Ok so we headed up the east coast of Thailand in search of Koh Phangan home of the legendary Full Moon Parties now the only way to cross the ocean to Koh Phangan was on a massive ferry, and when I say massive it was bloody huge, it was carrying Gas trucks in it’s hold and everything.
Although to be fair it had a nice Air Conditioned Cabin (although to be fair after 20 mins in it you were bloody frozen.)
Now when they had sold us the tickets in Krabi to the A/c Bus and Ferry they told us it was a 7 hr journey, however in reality 7 hrs stretched to 11 hrs, so when we arrived at Thong Sala we were bloody whacked,
Heading In To Koh Phangan
And we jumped in the back of a jammed taxi to Haad Rin, Now to be fair I like rally games as much as the next geek, but this was scary shit, being in the back of a Sawngthaew taxi with only your grip on the metal bar to stop you from falling out, while the driver tried to corner on mad blind bends like a demented Thai version of Colin McRae.
Anyhow after the longest half hr in the history of man we made it to Haad Rin and took up the first offer of decent accommodation that presented itself to us were we dutifully dumped our bags and went to see the scene on the beach.
Haad Rin
As you approach the beach area, your sense are assaulted by about 3 or 4 different booming sound systems and all along the beach, there are bucket stalls all proudly pronouncing that they have they best buckets in Thailand (bullshit) if you are up early enough in the morning you will see them pouring cheap vodka into Smirnoff bottles, but that in itself isn’t the main problem. In the Full Moon Party, these stalls are known to spike people’s drink’s, which leads to people being off their face and one of several scenarios occurring.
1.) Spending too much money.
2.) Getting Mugged.
3.) If they are women, potential to Undesired Sexual Contact.
Also during any Full Moon Parties be extremely wary of taking drugs or trying to appropriate them even possession of half a spliff will lead to a nice term in jail, unless your lucky and are grabbed by one of the corrupt cops and are able to bribe your way out of the scenario (I believe around a £1000), once you are at the station, this option is gone and you are more likely to serve a stretch of a year or two crammed in a small cell with 25 other guys, so I guess just a word of warning
Now I don’t speak from personal experience just from tales from other travelers so if you do go to a moon party exercise some common sense, on the whole the Thai people are amazing but as with all, nationalities there are always a few rotten eggs.
Anyway the beach is beautiful nice soft sand and hundreds of partiers every where you look all geared for a good time, now I don’t know its because im getting older now, or because I was with Helen as opposed to a group of lads but to be honest, it really didn’t interest me and after chilling and having a couple of beers at £2/$4 each (and that was from the 7/11 bloody rip off) we headed back to the room, to catch some shut eye.
Now when we got up we decided to explore around Haad Rin and we were still not to impressed it looked like when all the drunken revelers from the night before rose it was going to be more of the same and to be fair that wasn’t really what we were there for.
Haad Yuan
So we went back to the room and caught the first long tail boat to Haad Yuan, now whilst it was only 15- 20 mins in the boat away, because you were only able to access it by boat. It felt like a whole lifetime away as you pulled onto the Soda white beach through the turquoise waters you felt like you were in your own version of the beach, there were maybe 4 different sets of bungalows.
Now watching Helens face as we pulled in was worth the night of bum bum bum, she looked like she had found her own peace of Heaven, anyway we headed down towards the more picturesque left hand side of the beach, and chose the Barcelona Resort, it was a simple affair with just a fan to keep cool, mosquito nets over the beds, cold shower and a couple of chairs on the balcony, oh and last but not least a hammock. Yes a hammock!!!
Now if you haven’t ever tried one of these contraptions stop what your doing right now and go and get one string it up from the rafters and chill for a while and come back when you can appreciate what I’m saying, unless of course your reading this from Canada in which case I imagine it may be a touch to cold to string up a hammock outside now!
Anyway we dumped the bags on the bed, and while Helen unpacked I chilled in my hammock, No I’m not lazy I just get in the way, so I have learnt to keep the hell away or else arguments follow J
Our Beach Bungalows
Haad Yuan Beach
Me Chilling in My Hammock
The View From Our Balcony
No they aren’t Moobs they are Pectoral Muscles!!!!!!!
Now the Solitude of Haad Yuan was wonderful so much so what was intended to be a short stay of a couple of days, grew in length to a week of relaxing. After a week it was enough because of the lack of choice in restaurants (4 in total) and things to do at night (Although one restaurant did show movies every night)
We decided to move on and follow Lori’s advice (a Canadian girl who had been living on the beach with a local lad for 2 years) and try moving on to Thong Nai Pan Yai.
Now the sensible thing to do at this point would have been to catch a boat back to Haad Rin and catch a taxi to the beach, but we figured it would be more fun to charter a Long tail and take a scenic view of the beaches around the edge of the island, now what seems like a great idea on paper is some times best firmly left there, because as romantic as it sounds, let me tell you it isn’t the sea is a rough place sometimes and by the time we got there I have never been so wet in my bloody life, I may as well got out of the boat and been dragged behind through the wash of the boat I was that wet. But that once again didn’t matter as we pulled in to lagoon of Thong Nai Pan Yai.
Thong Nai Pan Yai
Why I Love Backpacking
Now this was beautiful the sand was soft and the sea was calm, not like just calm but more like a pond with the water ever so slightly lapping at the sandy shore. It was beautiful beyond words now as always happens when you land in a new area you walk around somewhat bewildered and try a find the best accommodation for your money, so we started at the bottom and made our way to the top of the beach on the way there were some nice beach huts that looked promising but not wanting to stop until we had explored all avenues we carried on.
At the top we came across a beautiful resort called Candle Huts and Helen wanted to enquire, I tried to tell her that there wasn’t a cat in hells chance that we could afford one of them, but she wouldn’t listen so of she went past the pool to try and find the hired help to get a price for one of the beach huts, while I shook my head and parked my ass in the sand.
The next minute she comes back with a guy who inform us that he could let us have them best hut on the beach with fan for 600 baht a night (I almost cried, now I was going to have to eat humble pie) anyway feeing particularly cheeky I asked if he could do it any better for 3 or more nights and blow me he dropped another 50 baht a night. Now I know £9 a night isn’t a lot and for that we had a massive pool with bar beside it, sun loungers in the best location on the beach and the best positioned hut on the beach, oh and lets not forget my hammock.
The View From The Middle Of The Beach
The View From My Hammock
Our Pool
Helen Making Full Use Of Pool
Once again as is of the case in backpacking when you find somewhere beautiful it becomes exceedingly hard to drag yourself away from there, and I had many a serene moment in my hammock, it’s like you feel at peace with yourself, which is a wonderful feeling and should be sampled by everyone once.
So 3 days stretched into 6 and it was great but after 2 weeks of relative solitude I was getting itchy feet and wanted more uuummpphh in my day, nothing to much but a bit more that the last couple of weeks, so we decided to head off again and decided to head to Koh Samui now after hearing mixed reports of this island, we were wary but decided that we would make our own mind, after all if you don’t like/enjoy somewhere you just move on.
That brings us up to date I’m currently on day 3 of Koh Samui but I need to get a move on for a number of reasons.
1.) The sun is shining outside and I need to work on my tan.
2.) I haven’t had breakfast yet.
3.) I’ve been doing my blog for the last couple of hours.
I’m sorry I haven’t kept up with my blog so much for the last couple of weeks, but as Koh Phangan was quite isolated internet was really expensive compared to other places we have stayed, mind you everything was expensive compared to every where else and is easily the most expensive food/drink and internet wise out of everywhere we have stayed.
Anyway Ciao Bella
Mez xx
