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June 28, 2004
3 June - Full Moon Party
The ‘actual’ full moon was the night before the party, but because it was the Day of the Buddha, a public and religious holiday, it was postponed to the following night. Most of the day of the Full Moon Party for myself involved looking for stolen bags (some Canadian girls had, in a less than compis mentis state, left their bungalow door open the night before), hoping they had been dumped somewhere.
That afternoon, the hordes started piling in…. Every bungalow and guesthouse on the island was booked, and the ‘night-trippers’ (ferry from Ko Samui at 9pm, the back again at 7am the following day) were arriving. The beach was packed to the brim with beach bums, resting up in eager anticipation of the night to come.
As previously mentioned, I’d had great nights before the Full Moon Party, with a great atmosphere, great people and great music. The only real difference to other nights was that instead of having a hundred people sitting on mats or chairs on the beach at night, with a few more in bars, there were about ten thousand people on the beach! As of about 10pm, it started to go absolutely crazy! It was a hectic, drinking, dancing swarm of bodies. It was also full of police, none of which I’d seen on either island previously. They send cops from Ko Samui and Surat Thani just for the night, for both security of some bungalows as well as attempting to stop drug sales.
Anyway, for dinner Nick and I went to a ‘local restaurant’ – as opposed to a western restaurant, and met an attractive French Canadian Caroline, who joined us for dinner, and eventually joined us for most of the rest of the evening. The rest of the evening went on as you might expect, dancing and drinking and having a great time in the atmosphere of the place. I think Nick and I even got ourselves on the Full Moon Party DVD (a split-second shot in the corner :) )!
One crazy injury of the night we saw was a guy who had some glass stuck in his foot, and even told us about it, but was so inebriated that he didn’t feel it, and wasn’t concerned. Only when he started jumping up and down to a great song, blood pooled and ran towards us did he wander off to find medical assistance… even that was after some serious convincing from us.
Speaking of injuries, on Ko Pha Ngan, it seemed like every third or fourth person had an injury sustained from a bike accident. The roads are pretty dodgy, yet apparently a lot better than they used to be. I’m glad I didn’t try to ride a bike on any previous incantation of road they had there.
Posted by Dan at June 28, 2004 05:30 PM