Koh Phangan...

Like Ko Lanta, Koh Phangan was one of the Thailand’s hippy islands.  In the late 80’s it begun its reputation for having a party atmosphere and started to host Full Moon Parties on a monthly basis.  These are now the biggest tourist trap for Thailand; with thousands of people flocking to the island days before the main event and leaving as quickly once finished.  This is exactly why I headed there.  The last few months had been building up to the mother of all parties!

After a not so heavy night before in Ko Samui, Matt and I had an early start; picked up from the hotel at 8am for the 9.30 ferry the short distance into Had-Rin pier on the South-East side of Koh Phangan.  The walk from the pier to the ferry was one that I remembered all too well from a previous trip to Thailand; extremely narrow and very rickety, with no rails on the side.  I didn’t do myself any favours by trying to take photos of us all the way along whilst trying to maintain balance.  The ferry docked at around 11am and it then took another 25minutes to search for our bags and head off onto the island.  I had previously booked a hostel in the centre of Had-Rin, whilst Matt was in a bungalow further along the beach.

The hostel was actually pretty good for Thailand standards and came complete with a couple of perks; 200baht off of the bill in one of their bars everyday and a free bucket every night in their Outback bar.

I met up with Matt an hour later and we went to the outback bar to grab some food.  The whole of Had-Rin is very westernised.  All of the menus are full of Pizzas, Pastas, Burgers etc... and only at the very end is the Thai food section.  I went for the Thai classic of Cumberland Sausage with Mash and Peas; washed down with a large Chang.  During the day the Outback bar is very relaxed and quiet.  There are raised seated areas with low tables and big cushions on the floor.  It always came complete with the two most laidback cats I’ve ever seen and all day everyday were passed out on a large chair in the middle of the bar; not leaving their place for anyone.  After lunch we decided to have a few hours of shut eye before venturing out and exploring the bars and parties later on.

I walked down to Matt’s bungalow just before sunset and we chilled out on beach with a couple of beers to ease ourselves in, watched the sun deep on the horizon and went back to the Outback bar to grab my free bucket before finding a place for dinner.  After the heavy lunch, dinner was a bit more simple; standard Thai Green curry and some Spring Rolls.

So, the party in Koh Phangan is on the beach.  All of the bars in town shut down relatively early and the wave of people head to the main stretch of Had-Rin where the bars on the beach have set up make shift bars in the sand, stages all around for dancing and the biggest speaker stacks ever seen.  On the streets leading to the beach entrances there are tons of stalls set up selling buckets; with all of the workers screaming to get you to buy these for the journey down.  We obviously obliged and made our way down.  As it was still 3 days until the main Full Moon Party, the island was still fairly empty, so there were only 3 bars open; however they were all packed, music booming out and drinks flowing nicely!  There were also bucket stalls lined up along the beach; each with their own theme; Jonny Depp buckets, Shakira buckets etc... We checked out most of them trying to find a good price until we came across: ‘Alex: The best bucket’; where we obviously had to stop!  They had the best prices, obviously the best buckets and we also got a free shot of vodka too... which wasn’t the nicest thing ever.

We went to the busiest bar called Cactus and partied there for a couple of hours.  The music was awesome!  They pretty much played every commercial dance tune that has been big in the past couple of years.  Hundreds of people were ‘shuffling’ on the rickety stages to LMFAO, inbetweeners style dancing to Americano and (when the theme for the whole tour came on) everybody was screaming at the top of their lungs; I’ve got a hangover – Woooaaahhhhh!!!!  We met some awesome Swedish guys on the beach by one of the bucket stands and sat chatting to them for about an hour before all of us heading back into the Cactus party.  We ended up staying at the beach until about 2am before retiring for the night.  We’d planned on getting up early(ish) the following day to have some beach time while the sun was still high in the sky with no clouds in sight.

After a full English to wash off the hazy hangover it was off to the beach to spend the afternoon soaking up the sunshine and getting the tan that little deeper.  The beach at Had-Rin isn’t the most desirable.  After the parties the clean-up isn’t a first class service and the top of the beach is lined with empty beer bottles, buckets and quite a lot of broken glass.  The far of the beach was not too bad and had a couple of bars that had set up a beach football tournament.  The temperature was hitting 37°C at 1pm and getting hotter as the day went on.

The evening was meant to be a quiet one as the real party happened tomorrow.  Yeh, that didn’t happen.  I met Matt again at his place and we had a couple of beers on the porch looking over the beach.  He had met a few people on the first day and only one of the girls – Jen – was up for having a night out.  We went first to the Outback to grab a free bucket before finding a small little Thai place for dinner.  Pad Thai was the easiest option and the hope was that it would act like a bit of a sponge to absorb the alcohol that was soon to come.  It was evident throughout the day that the island was getting busier in the run up to Full Moon and the beach was a lot more packed than the previous night; with about 5 or 6 bars open along the stretch of Had-Rin.  Matt decided to get an early night and headed off after about an hour, so it was just Jen and myself left.  We ended up partying until about 4 in the morning; went through several buckets between us and danced the night away!  We stayed in the Drop In bar further along the beach for most of the night which had a ‘Pre Full Moon Party’ with a fire show, 2 4 1 buckets and free vodka shots.  In the bar we hooked up with a couple of English people I’d met on the beach earlier and danced into the early hours.

The one thing that was easily noticeable about Koh Phangan is that no matter where else you go in South East Asia, they is not a place where you will see so many injured people...  The main reason is the drinking, followed closely by the Motor bike accidents.  One of hardest things to do when you are drunk is to maintain your balance and there are two factors on the beach that act as a catalyst for this.  The first being the sand, and the second being the rickety wooden stages that are dragged onto the beach every night for the parties.  They are literally just seem to be made of random pieces of wood that have been found and nailed together.  The biggest ones are about 3 metres high and the amount of people you see falling off of these each night is amazing.  Every afternoon when either relaxing in a bar or lounging on the beach, there are so many people hobbling along with big bandages on their knees, elbows, faces... In my hostel alone (even before the main event Full Moon Party) there was a broken foot, leg, arm and nose.  There are also random people just passed out around the streets and even in kebab shops...

Glad to say that despite the high intoxication levels, I did not become one of the Koh Phangan statistics.

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