Full Mooning

After a few days relaxing on Koh Phangan, the day arrived for the monthy Full Moon Party. Though you’re able to now go to Half-Moon, Quarter-Moon and No-Moon Parties (any excuse for a party!), the Full Moon Parties are the biggest with anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 revellers dancing the night away on Haad Rin Sunrise beach. As the day approached, the constant stream of songthaews (jeep taxis) brought thousands more people to Haad Rin, as well as the ‘Party Boats’ from neighbouring Koh Samui on the night itself. There was an air of excitement about the place, with thousands of people ready to party! It did seem like we were some of the oldest people there – the majority were under 20 – but we were determined to show we’re not quite over the hill yet!

Calm before the storm… literally!

The quintessential Full Moon drink is the ‘Bucket’. This consists of a 300ml bottle of Sam Song (Thai Rum/Whisky), a can of Coke and a surgical-looking bottle of super-strength Red Bull! Add some ice and a straw and you have one bucket of rocket fuel! Throughout the town you have street stalls trying to sell you their buckets, plus probably 50 more stalls along the beach each trying their best to get you part with your money. Many of the stalls water down the booze in their buckets; to avoid this scam we made our own super strong buckets instead! After blaming the Sam Song for her hangover a few nights before (nothing to do with the quantity!), Fran opted for a vodka combo whilst I went for the traditional bucket (when in Rome…) with some Sam Song we’d bought on the mainland.

 

Taking the scenic route to town…

The Guivers pre Full Moon (yes I am wearing a headband made out of a fishing net – it was part of our flotsam and jetsam beach chic themed party attire!)

We started off the evening with a very civilised drink on Haad Rin Sunset beach at a beach bar with Tommy and Kelly from our Russian train, their Canadian friends and a Polish couple that they’d been bumping into on their travels. The Polish couple were interesting – they were in their mid-forties and had been travelling South-East Asia for the past 3 months. They’d heard that the Full Moon was a good party so they got the boat over to Koh Phangan, left their bags at the quay and planned to go hard on the booze all night and get the first boat back at 8am – that’s hardcore!

 

Fran, Tommy, Kelly, Ryan and Vanessa on Sunset Beach

Pretty reasonable sunset

After a civilised start the evening soon got up to full speed once the buckets were a-flowing! We grabbed some tucker at a funky bar just down from Sunrise beach called Fubar (joined by our friends from our China trip, Mike and Claire), had a few drinks then started on our DIY buckets before heading over the road to a fairly bizarre shisha bar. It was whilst we were there that the heavens opened monsoon-style and the street leading down to the beach turned into a river! This continued for about an hour or so and, from the looks of the somewhat soggy partygoers that were heading away from the beach, it looked like the party was going to be rained off. Once we’d finally emerged from the shisha bar however we found that the majority of the partygoers weren’t to be deterred by something like a monsoon – the party was in full flow all over the beach! There were numerous different sound systems pumping out different types of music to the thronging partygoers whilst firedancers did their thing and people voluntarily attempted the ‘flaming skipping rope’ challenge whilst under the influence – messy! Between the sound systems there were numerous stalls selling assorted neon articles and face paint so you could positively glow if you weren’t already glowing from the buckets. In some respects it was like being transported back in time to an early ‘90’s rave – I was disappointed I didn’t see any white gloves though!

 

Vanessa and Kelly thoroughly enjoying their buckets…

… as were we!

Flaming idiots!

Buckets everywhere!

People partying the night away

The carnage from the relative calm of the Mellow Mountain bar

Whilst this all sounds like innocent fun (I think?), there were times when it went a smidgen too far. The sight of people passed out face down in the ‘designated sleeping area’ after a few too many beers, hoards of blokes using the sea as a urinal and some less than subtle courting couples on the beach (if you catch my drift) somewhat marred the occasion. However all in all it was a good atmosphere and a great party; we retired to our beach hut as the sun started to rise having pleasantly partied ourselves out!

 

Some worse-for-wear chaps sleeping it off…

Think it’s time for bed now…

After a few days of recovery at our beach hut, it was time to move on from Koh Phangan. We were both impressed with how untouched and beautiful much of the island still is despite the development of Haad Rin and the masses of tourists that pass through every month. Our beach resort was like something off a picture postcard and the relaxed, carefree vibe of the place was so refreshing. As always however, once the travel batteries are back to full, you just know that a mammoth epic of a journey is just round the corner!

