Thailand: Koh Phangan

Full moon party time!

How to travel a short distance in a long time

The trip from Patong to Koh Phangan is painful at best. 300km of land a little bit of sea takes 3 buses, 1 ferry and 13 hours. All because we never got around to booking a 1 hour flight. It pays to be organised kids.

Why use cups when you can use buckets

Koh Phangan is full of impossibly attractive alcoholics. The beaches and water are amazing here:

.. but this really is a place where people come to party… party hard and party late. They deal in buckets here. They make a bucket by free-pouring a ridiculous amount of alcohol into the bucket and then some kind of a mixer. It comes with convenient carry handle and straw. The result of these buckets is an obstacle course on the beach where you have to navigate over and around empty buckets, bottles and passed out drunks.

How to successfully navigate a full moon party

Step 1: Dress ridiculously

I think a picture will suffice:

Step 2: Eat a enormous meal

We head to Same Same bar and stuff our faces with all sorts of food from the buffet.

Step 3: Set sensible goals for the night

Glenn and I agree that we will pace ourselves drinking, stay under control and not lose each other. 

Step 4: Ignore sensible goals

A few Canadians we meet are only too happy to include us in their drinking game. Problem is, they’ve played this game before and we haven’t, so we lose all the time, and thus drink all the time. So, the ‘sensible drinking’ train barely gets out of the station before it derails. 

Step 5: Lose your friends

Before I know it I'm partying on the beach and Glenn is nowhere in sight.

Step 6: Party really freakin hard

We all know how this works... drinking, shouting, yelling, dancing, stupid conversations etc

Step 5: Miraculously rediscover your friends

Circa 6am I'm walking along the beach, and lo and behold I see the familiar sight of Glenn partying..

Step 6: See the sunrise

At about 6:30 or so the sun has risen. Looking around us, many of our comrades have fallen, but we are still standing, bleary eyed, looking at the sun. Win!

Summary

Awesome:

Best. Party. Ever

Craptacular:

Morning after

Lessons learnt:

There are other people that like aeroplanes too. Book flights earlier.

What's next

More island adventures in Koh Samui.