Advertisement
Published: June 13th 2009
Hut on the beach
All for about 8 pounds a nightParty island, woop!
After another grim boat ride we found ourselves in Ko Pha Ngan, famous party island and home of the original 'Full Moon Party' which we had timed our trip to be able to go to. Upon realising that we had fairly nice accommodation but cold showers for another four nights we hired a hog and head down to the town of Haad Rin where most of the action was concentrated. The main beach, albeit slightly reminiscent of a town in southern spain full of british holiday-makers, at least had a really beautiful beach and after a bit of exploring managed to find a really quiet section for a quiet drink.
The drive back to the hotel was crazy, at one point I literally thought we would have to get off and push the hill was that steep it was a real rollercoaster ride, and one that we were thankful to survive when we got back to our hut right on the beach. The next day we befriended an Aussie couple and spent a few quiet days just exploring the surrounding area and playing frisbee and relaxing by the sheltered pool area and enjoying the really cheap but
tasty food.
Night of the Full Moon
The full moon came and we took a taxi (knackered old van with seats in the back) down to Haad Ri, barely surviving the journey through the winding hills along the way and immediately got ourselves a couple of buckets and got involved. The alcohol was surprisingly cheap when considering the popularity of the event and there were thousands of people on the beach enjoying the party which involved numerous games such as gladiator (think John Fashanu rather than Russell Crowe) style contests for drinks and numerous themese bars all spread out along the huge beach.
After hours of drinking progressively sandy buckets, being caught in a gigantic wave, a spot of air tennis with a Roger Federer lookalike from Sweden and lots of dancing we took another death taxi back (complete with hammock in the back, seriously) to the hotel to recover.
The following morning (!) and a couple of hungover Brits departed on a 12 hour mammoth journey (complete with standard hours of waiting at random shops and petrol stations) back to Phuket on the other side of the peninsular. The final minibus transfer we took was
unbelievable we seriously thought we were gonna perish as the guy was driving like a maniac down a tiny dimly lit one-lane road around blind corners with his back to the traffic as we kept turning around to tell us off in Thai for having our feet up on a foot-rest. Incredible.
We decided on a quiet few days in Phuket although on the second day we encountered a street festival right outside our hostel which we had to get involved in. Apart from a brief shower the festival was a success and after lots of food, bad singing and crazy 'ethnic' dancing we settled down to prepare for the early start the following morning for our departure to Singapore. We spent the day in the city seeing the sights and enjoyed a nice day back where we had originally started our previous trip over 2 years before and then head back to the airport, sleeping in the terminal (being woken at 3am by the security guards for apprently no other reason other than to ruin our nights sleep, what we had of it) before jetting off to Sydney early the next morning! Thus completing the first part of
our trip and our stint in Asia. No more squat toilets for quite some time!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.122s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 6; qc: 46; dbt: 0.0531s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
mush
non-member comment
The land of Thai
ah can't believe i haven't looked at this for so long loving catching up on your events and seeing thailand. This was my favourite part of the country and seeing your pics really brought it back. amazing. x