Full Moon Party!!!

Ok, so, this is the moment I’d been waiting for and the main reason that hundreds of thousands of people flock to Thailand every year.  Forget the ancient temples.  Forget the picturesque landscape and deserted beaches.  The reason that so many people come to Thailand is to experience the Full Moon Party of Koh Phangan.  The Full Moon Parties were started on Had-Rin beach in the mid-80s.  The original of the parties is heavily disputed; and there are several bars within the town who claim to be the founders.

The Full Moon Party dates are set out 2 years in advance; so it gives travellers more than enough time to plan their trips.

The Full Moon Party was actually not on my original plan for South East Asia due to dates and timing; however as soon as I decided to extend the trip a few more months it was the first thing that I thought about planning.

The Full Moon date was set for the 6^th April and in the lead up the moon was getting fuller and lower in the sky as the nights went on.

The tradition for the parties is that everyone dresses in Full Moon vests or t-shirts (which are usually of luminous colours and cover every available bit of skin with luminous/glow in the dark paint.  The majority of bars in town put on big events for the Full Moon night such as free food, free buckets and drink offers as a warm up to the beach party that follows.

Full Moon day was upon us, and after having such a heavy night previously the hangover was of an immense magnitude!  After surfacing around 12pm, Matt, Jen and myself went out to grab some breakfast in the Lazy House restaurant.  We all had a full English breakfast, sat and watch an hour of Friends before they put the Hangover on the big screen.  That just about summed up how I was feeling!  After the film I retired back to the dorm to try and get a few hours sleep before the main event.

7pm and my alarm brought me back into reality.  I’d arranged to meet Matt at 8pm; so it gave me enough time to have a quick shower and then go out to buy a Full Moon vest for the evening.  I met up with Matt who was with Jen and two of her friends – Louise and Thom – and we went to the outback bar to start the night.  I was feeling delicate so had a beer to line the stomach, a bucket of Vodka and Strawberry Fanta (best combination ever!) and more Chicken skewers than I could shake a stick at to make sure that I wasn’t drinking on empty.  After a couple of drinks in there we went to the Sister Hostel of mine (the Party Hostel) to get painted up, another free bucket and be ready to hit the beach.

The painting was a grand affair.  We spent about 45 minutes getting fully painted up.  Everyone just gets together in a mass group and just write whatever they like wherever there is space.  We met up with Tim and Cally at the Party Hostel, shared a couple of buckets and moved on down to the beach.

Compared to the previous days, the beach was absolutely packed.  The moon was full and high in the sky.  There were about 15 bars open along the stretch of the beach and every one of them was rammed.  Each place has its own bar on the beach, line of bucket stalls, stages, huge sound systems and fire shows.  We started off in the Drop In bar and spent about an hour dancing away.  Matt hooked up immediately and headed off into the night not to be seen again...  The rest of us decided to venture further along the beach and to the next bar.  All of the places play the same music genre, so it’s easy just to drift in and out throughout the night.

The rest of the night after that was a complete blur...  I hadn’t had my camera with me and have taken so many photos; I would have thought that the night ended after the first bar.  So, judging by the order of photos – and a very very vague recollection – this is how I presume the night went.

We moved back to the Cactus bar and had shared a bucket in there; spending the majority of the time dancing on the stages; followed by having some chill out time further back along the beach to the semi-quiet part.  In most bars they have designated area for people to relax and chill out just away from the beach so it’s slightly quieter.  They even have a small medical centre where people can drop off their passed-out friends to let them sleep off the alcohol.

The next stop was the last bar at the end of the beach where they host ‘The Original Full Moon Party’; which was also the biggest on the beach with 4 sides of 4 tier stages and a large dancing area in the middle.  I met so many people in this bar; all covered in paint and partying the night away in style.  From all of the sweat and being covered in booze the paint was starting to come off in places and whenever someone else grabs you on whilst dancing there’s a transfer of paint between so by the end of the night the once carefully designs were now just a blend of florescent.

Sadly at some point the night had to end; and gutted to say that I didn’t make it to sunrise.  The last photo on my camera was taken at 4.47am, so it’s safe to assume that bedtime wasn’t too far after that.  The annoying part was that at the hostel you had to shower before bed as charges would be incurred for paint on the bed sheets etc...  This wasn’t the easiest thing to do.  As well as being absolutely slaughtered, the described ‘body paint’ seemed to just be actual paint and once dry was very difficult to remove; especially on the legs with all of the hairs.  About an hour later I was ‘clean’ (although still finding paint up to 3 days later) and ready for sleep!

I met up with Matt in the early afternoon; swapped stories of what could be remembered from the night and had a big, greasy breakfast.  We’d already capped this as a non-alcoholic day and spent the afternoon on the beach (which was pretty much deserted!), watching movies and the evening chilling on the beach, listening to some music and winding down the day.

We had one day remaining in Koh Phangan; so spent it baking in the sun; trying to maintain the awesome tan that was every growing darker.  We hit the beach early – around 11ish – and stayed until 4/5.  Another early night was on the cards and we’d booked to be picked up early in the morning to leave the isle and head back to Krabi to spend a couple of days back in Railay and then across to Phi Phi.

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