to wait for another bus. The only thing good about this was that we got off the sweaty, flea-ridden bus and Cindy bought me an ice-cream! After we'd just got settled, the Thai pseudo-farmer blew her whistle and us cattle were bundled onto an even smaller bus, which looked older than Fred Flintstone's car, which was to take us to the ferry port. We were told this journey was to take 45 minutes. 1 hour and 15 minutes later, we arrived...

I'm getting annoyed just writing this, so I'll summarise. We got to the port, ate, got the ferry, passed out, woke up, off the ferry, taxi to hotel.

The rooms were nice, basic but clean and cute. I liked that the room came with a padlock to lock the door?!?!... whatever. We changed, then caught a tuk-tuk into the town area to find food. We found a restaurant and had some much-needed grub. In the middle of eating, Roger began to shout "Ryan.... RYAN" and to our amazement, walking past the restaurant, semi-dancing, was Ryan Lilly (our friend from Korea)! Small world eh?

Ryan persuaded us to finish our meal then join him and some random Kiwis in going to a Jungle Party. After getting a cocktail in a bucket (standard) we got a mad tuk-tuk to this party. Here, in the middle of the jungle, were about 2000 drunken foreigners, dancing to

(in my opinion crappy) music, drinking and having a great time! The party was fun and I was feeling happy to not be on that damn bus. Roger was almost passing out tired though, so to wake him up and avoid getting bitten by jungle mosquitoes (they're harder to kill than bus mosquitoes, i figured) we went to a pool party. This was just what it sounded like. So, we shrugged our shoulders, stripped to our underwear and jumped in the pool! This was so much fun, drinking and dancing and splashing. The vibe was good and we were beside the beach, at last, I was happy again!

The next day was to be the day of the Full Mon Party. I wasn't sure how I was feeling about this party. From what had started out as a small party in 1985 for a few tourists, the FMP now attracted HUGE crowds, thousands of foreigners. And we all know how drunken foreigners act... We were also finally joined by Mina who had had to work an extra week. We all started this day by taking a tuk-tuk to Koh Ma Beach (we smirked at the name) which was amazingly beautiful. The sand was white and the sea turquoise. A few hundred metres from the shore was a small island, and between this beach and the island, was a sandy walkway where we could walk 'through the sea' to the island. It made some amazing pictures. 

Koh Ma

I was feeling like I deserved some TLC after yesterday, so after Roger and Cindy, I went to the beach huts and asked one of the beautiful Thai ladies for an coconut oil massage. I listened to my iPod music as her warm hands soothed my aching back and neck and I was totally relaxed... As she moved onto my legs, I suddenly noticed how large her hands were, and come to notice it... her shoulders were quite wide too for a wo..... oh.....eeeek! 
I'll give her her due though, she was a good masseuse!! :P

After the relaxing massage and a refreshing swim, we headed back to rest for the FMP. We all bought custom

FMP vests/tshirts and crashed. The hotel provided free transport to Haad Rin (beach of the FMP) and we were dropped off close. We went to a meeting point to try and meet up with the girls from Korea (we'd pre-arranged this). This wasn't to be though, as we were a tad late but we partied on late into the night. We got body paint on our arms and faces and drunk a fair amount of beer. Some of us tried laughing gas, which Roger, Cindy and Sam thought was terrible, but Winnie and I were too busy laughing to complain! 

The Full Moon Party certainly was an experience. Can I say I enjoyed it? no, sadly I can't. Again, I felt that what had been a cool hippy-style party back in the day, had been too over-customised for us westerners. The music wasn't to my liking and I was just having one of those nights. You know those, right? Those nights when you're just not feeling it, you drink, but it has no effect. You smile on the outside but the inside yawns... So thanks body, thanks a lot for choosing this night of all nights to be stubborn.

We did manage to bump into the girls though, which was great. Some of them felt sick from some food they ate but they seemed to be having fun. It was really good to think 6 months ago, I knew none of these people, we've become close friends through our shared experiences and now we were again meeting in another country on the same beach. Madness! 

Winnie and Cindy also bumped into Ryan again. I'd already decided that the FMP wasn't for me, and gone home. It was actually one of the saddest nights of the trip for me, it was only the second time since leaving the UK that I'd felt isolated and lonely, despite there being 20,000 people around me. I guess it's just my age and the aforementioned body-alcohol resistance :(

Upon reflection, I am glad that I went. Was it crazy? Yeah, I guess it was in parts. Was it fun? To me, no. But others seemed to have a decent time. Would I go again? no, been there, done that, got the purple vest....

We all woke up at a fairly decent time to say we all got back between 3-5am. We went the port area to rent some scooters so that we could spend the rest of the time exploring this gorgeous island. First we bought the Ferry tickets, as we needed to get to Surat Thani airport the following night, to catch the flight to Bangkok. The tickets allowed us to board the 12:30 ferry to the mainland, then catch the provided luxury bus and get us to the airport for 4pm. Our flight was at 8:20pm so we\'d have some time to kill but it was better than rushing, we thought. We spent the rest of the day riding round the island, taking pictures and eating ice-cream and other foods on offer. This is the day I took the magical picture sitting on the palm tree hovering over the ocean. Simply beautiful. We ended the night be going around a local market, sampling various street food and looking at souvenirs. I also bought more Imodium... ahem.

The final day, we woke early and I had breakfast with Winnie. I also heard another hotel guest talk and said to Winnie "he sounds like me", turns out he was from Leeds. Was nice to hear a Yorkshire accent this far afield! Cindy joined us and we went out on the scooters to visit the full moon beach and take some pictures on the sand. Roger slept in and Sam and Mina had left for their ferry to Koh Samui. We met back at the hotel and then rode together to return the bikes and catch the ferry. It was then to be confirmed that traveling within Thailand is NOT something I enjoy doing. We boarded the 12:30 ferry at 1:10 and were herded into a downstairs room with only white walls and a blank tv to stare at. 

Thankfully we slept the whole journey and after waiting 40 minutes to get off the boat, we got on the promised luxury bus to the airport. The luxury bus was the only truth in the promised journey. We moved on and stopped at a place where we were told to get off the bus, which we did. We we then told to get back ON the bus again. Whilst grumbling, I got back on the bus which took us to the airport, via the train station. Promised time of arrival, 4pm. Actual time of arrival, 6:10 pm! Magic Thailand, magic!

Back to the scene of the party the morning after, beautiful

We ate in the airport then boarded our flight to Bangkok, which left on-time at 8:20pm....