Its been a while

---

So I havent wrote on this in what appears to be for ever so thought I would do a massive update...



On the 6th March Jimbo and I headed to Phangan ready for the full moon party. We arrived at the port in Had Rin and what a dive that is there. It was like a cheap tourist area full of tat that even I wouldnt want. It stank and although our plan was to have a look around and chill out for a bit we ended up getting out of there asap which led to issues.



When we went to get into a taxi it was already full but the driver assured us there would be space while taking our bags off our back. This resulted in me sitting on a footstool faceing the wrong direction for a nice 50 minute drive. That was not enjoyable. I was sat oppoite Jimbo so had actually 0 leg room and my shoulder was digging into a metal bar the entire way. I was delighted when we arrived at Easy Life Bungalows in Haad Yao.



This excitement was short lived. We were greeted by a happy polite family who owned the place and it appeared to be quite nice, we assumed incorrectly. Our bungalow was at the top of the steepest hill with unsteady steps leading up to it. It had the hardest mattress in the world; numerous wholes in the ceiling and floors and enough animals inside to start our own zoo. But what can you expect for five pound a night?



On the next day I organised us a snorkelling trip starting at 9.30. This was a difficult time to get up as neither of us actually slept the previous night. We got picked up in an old style pick up truck that had benches in the back with nothing to hold on to and considering how hilly Phanang is, this was more of an issue than it appears.



We arrived at the sea and got on this longtail boat where we met other people who were on the trip. There were two Americans (who we met on the truck there - Sarah and Keith) 3 Canadians (Jared, James and Joel) and 2 girls from New Zealand (Sam and Tessa). Everyone was fantastic. The day was amazing mainly because we all appeared to get on well and everyone was so nice and funny who we met. The day involved snorkelling round different points of the island, lieing on beache, a standard pad thai lunch and chilling out on the boat. Jimbo and I both got burnt but Jimbo ended up blistering on his shoulder which was disgusting.



We arranged all to meet for dinner in town so Jimbo, Sarah, Keith and myself all shared a taxi to Sam and Tessas hotel, The Great Western, where we were meeting. Turns out the girls had won their trip in a radio competition, jealous! Their hotel was amazing and the food was nice. We all started drinking buckets (strawberry dakari) and then got some more drinks from 7/11 and popped to the beach for the full moon warm up party.



If that was the warm up party I was unsure what I was expecing for the actual full moon party, it was insane! Fire dancers, skipping ropes on fire (which Sarah bravely did but unfortuantely fell and burnt her leg) The beach had many different ypes of music with your standard pop chart music one end merging into heavy dub down the other end of the beach. It was amazing. Alot of crazing dancing was occuring, fuelled by buckets of who knows what. We all arranged to meet up the next day to tackle the actual full moon together.



On the day of the full moon Jimbo and I bought the standard hideous t-shirts to fully embrace the full moon. Unfortunately we missed our arranged meeting time with everyone as our hole of a bungalow didnt have any water so we couldnt shower. But as luck would have it we actually bumped into them on the beach. After a few laps of the beach I spotted James Porter (who now Ive finished my book thoroughly reminds me of Richard Parker) in the distance and they were with everyone else too.



After finding everyone the night consisted of numerous mojitos, vodka red bulls, thai whiskey (I think), crazy dancing, fire dancers, iluminous paint, dancing in the rain, spring rolls, dancing in the sea, loud singing, dusgusting toilets, inappropriate signs, drink tallys, bad thai dancing, fire ropes, burns, grabby thai men, ripped leggings, lost flip flops, found flip flops and anything else you can imagine.



At the end of a very enjoyable night Jimbo and I were shoved onto the back of a taxi, literally onto the back so we had to stand on the step up and hold on to the roof! After clinging on for dear life for a short while, the dirver got out and said I could sit in the front but left Jimbo on the back ha. When we made it back (alive!) I found cockraoches in my bed so had to kill it and remove it as Jimbo was too much of a girl.



The day after, Jimbo feeling a little tender, me feelign spritely, we went down to 'Best Cafe' for some food and on the way bumped into Amir and Duncan who we met last night on the way to the full moon. Organised our transport to Koh Tao which is apparently full but we are just going to go anyway and risk it.

---