Ko Phangan and The Full Moon Party

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Forwarning: I woke up feeling less than clever, and also unmotivated to post this blog, but I owe everything to you, the people, so here I am. It's been a while since I've posted, so this blog may be a blur and completely uninteresting as my memory has started to wane from the past week. Or, it may be mindblowing, nobody knows. I guess you'll know at the end. Ohhh. Suspense.

Ko Phangan & The Full Moon Party

Well, after taking a separate bus than Dan and Paul from the Cambodia-Thai border, I successfully navigated back to Lily's house in Bangkok. It was a great personal victory for myself and humanity as a whole. I rode the sky train and took the subway (my first time on a subway) until finally ending up somewhere in Thai that I thought was the right place. Cookies and cake for me. When we got there we provided our laundry to Lily's maids and she looked at us like she was going to drop some bombs, but later I happily cleaned up after every meal for ourselves and I think she forgave us, we're tight like that. The next day we met up with Katie, who had an amazingly difficult time getting here - complete with missed planes and lost luggage and planes coming BACK for her, and spent a day there before heading to Surat Thani, which is a port town in the bottom tip of The Gulf of Thailand. Before we left we got a massage. My lady (not a man, sweet) cracked a lot of my bones, and I felt amazing after. Dan's lady, however was very uninterested in making him feel good, spacing out at times, and then even requested a tip from him!! She brought him some optional tea and he was forced to pay her. She was sneaky like that. Don't really know if I would have wanted her in my crevices, let's just say that.

Afterwards, our bus left from Hualamphong Train Station, and it was a miserable 12 hour bus ride through the night with loud Europeans and MANY stops along the way where they turned on all the fluorescent lights on the bus. I slept like a baby. At every stop 50 tourists would get off the bus, chain smoke, and then get back on. It was an incredible view, I wish I had my camera out. We arrived at the dock in Surat Thani very early, approximately 5am, and I drank 2 cups of coffee immediately. Eventually, sometime after that, I stopped looking like a zombie and resembled more of a disgruntled person - a big step up for me at the time. We had to wait till 8am to catch our ferry to Ko Phangan. There is a gap in my memory for those three hours, most likely because we didn't do anything but sit, I should post an entry for it alone. Our ferry finally came and it looked like ants scurrying on to a piece of meat at a barbecue. We got a seat along the outside railing and then sailed our way to Ko Phangan. I got minor sunburns from the sun directly overhead. The sun and I have some beef to work out for that. The views along the way were incredible, with islands fading into the distance and random coconuts floating at sea, as well as the random butterfly seriously lost thousands of kilometers from land. I tried reading Walden but realized it is not meant to be read on a boat and gave it up quickly. We arrived at Ko Samui first and then continued to Ko Phangan, where we were greeted by the typical tourist-taxi driver/guest house owner battle royale. We couldn't find the free shuttle to our pre-booked guesthouse for some time but later found it, only to find that it was full and that they would return in half an hour, we felt like VIPs. We ate lunch @ a stall and I had some mystery half-cooked beef noodle dish and made a mental a mental note to prepare for nuclear toilet war later. I got asked by a taxi driver for the 93rd time whether or not I was Japanese - my Korean ancestors would turn over in their graves. Eventually the shuttle came back, and got to our bungalow guesthouse, called Greenview Guesthouse (clever, huh). I saw the largest spider I've ever seen indoors in Dan and Paul's room and left immediately. Unfortunately, the guesthouse overbooked double bed rooms, and Dan and Paul graciously gave up their 2 bed room to some hot blonde and tan European girls. I would have done the same thing. They had to share a bed as a result, so Katie and I rigged a hammock up for Dan outside.

We bought some Snorkeling gear and headed to the beach! When we got there we saw cyclones in the far distance, it was an incredible sight, and it was so nice of them to stay out at sea (good people, those cyclones). We snorkeled for a while seeing some various fish and giant sea urchins with hot neon rainbow looking eyes. I made a mental note not to step on them. Unfortunately, it was low tide, so the water was out and it was hard to swim because of the levels of water, so we went to relax on another beach. BUT, not before I cut my feet on the barnacles on the rocks - YES! Along the way we saw a jellyfish on the beach with about a foot diameter, and I imagined it attached to me in the ocean stinging my face off, and it made me feel very at ease. The beaches there are rather rocky, not as much white sand as Cambodia, but the water was perfect. That night Katie and I slept with something scurrying underneath our bungalow, it was very entertaining, so entertaining that we decided to sleep in hammocks outside. The hammocks, however, were set up too high, and I am now stuck in a permanent "V" shape.

The next few days, in my memory are comprised of laying on beaches, snorkeling (swam with a school of fish that were very bold and electric blue - unfortunately it attracted a lot of jelly fish and I ended up in a considerable amount of discomfort), and seeing Barracuda, Parrot Fish, and other aquatic wildlife. Unfortunately, the visibility of the water around the island was less than stellar, much less than we expected despite it's jade topical look. How dare it deceive us.

