Koh Phangan

We had another long spell travelling to get to Koh Phangnan as it was back on the east coast of Thailand and a bit further north. We spent all day on a coach that had definitely seen much better days, luckily as we were leaving the bus station there was a shop telling us not to panic in large friendly letters.

As we took all day to get to the coast, instead of taking a night in Surat Thani we decided to take the night ferry over to the island. The ferry was actually more like a cargo ship and on the top deck there was padding all along both sides for sleeping. Everyone was allocated a space about half a meter wide and luckily the sea was calm or it would have been a very uncomfortable night. The ferry arrive in the early morning just before sunrise and then we could begin the nightmare of finding a bed.

Accommodation was really hard to find especially since we were in a group of four having bumped into a couple of girls we met in Vietnam. We initially thought we had found a place but after waiting around for several hours and paying for a room we were told there was only one tiny bungalow available. We managed to find another place where we could share one extra large bungalow for a reasonable price. The only problem was the original place would give us our money back for the first night even though we couldn’t stay because they lied about having space for us! I ended up having an argument with the owner for about 20 minutes that ended with her calling the “police”. I decided it was probably best to leave at this point since the police would probably be a group of her largest friends! After that annoyance we went down to Haad Rin where the full moon party was going to be held and the toll the partying was taking on the beach was obvious. A beautiful white sand beach ruined by non stop partying, and this was 2 days before the full moon party!

We spent the next few days just hanging around and waiting for the full moon to arrive. The most exciting thing we did was to visit an underwhelming waterfall and get attacked by someone’s savage little pet monkey!

When the party finally came it was pretty spectacular. The sheer numbers of people on one beach was impressive and there were endless sound systems in and around the sea all along the beach. Drinks were sold by the bucket as you become accustomed to in this part of the world and after 2 full of gin and tonic the night becomes a little hazy! Luckily there was only one casualty for me; the camera that had taken such a beating had finally given up at some point in the night. Unfortunately for the girls we were sharing the bungalow with the same could not be said for them. Me and Pete arrived back at the place at around 7 in the morning to find it empty with just a note from them explaining they had gone to Koh Samui with a friend who had injured himself. It later turned out he had had a toe amputated after one of the girls convinced him to have a go on a slide at the beach. This worked out quite well for us as the room was already paid for so we had it all to ourselves until we left!