honestly had no idea what that expression meant before i looked into it. when i heard that not only was there a full moon on new years eve, but it was a blue moon, i knew there was no way i wasnt going to be at the famous full moon party in koh phangan. (a blue moon is the second full moon that happens in the same month. most years, there are
only 12 full moons, so there is only one full moon each month, but because the lunar calendar and the regular calendar are not exactly the same, there is sometimes an extra moon in there somewhere, about every 3 years. it can happen anytime during the year, so the fact that this was THE one on new years was a HUGE deal.)
so the majority of our group, not just in bangkok but those down south as well, started planning our full moon experience shortly before december began. it was tricky because people had all different vacation days. since i had to do a visa run the beginning of the week, i joined up with the group that was taking the overnight bus from khaosan road on wednesday night. we were meant to leave around 6, finally left between 8 and 9 (thai time, ugh) and got down to suratthani around 5 on thursday morning, new years eve. now i agree that it wasnt the smartest idea to spend the night before an all night rager traveling on a bus, but really, we didnt have any other choice.
so we finally hit the island of koh samui around 11am and got to our hotel on the other side of the island about an hour later. koh samui is not the island where the party was, however. that takes place on koh phangan, which only has accommodations enough for 3000-5000 people. normal full moon parties bring in about 20-30 thousand people. this one was expected to draw 50-60 thousand. this meant thatwe obviously had to stay on a different island and boat over.
our "before" picture
we were told to be at the dock at 5, but when we got there we found out the ferry wasnt suppose to leave until 530. of course, on thai time, this meant that we didnt actually head out until after 7. so we got to koh phangan around 830, tired and hungry and so not ready to start all night partying. we thought the best idea would be stop in and get a proper meal. now what would have been smart was to eat first, which was the plan. but of course, during the time it took to find a place that could accommodate us, we somehow ended up with buckets in hand, and that was our downfall.
we ended up having a fantastic meal and then hitting the beach. it was pretty nuts and still very early, considering it didnt stop until 11am the next day. there was music blasting out of every bar and lining the beach, different "makeshift bars" selling the famous buckets. all of them had outrageous schemes to try to get people to buy from them as opposed to the person right next to them selling the exact same thing for the exact same price. all across the beach were different attractions: water slides, fire jumping rope and limbo ropes, body painting, fire dancers, stages, etc. it was pretty wild.
so thats how we spent our night. dancing and drinking on the beach under a full moon. it was great because we got to see the kiwis who are living down south in hat yai, and some other people from our group who we rarely see. however, we didnt stay together as a group for long, and with so many people, that was expected. there was a countdown at midnight and by that time, many buckets had been had and things got crazy.
around 3 steph and i decided we couldnt handle it anymore and went and slept in a room some friends of ours had on that same island. we set an alarm for 530 to get up and meet everyone to ferry back to koh samui.
that didnt happen. at some point, someone threw the phone when the alarm was going off and when we finally woke up, it was after 7. as we walked out onto the beach, the scene we encountered was quite humorous. so steph and i trekked over to the other side of the island to catch a ferry we were told would be leaving at 9. again, we got there and find out the next ferry didnt leave until 11. so we sat down to kill some time at the barge when these two aussies came up and started chatting with us. they were really nice and we were talking to them when all of a sudden, eric popped up off of one of the benches at the waiting area. he had gotten separated from the group too and was waitiing for the ferry at 11 as well. so the 5 of us decided to grab some breakfast/play pool at an irish pub just down the block from the pier.
the scene across the beach in the morning
our "after" picture.
after breakfast we went to catch the ferry and discovered that eric was actually on a different boat. he left first, and then the four of us (me steph and the aussies) ended up waiting for another 30-45 minutes for our ferry. luckily, they were good company and we talked to them the whole trip back to koh samui. they actually had just left australia for the first time and were doing a month-long world tour. and, they even offered us a place to stay if we ever traveled down to melbourne!
so we got back to our hotel around 2 and since everyone else had gotten back much earlier, we had no beds :( we tried to sleep on the beach but that wasnt happening. so we had a bar-b-que that the owner of our resort cooked for us since our hotel was waaaay out of the way for everyting. we planned on having a bonfire on the beach that night and started gathering firewood, but after eating, most of us were too tired to do that, and so we went to bed early to recuperate from the night before.
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