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Published: June 20th 2008
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Our first stop at the islands was Koh Phangan, home of the full moon party. The party happens on Haad Rin, a southern beach and so we decided to stay about a 10min taxi ride away just outside Ban Tai where we had a lovely bungalow and a private beach which was straight out of a postcard! So beautiful. We arrived a few days in advance for the "warm up parties", this basically meant that we spent the 3/4 nights leading up to the full moon party on the beach "practising" for the real party, one night we had a pool party so that was a bit different! The following days were spent lazing on our beach working on the tans. Each night was brilliant fun with plenty of fire shows. We mainly based ourselved around Drop Inn Bar at the end of the beach and here the fire shows were excellent and as the night progressed they usually lit a skipping rope and a big hoop and people brave (or stupid and drunk) enough could skip/jump thro the hoop. Endlessly entertaining for the rest of us. By the time the night of the full moon came we were actually wreaked
but we still managed to party til the sun came up (as we'd practiced!). The following day was a recovery day and boy did we need it! The next day we rented a jeep so we could head and explore the island for a day or two before heading to the next island. So we got this massive jeep which we named Tu Tu (after a thai guy we'd met in Pai) and off we headed up to the north eastern beaches which were just about the most beautiful places ive seen, crystal clear waters and white powdery sand! Paradise! I was designated driver for the jeep, mainly coz i could drive and wasn't afriad of it! But i probably should have been!! On our first road trip that evening (me and jacinta headed off for a few hours) we ended up on a road which eventually turned into a dirt track, inspired by the idea that we were "heading off the beaten track" we continued onwards until the road turned into sand underneath us and the jeep got stuck going up a hill. At this point we were neither going uphill or downhill and so jacinta had to hop
out and put some mats under the wheels so i could move. It was then that i realised i couldn't do a hill start as the handbrake was basically crap and couldn't hold the jeep on the hill! So it was reversing for me using the mats to get out of the rut and spraying up loads of sand in the process. We laughed about it.....later! After that it was decided that we'd stick to the beaten track....we didn't feel the need to be so adverturous anymore! We were rewarded though for the little bit of exploring that we did do that evening, we wound up at the top of the island Koh Ta where theres a sandbank out to a smaller island and so we walked out there, its very beautiful, we sat on the beach then and had a fruit shake watching the sun go down. Very beautiful. it was all a bit ruined then when we headed back towards the jeep and discovered someone had stolen jacintas flip flops! Back at our bungalows we whiled away the evening swinging in our hammocks chatting and reading in the evening heat. The next morning we spent some time lazing
on the gorgeous beach and played a volleyball game with some guys before packing up Tu Tu and heading to the other side of the island, after some driving around and a quick stop off for lunch we were nearly there. We started climbing a steep hill which was a bit scary to say the least when considering the state of TuTu's handbrake and acceleration system! We passed some look outs on the way but didn't stop until one of them said "last stop before the jungle"...actually we didn't stop then either, it was only after a couple of metres after that sign when the road started to turn into a dirt track did we hesitate.....this was reminding us all too well of the day before and so we reversed back down the hill (there was no way i could do a 3-point turn on a steep hill in dirt without a handbrake!!) and settled for the view from one of the lookouts which was rewarding all the same. So the plan for stay on the north west beaches was scrapped due to not being able to get there! and so we headed back to the East coast and stayed
on haad Salad instead. This too was gorgeous. Here we sat having some dinner and watched the sunset and then hung out in our hammocks for the evening again. The following morning we headed to the ferry, dropped off Tutu (there was no tearful goodbye here, we were glad to see the back of him....well i was anyway) and got on our boat to Koh Tao!....
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