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June 28, 2004
4-6 June - End of Hat Rin
The day after Full Moon Party, everybody left. Not just the night-trippers, but it seemed like more than half of the people who were staying in bungalows also up and left the minute the party stopped! It was a great contrast, from many thousand people, back to almost no-one.
A couple of nights later (and many hours of sleep later), Nick and I were back on target, back at the beach. We met some pretty cool German girls (Judith and Rebecca), who we found out later to be sisters. We all went to dinner at what had become our favourite street-stall like restaurant (serving the best Massaman Curry on the planet!), before having another night out on the town. To my surprise, Rebecca was studying Computer Science, like myself, so I thought there could be some common ground for verbal communication, but she was even shier than me (maybe in part due to the language barrier), answering questions and talking in a fairly closed manner. Anyway, the night ended with the Germans going home to bed early (after a long day of travelling) and I ended up being the counsellor to an Irish girl with many family problems.
The next night we saw Rebecca looking after Judith, who was drugged up with a leg in a bandage. Surprise, Surprise, they’d had a motorbike accident, requiring both muscular and skin stitching in her lower leg. An hour of stitching and medical support cost only 1000 baht (US$25), whereas repairs to the bike cost 8800baht!!! (you can BUY a second hand scooter for 12,000baht) Another statistic I guess. We also heard of a couple of westerners who didn’t actually make it from their bike accident… a fairly sobering warning about the danger of the roads.
At one stage during my stay on Ko Pha Ngan, the wind blew up a mighty gale! It was a little wet, but it seemed that it was mainly spray from the ocean, mixed with a little rain, than heavy rain itself…..
Click here to view the videoclip!
The last night in Hat Rin was spent taking it easy at home… Nick and I being the geeks we are, we played Grand Theft Auto via our wireless networked laptops!
Posted by Dan at 06:00 PM | Comments (2)
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 05:30 PM | Comments (0)
30 May – 3 June - Ko Pha Ngan (Hat Rin)
Out of the eight nights in Hat Rin, five of those were big ones. That gives you an idea of what Hat Rin was like….. Ko Pha Ngan is full of Bees…. Not the stinging type, but Beaches, Bars, Babes and Buckets! Buckets? Yes, buckets…. Small ones, filled with ice, beverages of choice and half a dozen straws, they make a very cost-effective, communal drinking solution. We never did end up doing it, but Nick thought up a great idea for a laugh…. Get a full sized house bucket, some tubing for oversized straws, fill it with coke (or even water) and walk around at night with a massive bucket to attract attention… It would have been hilarious!
The first few nights were great…. They were the build up to the June Full Moon Party. People were filling the bungalows, and the Bars on the beach were starting to fill out at night. These were some of the best nights, as there were enough people to have a great time, but not too many (which can possibly be said of the Full Moon Party).
Hat Rin is a bustling town full of shops mostly designed for tourists, primarily of the backpacker variety (due to the Parties). It has two beaches, Sunset and Sunrise, with the town nestled in between. Sunrise beach is ‘the’ beach for pretty much everything, sunbathing, swimming, etc, and contains all the beach bars.
(Hat Rin – Sunrise Beach)
Sunset beach is where Nick and I stayed, due to the fact that it is slightly cheaper than Sunrise, and during the parties, it’s a lot quieter. The sunsets, as can be seen below, can be magnificent.
(Hat Rin – sun setting over Sunset Beach)
Posted by Dan at 05:00 PM | Comments (3)
27-30 May - End of Ko Samui
I should finish the Thai girl story before any of you get any strange ideas…. The story so far is exactly as described, nothing more (I’ve had questions). A couple of nights later (on the 27th, I took it easy and had a movie night in) I saw the girls again, and they told me they would be at a bar in Lamai (beach south of Chaweng), so I went there, but they had already left. I saw them later on at the famous Green Mango nightclub, and again had a (slightly less) bizarre night, this time I was expected to pay for a lot more of the drinks – I was beginning to get an idea of what these girls are really out for. Anyway, it ended with Or getting completely drunk again, and being taken home by her friend.
The next couple of nights on Ko Samui were relatively chilled, as were the days.
I’m not a big fan of Ko Samui. Chaweng beach is beautiful, but now that it has an airport, it is full of package tourists, sex tourists and ladyboys. If you stay on the beach, day and night, you can pretty much avoid the ‘shite’, or possibly if you go to other, more remote (but less enticing) beaches. I’m a big fan of night-market eating or stall-food eating, and there really isn’t much of it readily around Chaweng. You need to get out a few Kms to find anything near fitting the description. Instead, the ‘strip’ in Chaweng now contains a McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut and – wait for it – a Starbucks! I don’t think so, Bob.
(Main Drag of Chaweng Beach, Ko Samui)
On the 30th I got a ferry to Ko Pha Ngan, on which I met Nick the Scot. He used to work in IT (having a length holiday now), we found much in common, and therefore decided to share an air conditioned room on Sunset Beach (Hat Rin).
Posted by Dan at 04:44 PM | Comments (3)
My Henna Tattoo
A couple of days before The Full Moon Party I decided to get a temporary henna tattoo. I felt like doing something ‘different’, yet expressive, but I didn’t want to be a typical backpacker and get the shoulder tatt/arm band tatt. So, sitting on the beach, it took me about half an hour to choose one that I wanted. Once chosen, the tattoo guy, probably because it was close to Full Moon Party, tried to ask me for 2000 baht!!! (US$50) All prices go up around the Party, but that’s ridiculous… I ended up talking him down to 350 baht, much more reasonable, but had I not started at 250 baht, I probably could have gotten more off. I really liked the wraparound look of the tatt, which you can see below.
It lasted one week in full strength black, and yet another week fading. I still have black hairs where the henna used to be…. Which reminds me of the drying process. The ink was put on pretty thickly (at some spots, up to half a cm thick), and as a result it took about three hours to fully dry.
Once it was dry, I could have gone home and had a shower to get rid of the crust, but I decided to stay on the beach, drinking and chatting with Nick, and peel it off myself. The peeling was very satisfying, except for the hair that wasn’t parting with the dried ink. The way Nick tells it is that I would say things like , “Yeah, this bar is pretty – YARG!” as I yanked yet another piece of hair and henna from its resting place. It was very humorous for Nick. When we walked away, I left a pile of black bits in the sand…
Posted by Dan at 09:55 AM | Comments (3)