My biggest memory of the trip was getting to know our guesthouse's owners, Manop and Seawon (sp?). They were very nice people, down to earth, and terribly honest. I got to know their two daughters as well (4.5 and 6), who are very straightforward and enjoy showing off for the guests, in fact at one point the youngest came up to me, and shoved Talcum powder all over my face - exactly what I was looking for at the moment, how did she know? The older one spoke a bit of English, and was very opinionated about the music on my iPod, making dramatic faces about every tune and instrument. Manop spoke English very well, and I talked to him for a long time at various instances about tourism on Ko Phangan, his view of Buddhism, whether or not he was happy to have two daughters (he is very profeminist), his 1st marriage, traditional Thai weddings, lady boys, education, his opinion of how Westerners leave their homes @ 18 (his opinion was that it is "crazy, they are so stupid so young"), his view on having children early to teach children as long as you can so that they do not learn what they know from the "material world", and how him and Seawon met. He was a very kind and compassionate man, and I grew to respect him a great deal by the time we left. He was also very funny, referring to Katie and hippies as "funky people" and "you know, so unclean". We also met a man named Bruno there, who Katie guessed correctly as being Dutch, I believe, who told us how Manop and Seawon were good people so he lent them a 100,000 baht once, and now lives at their place for free. Seawon showed me pictures of the 2004 tsunami, that wrecked havoc in lower Thailand and I was amazed at the destruction on Ko Phangan (it wasn't even hit "hard" in comparison to other areas). She was a very interesting and dryly sarcastic woman, often yelling at her daughters (profanities in Thai, I'm sure). She even had a spanking stick for the youngest one who gets VERY whiny when she doesn't get her way. They are especially naughty getting ready for school in the morning, and much yelling ensues. Manop explained to me their oldest was very smart and well behaved because him and Seawon were so happy when they had her, then their second came along and they were all stressed out about the oldest, so the youngest one turned out to be VERY naughty. It was an interesting take on developmental psychology.

And now to The Full Moon Party (enter dramatic music). It's a party that started around 1988, and occurs every full moon. Thousands of travelers come to fill Hat Rin Beach on the southern tip of the island (about 30,000 actually all in one area) to party and lose control. It was quite a sight to see. Seawon provided Mushroom Shakes to people who wanted them (we didn't) but the rest of the guests did, and we took a packed truck full of people tripping out and giggling to Hat Rin. Manop thought it was very entertaining. We got there, and it was an incredible sight. NOTHING, but European white travelers. It is definitely a tourist event. I didn't have my camera because there is a lot of theft that occurs, but after seeing what it was like, I would have risked it all to capture some of the sights. There were mesmerizing fire dancers littering the beach, swinging poles and chains lit on fire in incredible patterns. Amateurs and pros alike trying to impress crowds. One of the greatest tricks was having someone lie on the ground and lighting their cigarette by spinning two chains with fire on the end in a tight circle close to the persons face till the cigarette lit. It looked exhilarating, and I was very impressed. Other than the incredible fire dancers, there were stalls set up all over the beach selling "buckets" which consist of a bottle of alcohol, soft drink, and red bull, for which you bargain and haggle for a price you like and then debaucherize on the beach. It was a good deal, and I consumed quite a bit of "bucket". There were also stalls set up where you could get body paint tattoos, or real ones, and hundreds of bars overlooking the beach just packed with techno rave music. It was an incredible thing to see, deeply disturbing at times due to the lack of concern for sanitation (100s of people using the ocean as a porter potty) and lack of respect for the environment (lots of litter, obviously). But the next day there is a coalition that cleans the beach up, so that made me feel better about it. I've never been somewhere with so many people just caught up in the moment. I promised myself I'd return with a camera some day.

Afterwards...

So now we have left Ko Phangan and are in Hat Yai, a southern hub for travelers and business that links Thailand with Malaysia (although it is not along the Malaysian border, where there is a considerable amount of unrest and violence). There is a strong Muslim influence here, which is part of the growing problem of Southern Thailand, as many Muslims want independence from Thailand as it is so solidified here and southward as being a Muslim state. Many Malaysians are Muslim (like Indonesia), and want freedom and land for their Muslim brethren, which the Thai government is not willing to permit. It is a tense situation, but I haven't felt any direct effects from it. Like always, it is a not so pretty urban city, but the people seem very happy. We were advised, however, to not wander at night and to stay within the city and not stay southward or on the outskirts. I feel alive.

Today we head Southwest to Pak Bara Pier outside of Satun Province, where we will catch a boat to Ko Tarutao, a National Marine Park consisting of 51 islands. It is supposed to be less inhibited there, and I am looking forward to untouristed beaches and a chance to center myself and put a lot of things in perspective. One thing I am focusing on is trying to make photos when I get back to help fund or start some kind of non profit service that benefit somebody! Unfortunately, I haven't been around enough, nor gotten into social justice work outside of social services to know where to put this concentration, but it is a goal that I am determined to figure out. Everybody put some money aside to buy some prints from me when I get back - it'll go to a good cause I promise 😉.

We won't have internet probably for a week and half. Bear with me, and thanks for reading.

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Photos

Sun rays from Hat Yao Beach
Incredible sight. Every day was like this. Dan and I's heads exploded on a regular basis.

A Leaf
Yes, this is a leaf, questions anybody?

Perspective...
This is the life, I gotta say.

Dan and Paul in hammocks
Every view by a Mertens or Neal family member for this picture owes royalties

A view from Phaeng Waterfall
The waterfall was less than stellar. Water trickle maybe.

Is that Buddha coming from the sky??
Maybe not.

Manop and his 2 daughters
The daily struggle of readying them for school. They put up quite a war

Seawon and Manop
That's not how she looks all the time. That is, however, how Manop looks all the time.

The Jade sea with a Jade boat.
The common contradiction of beauty and industry in Thailand.

Comments

[Kt]

me so special. ... look who thinks they have such a great perspective