Ko Phangan

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As I mentioned before, there is a massive exodus to Ko PHangan around full moon time, so they really jam you onto these boats. People cover every square inch of deck space and on the back of the boat is a mountain of backpacks, bags and suitcases. Despite being in various stages of travel weariness, everyone is in a pretty jovial mood as they head towards the island paradise and one of the best parties in this hemisphere.
It was a beautiful sunny day and below decks a nice thai woman was selling snacks, water and best of all, beer!
Niki and I did it up right and grabbed ourselves several beers each to start the Ko Phangan leg of our trip off in proper Canadian fashion.
We arrived at the island and waded through the sea of people to the fast growing pile of bags being tossed off the boat. After some elbowing and jostling we found our belongings and walked down the pier into the throng of cab drivers holding signs for the various hotels, resorts and bungalows.
Being the full moon party, Niki and I had decided to book ourselves a room while we were in Vancouver rather than try and desperately find ourselves a place to stay when the island was so crowded. So we were pleasantly surprised to find our bungalow provided a free pick up at the pier. We piled into the back of the truck and set off to our accomodations.
Ko Phangan is an absolutely beautiful island, after being in mountainous and jungle laden Laos for a couple weeks I was struck by the tropical beauty of this place. Palm trees, white sand beaches and birds of every color were everywhere you looked. Since we opted to stay on the other side of the island from the party, we had a nice half hour ride in the back of the truck to get a good tour of the place and really take it all in.
We had sort of booked our place blindly and were pretty stoked when we pulled up to our bungalows. They were all nice, clean and better than we had expected. The staff kindly showed us to our bungalow and again, through some stroke of luck we scored the bungalow at the end of the row, right beside the beach.
We were definitely getting what we paid for; our room had air con, a beer fridge and a tv (which we never ended up using). There was also wifi and a desk, pretty much the nicest room we had so far on our trip.
After unpacking, we wasted no time hitting the restaurant/bar on the beach that was attached to our bungalows. The meal was unfortunately not as on par as the rest of the place and would be the last we would have there.
With a meal and a few drinks in our belly we hit the beach.
As I mentioned, we decided to stay on the opposite side of the island from Haad Rin (the beach the party takes place on) as we knew it would be quieter. Our beach was called Haad Yao and was everything we wanted; white sands, some bars that spilled down onto the sand playing decent tunes and smiling people all around.
We walked down a little and had a swim in the water (warmer than bath water by the way) and took a look for a bar/restaurant/bungalow place that our friend had recommended. The place was everything we'd been promised and we would end up spending basically all our free time here. We had a quick drink and returned to our room.
After a little beer/beach hula hoop session Niki and I returned to our new favorite local for dinner.
The food here was delicious and decently priced. We had decided that we had a slight mission to try and find a little green. We didnt want to be overt as we were in another country and like home, there are still laws around this sort of thing. First we tried out a couple of poorly coded phrases to our waiter, no success. We were going to give up and try again tomorrow but I felt perhaps we'd have better luck if we finished our meal and moved to the bar. After a couple cocktails at the bar a brit came over and sat next to us and struck up conversation. His name was Ricky and it turned out he'd been staying at this place for just about a month. Apparently three days after he arrived his wallet had been stolen and it was going to take a month to get new cards mailed to him. The owners of this place were kind enough to take care of him in the meantime. Letting him run a tab for the month and rent him a bungalow and a motorbike; testament to the quality of the people of Thailand and this place in particular. After a bit of chatting we ended up becoming friends with him and he invited us up to his bungalow to smoke a little joint and relax on his porch in the hammock. We were hanging out and chatting and marvelling at the size of the insects and geckos in this more rural part of the country when a cockroack about the size of a small import car came flying lazily onto the deck. These guys sort of fly all over the place and after bumping into the wall and near missing Niki it came right for m. I figured it would just bounce off me like it did the bungalow wall but nope, it landed. Right. On. My. FACE! Considering the circumstances, I think I handled having a large insect attached to my head quite well and brushed him off calmly without betraying my cool exterior.
We chatted with Ricky for a little while longer and decided to call it a night.

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