Lots of rocks…

…and sand…

…and trees…

…and water!

After being collected from our resort at too early o’clock (but still half an hour late obviously!), we caught the 8am jet catamaran for Chumporn (unfortunate name) on the mainland, via Koh Tao and another tiny island we weren’t aware the boat stopped at! After being squeezed in like sardines on our ferry to Koh Phangan, it was a nice surprise to find some big comfy leather seats – good job though as we were in them for nearly 4 hours! We eventually docked at Chumporn jet cat dock, negotiated the rickety pier and hopped on the bus to the town centre. The next mission was to cross Thailand from the Gulf coast to the Andaman coast – Ranong being our destination as it’s the hopping off point to the group of islands near Thailand’s southernmost border with Myanmar. We booked ourselves on the next bus to Ranong and grabbed a slightly ropey-tasting noodle soup from a local restaurant for lunch. We were collected by songthaew at 2pm and driven 500 metres round the corner, being dropped off at a bizarre tiny waiting room which looked like someone’s living room, complete with motorbike taxi drivers playing a chess-like game and slightly mangy dog wandering about! The bus eventually departed at 3pm and sped us through the forests and plains of central Thailand, around the winding bends and over the hills to our destination, all to the soundtrack of a Thai pop concert DVD on top volume, accompanied by random bouts of song from the bus attendants! We arrived at Ranong at about 6ish after a full day of travelling and checked into our guest house. The guest house turned out to be one of our least luxurious – unknown stains up the walls, holes in the ceiling, windows that didn’t close, mattress that possibly had bed bugs; it certainly had character anyway!

 

The long walk to freedom (well, the bus to Chumporn anyway)

Chumporn – a bit odd

Quick game of Chinese chess

Another day, another bus!

Ranong itself was an interesting border town – slightly ramshackle but endearing with influences from Thai, Burmese and also Chinese culture evident in the shops and restaurants filling the slightly haphazard town centre. Most shops sold either ponchos or umbrellas as it is the rainy season on the Andaman coast – we wisely invested in a brolly as our ponchos have definitely seen better days!

A colourful songthaew on the main high street

Fran by the fruit & veg!

Concrete-heavy 70’s architecture

Anyway, we booked our boat to Koh Phayam, a tiny island about 2 hours by boat from Ranong. There’s only one boat per day in the off-season so obviously we opted for this one! The boat was another pretty retro craft – a double decker fibreglass hull with luxury wooden bench seats, carrying a shedload of steelwork for someone’s building project on the island. The scenery was pretty enrapturing as we wended our way through numerous seemingly uninhabited islands. As it’s monsoon season, the weather can be pretty changeable and our two and a half hour trip was no exception. The boat battled its way into a raging headwind that brought with it some pretty respectable sized waves – sitting on the bows as we rode over a big wave and ploughed into the next was great fun! As we arrived at Koh Phayam’s port the clouds we welling up, ready to dish out a soaking. With no time to spare, we hopped on two motorcycle taxis with our huge rucksacks and clung on as we negotiated the narrow (and sometimes non-existent) concrete roads to our beach bungalow. Sure enough as we were about five minutes into our journey the heavens opened; we endured a couple of minutes of hurtling along with the rain whipping our faces before the drivers pulled in to a shop for shelter! Once the squall had passed we were back on our noble steeds, doing our best to keep the motorbikes upright as our drivers skilfully negotiated the glorified dirt tracks and soon arrived at our bungalow in one piece. When we arrived at the port, we were initially hesitant to pay 70 baht for transfer but in the end it was £1.50 well spent – cheers drivers!!!

Our good ship (we were impressed by the lifejackets – wow!)

 

Some piratey-looking fishing boats!

Towards the Koh Phayam and the neighbouring Burmese islands

Motorbike straining under the weight of Rich’s dirty laundry

A warm welcome!

Our awesome ‘shell hut’ – not bad for £7 a night!!!

I’m currently typing this in the dark from our shell hut as the island only has electricity from 6:30pm – 10pm! We’ll give a full report of our explorations of this island paradise in the next blog but for now hope you’re all well and see you soon!!! :)