Koh Phangan... parties and perfect sunsets

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Still smothered in sunshine and the most beautiful sandy beaches we headed to Koh Phangan, where we happened to stumble upon the most gorgeous beach hut resort called Sea Sun Set north of the port. Although this was not where everyone else was headed we had our own secluded beach and the most wonderful family who looked after us and fed us with the most amazing food ever!





This is what we see, every day.





And every night...





Beautiful scenes like this make us so calm, nostalgic and feel waves of real intense joy that we cannot explain other than being completely relaxed and content. I can tell I am stress-free as I keep doing Grandpa jokes and napping like Pop!


We did visit Hat Rin beach to see what the party venue looked like before the full moon and meet our friend (unsuccessfully!), and it was kind of like being on a Newquay or Ibiza resort. It was full of white trendy people on gap years and was very binge drinking orientated with lines of 'buckets' everywhere, but then I guess this is good for the local businesses, and it would have been amazing fun a few years ago for me and at least we were sleeping away from it now.


We managed to get off our lazy bums and do an elephant trek up a mountain north of our resort, although we spent half the time worrying about the cruelty to the animals rather than enjoying ourselves, it was still a lovely experience and there was some breathtaking views of the jungle and beaches of the island.





We made friends with most people who were staying on our beach, and so headed to the full moon party on Saturday with them. The taxis are big 4x4s and everyone sits on the back, or hangs off the back depending on how full it is, but its always fun just getting to places!





We spectacularly lost EVERYONE as soon as we got to Hat Rin beach, and so headed to the sound systems to see if we liked any of the music. The whole long thin beach is full of bars which have the speakers outside and a dj somewhere along the front, and lots of people dancing outside towards the sea. There was some good tech-house stuff, psy trance and electro-tech but it usually ended up being cheesy pop every 15 mins so we spent most of the night at the drum and bass rig. We did attempt drinking a gin bucket (a plastic bucket with a bottle of gin, red bull and tonic that you mix with ice and drink with straws) but we drank so slow, not being binge drinkers, that it was hot and sandy at the bottom. This is me demonstrating a bucket and my neon super rave leg!





We really got into the music when the sun rose, and danced until the sound system turned off about 9.30am. We ended up being the last ones standing which was weird as I thought it was going to go on all day but everyone seemed to have gone home and passed out by sunrise!








We had an amazing party and a perfect night, and to top it all off the family cooked us the best fried breakfast on our return.


After a lovely relaxing day watching clouds and dipping into the warm crystal clear sea and spotting Nemo, we got a taxi-boat-bus-train-train to Chang Mai.





But that story is for another day....

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