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Published: August 12th 2006
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Full Moon Over the Beach
The early hours of the evening There has been one date with a big "X" on my calendar for my summer travels: August 9th. Koh Phangan, Thailand. Full Moon Party. There was so much ridiculousness there that I have to skip ahead of my last two blog entries to share what I witnessed (and participated in). To give you an idea of the magnitude of this party, begin by picturing a large crescent shaped beach, about a mile long. At both ends of the beach you see hotels decorated with bright, Christmas tree-like lights. Beginning in the middle of the beach with Catcus, the stretch of bars goes on and on to Zoom and the Drop In. The one area where there is a break in the bars is a knockoff 7-11, and in front of it on the beach, there is a line of "bucket" of mixed drinks vendors. This is where much of the "shenaningans" seem to have started for many. Now that you have the lay of the land, imagine as the full moon is shining over the water more than 10,000 people slowly filing onto the beach from the island and unloading off speed boats coming in from the surrounding islands. Each bar
Return Instructions
That's my arm with my hotel name on it. is blasting it's own music, and after the early "warm up" hours of watching fire baton shows on the beach, the place starts rocking.
I had met up with a couple guys from England who were staying in the bungalow next to my room, and we had been hanging out the two nights before the party. We began the night by doing a little florescent body painting since black lights were all over the beach. The more simple stuff like writing return instructions ("If found return to Palita") on our arms, we handled ourselves (see photo). We went to one of the many Thai artists set up on the beach for the more complicated flags and dragons. After a quick survey of the scene on the beach just before 11pm, we were ready to start in on the buckets.
Those things should require warning labels like cigarettes! Maybe something like: "this could be you" with a picture of someone passed out on the beach. Or perhaps, some straight facts like: This bucket of vodka and two Red Bulls is the equivalent of about 4.5 drinks. When you've hit number four, that means that you've consumed a whole bottle
Another Round of Buckets
Me and my two English mates Jonny and James. of vodka yourself! I'm not sure if it's the different formula for Thai red bull, which I'm told is more potent, but somehow those buckets went down so easy. And they hit you like a brick wall. Because the number of buckets consumed during the previous nights were in dispute (mainly because no one really remembered), we decided that all buckets drank during the Full Moon Party would have to be documented via photo (see attached). That was one of many things that were documented over the night.
By 2am, we started noticing a few people passed out around the beach. This of course needed to be photographically documented as well, with rotating cameo appearances by one of us (also see attached). We came across a mass pass out over maybe 8 people all in a pile. I don't get it. Everyone knows that it's supposed to be an all night party. Gotta pace yourself a little bit. It got to a certain point that we realized that we could take photos of different passed out people all night, so eventually we stopped after we had our fun. This would have been around buckets 3 or 4.
After
Fire Show
Still early in the night dancing and making friends up and down the beach, we noticed the sky beginning to get lighter. There is afterall a reason why the beach is also known as Sunrise Beach. By the time the sun had fully emerged from the horizon, there were bottles, single flip flops, lots of passed out people strewn about the beach, revelers waiting in line in the water to catch speed boats home, and most notably, the party was still going strong (see photos). By 7.30am, I was back in my room and so glad that I had decided to stay and extra day instead of leaving on a 11.30am boat off the island.
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Reflecting on the four days that I spent on the island, I realized that I pretty much went straight to the beach and never left what I would estimate to be a single square mile in four straight days. Considering that over the last few months that my typical stay has only lasted two or so days, that's quite a change. As a matter of fact, I can't even think of the last time that I spent that much time is such a small area. For four
straight days, I laid out in the sun on the beach (each day beginning later and later, sometimes not until 3pm), walked down the main road to get some dinner and finally headed back out onto the beach for the party. Although the actual Full Moon Party is only one night, there are still (only) thousands of people out partying on the nights leading up to the main event. I've heard that there are also "Half Moon" parties, which are supposedly better and even "Dark Moon" parties. Clearly not much of an excuse is needed to party around those parts.
I ended up completely lucking out with my hotel situation. It was a nightmare trying to book at a place that a friend had recommended a few weeks earlier. Their English wasn't very good over the phone, and they wanted full payment via Western Union, which was going to cost $40 just to execute the transaction. On top of all that, their instructions were not in line with Western Union's protocol, so the end result was that I arrived on the island without any reservations, just days before the big party. I got droped off right on the beach
began walking up and down asking if there were any vacancies. It was particularly frustrating that many places had "rooms available" signs, but when you went to the reception desks, they would say that they were full. After striking out at several places, I began to move farther and farther away from the main party area.
The Palita Lodge had only one room available, but I wasn't able to see it because someone was currently occupying it. (I had arrived straight from a 6am flight from Bangkok via Koh Samui). At about $10, the room was fairly cheap for being at a beachfront property for the Party. However, the woman cautioned me that I might want to see the room before I decided, since it was normally a staff room, with only a fan and no bathroom or shower. I was tired of looking around, so I took the room. It ended up working out well for many reasons. First, in my opinion, it was in the best location, because it was just a short walk on the beach to the party, but just far enough away that the music didn't bother me. (Ok, I admit, combining my ability
to fall asleep almost anywhere and the amount of alcohol I consumed, I probably could have slept anywhere). Second, there were a ton of cool people staying there from all over the world who I got to know over my four days there. Finally, since my room was so low budget compared to the bungalows next to mine and the really nice ones across the courtyard, it was probably the last place anyone would think to rob. There was not even a doorknob on my door, just a padlock! One of the most common things I heard about Koh Phangan was to be careful of theft. So it was nice to not have to worry too much.
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The range of nationalities in the crowd itself was somewhat surprising. By my estimate in descending order, there were mostly English, Italians, Irish and Israelis. The English seem to be all over. Why wouldn't you though if you have the strongest currency in the world? I was particularly surprised by the Italians and the Israelis. I expected to see a lot more Austalians, who usually more than even the British, seem to be everywhere. And finally, similar to what I
Sunrise at the Full Moon Party
People are lined up in the water to catch speed boats off the island saw in Vietnam and Cambodia, there were very few Americans.
The other thing that was conspicuously on display were injuries! Can't believe how many bandages that I saw on people especially on their calves (burns from motorbike exhaust pipes). Who knows how else people were getting hurt, but it was crazy how many people seemed to be wounded. Luckily for me, I made it through injury free, with all my things and with an experience of a lifetime.
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Ba
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Buckets
I am taking every bucket in the house out now that you are coming back. Quite a change from only drinking woodchuck.